Lake Tarawera Rat Control.: VOLUNTEERS

2/2/13

VOLUNTEERS

Volunteers are the essential part of this program. Bob set up different areas and found volunteers to monitor and replace baits as necessary on each property. He started with a few and it has now built up to 50 volunteers servicing 501 bait stations.

Mike and I co ordinate and support the volunteers.
If you have concerns about your run, or if you'd like to volunteer, contact us.
Mike keeps the statistics about how many baits have been taken. Every few months it is essential that the volunteers email him those numbers. He then passes this onto Region Council. Our funding is based on this & our volunteer hours.

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DID YOU KNOW?

Even though we don't see the rats today and their numbers are far less than they were, they are still around. You are never a few metres from a rat!

Rats feed on invertebrates, baby birds, birds eggs,

We will never get rid of the rats, but can reduce their numbers.

The rat bait that we use is ditrec & is an anti coagulant. We are told secondary poisoning to other animals is extremely rare.

We have the endangered native dabchick on our lake. These are rarer than kiwis and are now extinct in the South Island. Eight of us are voluntarily involved with D.O.C. to count these little birds on our lake. The numbers of dabchicks have gradually increased from the time the rat baiting started.

DABCHICKS

Dabchicks, our native grebes, are endangered water birds and rarer than kiwis. There are only 1,500 left in NZ and they are now extinct in the South Island. The Rotorua Lakes area is a place where most of the remaining dabchicks are. Organised by Wayne Miller, a group of us here at Lake Tarawera monitor and count these for DOC. We have a sizable proportion on our lake. The dabchick numbers have had an exponential increase since Bob Scopes started this rat baiting program thirteen years ago. You may have seen us slowly going around the lake edge on one of our boats. Interestingly the numbers of these little birds are higher around the residential area than other areas. This is the area where the rat numbers are lower!! We now get extra funding from Regional Council for petrol used while doing our counts.

If anyone would like to join us as & see what we do on these counts just contact us. It is you who have helped the birds survive. We usually have room for a couple of extras each time we go out.

FUNDING

Funding is a cruical part of this rat control program. Rat bait is the main expense.Most years we use up to 20,000 baits.

In the past the funding has come from a combination of private donations, Dept of Conservation and Regional Council. No one organisation provided it all, so it was an on going challenge to get enough funding to keep it going.

At present we are working with Rotorua's Regional Council. They work successfully with other care groups and their knowledge and advice is much appreciated.

ABOUT BOB SCOPES

Local man, Bob Scopes, with the help of Jean Buswell and Humi Tremayne were the driving force behind this program to reduce the impact of rats on in our Lake Tarawera community. It has been a resounding success.
For more than twelve years, Bob organised more than twenty volunteers, he designed & made the rat bait stations, organised funding for the bait and researched and documented the trends and statistics of anything to do with the rats demise. The bird life at Lake Tarawera today is a testament to Bob's hard work, organisational skills and initiative. Please help us to continue Bob's legacy to our community.

More about Falcons...Endangered Kārearea

In November 2013 Rotorua Museum and Wingspan National Bird of Prey Centre formed a partnership to help secure the future of kārearea, the New Zealand falcon, by releasing them into Rotorua’s Government Gardens – the first urban release of a threatened species in New Zealand. A second release of two female chicks was made in early January 2015 and a third clutch of chicks will be placed in the hack box on the roof of Rotorua Museum on Friday 25 September 2015, for release in mid-October 2015.

The kārearea is found only in Aotearoa New Zealand and is a protected species at risk of extinction. Falcon numbers are declining as a result of predation by introduced pests, habitat loss and human threats such as deliberate shooting. This urban release project is supported by the Department of Conservation.

Ratepayers Newsletter April 2017,

November 2017

An update on the wasp baiting with vespex.

Our rat control group will not be doing this baiting this coming season. We have done it for two years running with a one off donation.

Last season it seems that the vespex bait had a good uptake from the wasps in certain areas and not so good in others. The wasps do need to be in their protein eating phase as the vespex is protein based. With our long ribbon development maybe it is area specific as to when the wasps are in this phase.

Wayne Miller plans to do another survey this summer to ask locals about wasp activity in their area. Many people are really enthusiastic about the vespex baiting and feel it has made a difference..it is hard to gauge.

We have had a couple of people offer to completely take over their own runs from last year. This would mean doing the short questionnaire course online & registering to use the bait, ordering it, testing for when the wasps are on protein and then baiting. The bait is delivered to your door & kept in the freezer until you are ready to use it. As the wasp bait holders are still in place and I have a list of people on each run this would not be too arduous.

Maybe others will want to do their own properties. For those people with large blocks of land this especially makes good sense.

The following link takes you to the short online course to do to register.

http://www.doc.govt.nz/waspcontrol

Thanks so much to all those enthusiastic helpers for the past two years.

Wasp Survey by Wayne Miller

In late summer 2017 in order to gauge the effect of our wasp poisoning we carried out a simple survey of Tarawera ratepayers via email. On average people reported lower incidence of wasps. But the response was variable depending on location, with the far end of Spencer Road (from the lagoon boat shed on) reporting more wasps and all incidences of a “lot more wasps”. This may be due to wasps coming from the surrounding native bush.

We are planning again this year, so look out for it in your Inbox in late summer.

While we are not doing a blanket poisoning of Tarawera this year, wasps are still a ‘hot topic’ and some individuals will be continuing the poisoning in their areas.

Dabchicks/Water Birds by Wayne Miller

We carried out our normal annual dabchick survey at the end of March 2017. This indicated that the dabchick numbers in Western Lake Tarawera appear to have plateaued at around the 200 birds level (2017 196 dabchicks). This may be a function of conditions over the last two years: food availability, breeding success, predation, etc. Or it could be that we have reached the maximum holding capacity of our section of Lake Tarawera, and excess birds are leaving to populate other areas.

In the past every 5years DOC has carried out a survey of the total waterbirds on the Rotorua Lakes (all 18, including the whole of Lake Tarawera). This 5yearly survey was managed by DOC, with the support from other organisations, individuals, etc. However in recent years with the cutbacks in DOC funding, they haven’t had the resources, to instigate a survey. As a result the survey is now some 3yrs delayed.

This year, however, a keen enthusiast, has volunteered to co-ordinate the survey and it will be run on Auckland Anniversary weekend. The Tarawera dabchickers will be providing assistance with boats, and personnel, assisted by more ‘expert’ spotters. Likely date is Friday 26th January.

2/2/13

VOLUNTEERS

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