Column: Volunteers give endangered bats a chance to thrive

Wednesday, 22 March 2023

Connor Wallace works for the ecological field team of Forest & Bird’s Te Hoiere Bat Recovery Project and is co-director of Forest & Bird Youth.

Column: More than a decade of volunteer mahi by Marlborough and Nelson locals to protect and restore the Te Hoiere/Pelorus catchment is giving the critically endangered pekapeka-tou-roa/long-tailed bat a chance to thrive.

I am a member of the Ecological Field Team of Forest & Bird’s Te Hoiere Bat Recovery Project. We’ve been on the ground in and around Rai valley since August last year, charged with providing healthy native bush habitat for species like pekapeka tou-roa.

Bats here depend on mature native trees such as matai for roosting and are vulnerable to predation by pest species such as rats, possums and mustelids. Our weekly routine involves controlling pest plants and invasive mammalian predators, mostly in Ronga Reserve near Rai Valley township and at Pelorus Bridge Scenic Reserve.

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Ronga restoration began with the Department of Conservation planting two areas surrounded by remnant bush and pasture, in the early 2000s. Since 2013, Forest & Bird volunteers have added about 1000 seedlings per year and release them from choking weeds.

Building on this work, our team removes weeds such as privet, blackberry, barberry, old man’s beard and tradescantia which would otherwise out-compete native plants for space and sunlight and smother new seedlings.

Annual bat population monitoring previously detected activity in Ronga but January this year was the first time roosts have been found. This builds on roosts found in nearby Pelorus, Brown River and Carluke reserves in earlier surveys.

Our pest control work at Pelorus also complements efforts of community volunteers who since 2010 have trapped mammalian predators using well over 500 traps. They resupply most lines weekly, giving up a portion of their weekends to control pests that would otherwise eat resident bats as well as birds.

The two things that give us the most hope for the survival of pekapeka-tou-roa in the Te Hoiere Catchment are the native seedlings springing up under nearly every pile of weeds and the steadfast commitment of the Forest & Bird volunteers from the Marlborough Nelson region.

If you’re keen to get involved follow us on Facebook at Forest-Birds-Top-of-the-South-Bat-Recovery-Project or email me at c.wallace@forestandbird.org.nz.

This was commissioned for a commercial partnership. We have produced it independently, to the same standards applied to the rest of our journalism.