Projects

DoC Workdays

Working Bees in 2012 to be confirmed in early 2012.

Saturday June 25, 2011- Kakabeak planting Boundary Stream

Alan Lee, DoC Field Ranger based at Tutira, had been planning our workday for six months. We schedule two days each year to assist Alan with projects which he keeps on the back burner for us. Working with the community is part of the DoC means of using volunteers who are interested in conservation.

Paul Exeter was in charge of the NTC planning, while Keith Moretta is away in the USA. Club members met in Bay View, and were briefed by Alan on the projects for the day. We would travel to the Tutira DoC Field Base, and assist with the kakabeak nursery that has been fenced off to protect the plants from rabbits and browsing animals, including cattle and sheep on the adjacent paddock. Seeds from wild plants at Boundary Stream Mainland Island have been collected and the grown plants returned to the reserve. The new nursery will enable DoC to collect seed more easily. The aim is to ensure that the local gene pool is maintained.

It was soon time for early morning tea, and Donna produced a wonderful banana cake. Sitting on the veranda in the weak wintry sun was a pleasure.

The protective fencing required repair and new sections. This meant some digging around the perimeter so that fencing could extend a good 20cm below the soil level. The ditch was then recovered so that any rabbits would be deterred from further digging under the fence line. The grass within the enclosure had been sprayed with Roundup, and we were able to plant rows of DoC nursery-grown kakabeak. The plants will provide seed for more plants for growing on for planting out in the Boundary Stream Mainland Island.

We also planted out some flax along the driveway into the field base, and shaped up the kakabeak plants growing around the base.

After lunch, again on the veranda, we did some more work, assisting Alan to tidy up the storage area where battens and timber are kept. Alan then showed us around the base, which included a freezer full of pests, possums and stoats waiting to be tested by scientists, and all the motorised vehicles they have at their disposal.

Having finished the tasks, we made our way to Boundary Stream and checked out the new education area. It’s great to see that Penny and Arthur Mead, who have been assisting DoC with their kiwi creche programme, have been given some recognition. We planted more kakabeak and protected them from predation with wire netting cages.

Then it was off to Lake Opouahi, where we checked out the plants we had put in by the entranceway a year ago. They are growing nicely, but the area needs a weed. We gave it a quick once-over before some of us stretched our legs with a walk around the lake. With the day getting cooler, we headed off back to town.

We hope that Alan felt that the assistance was worthwhile, and we all certainly felt that we had enjoyed our day.

http://www.doc.govt.nz/conservation/native-plants/kakabeak/facts/

A note of thanks from DoC

DoC’s Alan Lee reports:

Over the past couple of years, the Napier Tramping Club and individual club members have assisted the Department of Conservation with a number of conservation tasks in local reserves.

The first of these was planting kakabeak in the upper part of Boundary Stream Mainland Island. There are only two wild kakabeak populations in the vicinity of Boundary Stream, totalling only four adult plants, so the establishment of small ‘plantations’ close to these sites to protect genetic material is considered important. An enthusiastic team of carried plants and a roll of netting along the walkway before planting and surrounded them with neatly fabricated cages of chicken wire to protect them from the depredations of the local hares. The quality of the planting and the cages must have been excellent, because the survival rate has so far been high.

Another adventure was the clearance of young wattle seedlings and saplings from within the predator-proofed area at Opouahi Kiwi Creche. The larger wattles growing around the east side of the lake have dropped a quantity of seed, resulting in many hundreds, perhaps thousands, of seedlings and saplings. The challenge was to find these wattles and then, depending on the size of the plants or the strength of the weeder, to pull them out or cut and swab with herbicide. The first section contained many small- to medium-size trees growing on accessible sites and it was easy to locate and deal to them. The afternoon session proved a different story and it wasn’t long before muffled curses could be heard from dark tunnels through the head-high blackberry. In the end, the blackberry won the battle that day, but not the war; a few weeks later, a brave party returned to finish the job.

Somewhere along the way, a group spent a few hours on the fringes of lake Tutira cutting young willows from the southern end. The intention had been for me to stand on the bank and direct the weeders (or was that supposed to be waders?) out into the deeper waters but I ended up as wet as anyone – obviously, I need to work on my supervision skills!

In winter 2009, we were back for more kakabeak planting, this time on the way in to Shine Falls. Twelve NTC members again carried plants and netting and placed 40 seedling kakabeak in small groups alongside the track. The job was finished by about lunchtime, the only negative aspect being a group of half a dozen goats watching the planting and licking their lips in anticipation as the last of the seedlings went in. Kakabeak are one of the most palatable of our native plants so they may prove quite a temptation to our smelly friends; hopefully the cages will work until we can get up there to sort out the goats more permanently.

On August 26, a couple of weeks after an evening training session with GPS units around the playing fields of the Port School, a group of eight split into pairs to search the upper slopes of Waipatiki Scenic Reserve for a variety of weed species. Each pair was assigned a block to search, with a GPS and instructions that if it all turned to custard, heading uphill would get them back to the road. By the end of the day a number of previously unknown weed sites had been found, mapped and the weeds removed or killed. Despite some of the GPS tracks looking as though a paralytic spider dragging an ink pad had been wandering the map, there appeared to be good coverage of each block, though there were a few cases of cross border poaching noted. Alison and Ted’s claim to have managed the straightest lines was later found to have been fraudulent. Due to a different setting on the GPS (they had one set up for Kaweka deer shooting, with track points only registering at about 80 metre intervals) it only appeared their lines were straight!

I think most must have enjoyed the days out as many have come back for seconds or thirds. As well as the structured days, many members have assisted with other DoC work around the Ahuriri Estuary and elsewhere. Many hours have been put in, resulting in a whole lot of work being done that would not otherwise have happened. I and the Department greatly appreciate the effort that the tramping club has put in and hope you will keep coming back!