Every year thousands of hours of volunteer time by Golden Bay locals is given to protecting our species whether it is trapping pests such as rats, mice, stoats or possums, looking after endangered or injured birds or re introducing species such as the Tākahe to the Gouland Downs on the Heaphy Track or the Fluttering Shearwater translocation by the Health Post Nature Trust .
Along side the volunteer efforts involved with the battle of the pest and protecting our species there are a family business like our own and Farewell Spit Nature Tours of whom for a long time have had a trapping program in place with great success and with international reach and you can read about it here. Another project in this unique landscape is the Onetahua Restoration Project which has an ambitious vision that will see the removal of pests from the 12 000ha area to enable nature to survive, encompassing the area from the tip of Farewell Spit(Onetahua) to Whanganui Inlet.
The Tasman Environmental Trust supports local community conservation groups to raise their profile, expand their reach and access specialist skills and resources. Their website helps to link individuals to projects, and projects to like-minded organisations with a range of projects that everyone can be involved with, whether it is donating or volunteering.
Being a Golden Bay local we are passionate about protecting our native species. Golden Bay is one of 3 hot spots for Kea in New Zealand and have a number nesting and living in the area. Another local is the Korora or Blue Penguin, the creation of the artificial colony at Tarakohe marina by the community 30 years ago is the largest in NZ. The Tata Islands is home to the largest Grey Spotted Shag, with numbers in the country declining rapidly and the Reef Heron of which there is only a couple of hundred in the country is nesting in the area successfully.
Our first introduction to trapping was when we saw a stoat on Tata Islands, what a great place to live with a healthy food source. We patched together an old exsisting trap line, and proceeded to catch 12 more stoats on the island over a number of years, the island homes a lot of rats but the stoats are staying at bay. The little blue penguin or Korora is the kaitiaki or guardian of the sea, this wonderful bird is under constant threat from pest, humans and over fishing. While some of the threats are harder to change, with the help of other Tata Beach home owners we have place penguin houses in the Tata and Ligar Bay Area, affordable penguin houses have been a great hit with the birds and the uptake has been successful.
There is a real need for donations to support projects such as the Friends of East Mohua, Mohua Blue Penguin Trust or the Injured birds of Golden Bay to name a few. Because of this we have taken the opportunity to enable our customers to donate on line when they are booking. Whether they want to pay for a trap($25) or a small donation($5) every counts. At the end of the season we will distribute the funds to some of our amazing projects to help with continuing to protect our native species. Ngā mihi and thank you for helping.
