I’m a sad Sirocco today. If I could fly I’d be heading off to Pukaha Mount Bruce to support my kiwi friends who are dying at the hands, or should I say jaws, of a ferret.
Nine have died in the last month – it shows how deadly these predators like ferrets and stoats can be when they get in amongst the likes of us chubby birds. We need people like the DOC rangers looking after us – and I know they’re doing everything they can up there on Pukaha Mount Bruce.
A kiwi at Pukaha Mount Bruce. Photo: Mike Heydon, Jet Photography.
It’s a real tricky one. The safest place for kākāpō like me, my mates the kiwi and lots of other native New Zealand birds and animals are the special islands where DOC has got rid of the predators so we can be safe. But if we’re ever going to get back on the mainland, which used to be our home, we need places like Pukaha Mount Bruce where they’re trying to keep a large area safe but without fences which cost a lot of money.
They’re using 540 traps targeting ferrets, stoats and weasels, and more than 1,000 bait stations aimed at rats and possums – that’s twice as many as anywhere else in the country in terms of traps per area. But still the bad guys get in.
So good luck DOC rangers – they’re bringing in the dogs now to hunt down the ferret. A big WOOF to you guys, and a BOOM from me to all my kiwi mates – hang in there guys, there’s a lot of good people fighting in your corner.
