Figure 1: Tracking rates in the Belmont Korokoro KNE site area. Toggle through the tabs to see different animals, hover over the charts series to specific results, and click on legend entries to highlight and show/hide series. Use the month checkboxes on the top-right of charts to show/hide data from those monitoring months.
Figure 2: Belmont Korokoro KNE site area, showing the locations of the tracking tunnel lines.
Pest animal control regime: Possums and rats are controlled in about 490 ha of the KNE site (the southern half of the KNE site – the monitoring area) using a combination of bait stations and Warrior kill traps on a 150 m x 150 m grid. Bait stations and traps are serviced four times a year, using baits containing brodifacoum and bromadiolone in the bait stations. Possums are controlled in the rest of the KNE site periodically by OSPRI’s TBfree programme.
Hedgehogs and mustelids are controlled across the southern half of the KNE site using DOC200-style kill-traps. Traps are spaced at 200 m intervals alongside walking tracks and on some bait station lines. Traps are serviced at least monthly by volunteers.
Pest animal control milestones: An initial possum and rat control operation was carried out in 2004. This covered about 340 ha of the south eastern part of the KNE site using encapsulated cyanide and cholecalciferol. Ongoing control using bait stations, brodifacoum, and pindone then proceeded. A further 150 ha on the western side of the KNE site was added to the control regime in 2009. To improve the ease of servicing the control network, the use of the above toxins was replaced with the use of kill-traps for possum control and bromadiolone blocks were used for rat control in about half of the site (eastern) from 2011. In 2014 brodifacoum use was recommenced throughout the control area in response to increasing rat numbers. A possum control operation was carried out in the northern half of the KNE site in 2014 by OSPRI’s TBfree programme.
Seventy-six DOC200-style traps were installed in the southern half of the KNE site (the monitoring area) between 2017 and 2019 in preparation for commencing control of hedgehogs and mustelids. Servicing of the traps commenced progressively from early 2019 starting from the western side. Servicing some traps on the eastern side has yet to begin.
Surrounding pest control regimes: OSPRI’s TBfree programme undertakes intermittent possum control in the area. Ongoing possum control using brodifacoum in bait stations is carried out in urban reserves to the west and east by Wellington and Lower Hutt City Councils respectively.