The Pest Problem

In Aotearoa the only land mammals were bats. This had a huge effect on how birds and plants evolved. A number of birds slowly lost the use of their wings and became flightless. Many other bird species started to nest on the ground.

With the arrival of rats, stoats, possums and cats there was no time for the plants and birds to evolve survival techniques and catastrophic extinction has, and is, continuing to happen.

Photo courtesy of Nga Manu Images

Trapping

In the Opua State Forest we have a core area of about 450 hectares where we try to keep pest species down as low as possible.

Our traplines are spaced about 150 meters apart. Down these trap lines is a rat trap every 25m and a possum trap every 50m. We have stoat traps every 100m and a cat trap every 400m.

Each trap is cleared and rebaited once a month.

All our traps have passed NAWAC humane tests.

Flora

Forest Plants

It is significant that this forest remains because most lowland forest has been wiped out in New Zealand. It is the major national strong hold of the rare pittosporum pimeleoides, and the uncommon costal tree, tawaroa (Wright 1984), which occur here in good numbers.

Fungi

Forest Fungi

There's an amazing array of fungi that pop out at various times of the year....

Ferns

Forest Ferns

Fan Fern and Torea (Todea barbara) are found here in the Opua State Forest. A rare sight indeed.

The native animals of the forest.

Forest Fauna

We have a great number of species just holding on.

New Zealand needs to act quickly to avoid more local extinction of native animals in many places. Bittern and Dotterel are two of New Zealand's rarest species left locally. However, in Opua Forest, kīwī and weka numbers are extremely low.

People often just think of birds, but reptiles and crustaceans also live in the forest we protect and all of them benefit from sustained pest control.