With our friends and partners in Auckland, ID New Zealand, we are arranging jet boat trips with Joyce Kolk and Johan Groters on the Wairaurahiri River on a not for profit basis with our commission being donated to their stoat trapping programme. This will fund one new trap for every couple who take a trip down the river and over time we believe it will make a huge difference to the numbers of birds in that part of Fiordland. And maybe the idea will spread...
Stoats are the single biggest threat to New Zealand's rare and unique birds. Introduced in the 1880s to control the plague of introduced rabbits, even way back then against expert advice, this has proven to be one of the most infamous examples of the foolhardiness of interfering with a balanced ecosystem, especially one as unique and fragile as New Zealand's. Rather than chase rabbits, stoats find it much easier to hunt birds and chicks with no evolved mechanism for dealing with such a predator and as a bonus the stoat has no serious predators to worry about itself.
The stoat is a beautiful animal and I am always very happy to see them here in the UK but they have no place in New Zealand and they need to be controlled. It is brutal and unpleasant and it isn't their fault, it's ours.
There are many disturbing statistics related to the stoat but this particular line from New Zealand's Department of Conservation pretty much tells the story:
"Stoats kill an average of 40 North Island brown kiwi chicks per day - this adds up to 15,000 per annum and accounts for 60 per cent of North Island brown kiwi born."
Joyce from Wairaurahiri Jet emailed the above photo overnight and it shows Wendy Houston and Carole & Ray Harris with their very own stoat trap, primed and ready to go out there to do its grim but vital work.
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