Another huge win for the Opua Forest.

‘Tomtits everywhere, flocks of kukupa, way more tui song and we saw and heard kakariki’ are some of the observations from the awesome team who we completed our second largescale toxin operation across 1163 hectares. The bait station network was set up through our Jobs for Nature Ngahere Recovery programme in 2021. The results reinforce our approach that if we remove the pests, nature can do the rest.

The ground based operation was completed in May by an amazing team of contractors, volunteers and NRC staff who traversed 300km of tracks three times (900km!), putting prefeed then bait in 2500 bait stations on often steep terrain. Then they had to go back and remove any uneaten bait. The toxins we used this time were Pindone and Feratox on the forest outer and ProNature/1080 in the forest interior.

Thanks to our funders Princess Cruises and Northland Regional Council with the support of Focus Paihia and DOC.

More kiwi-saving stoat control

We’ve added a new stoat line to the existing lines that run through the forest. Once the line was cut, a dedicated group of volunteers helped us carry boxes and stoat traps deep into the forest. We now have 17 stoat lines that are checked on a monthly basis. Our stoat traps help protect kiwi and many other species in the forest.

Thanks to Save The Kiwi for funding this new line.

With more birds comes more weeds

We're tackling weeds at the entrance to the forest at the School Road Track. We acknowledge those wonderful people who have already been chipping away at this area, but we'd like to try a coordinated approach to tackle ginger, privet alligator weed and other nasties.

If this sounds like you, please contact baybushaction@gmail.com

21 translocated kiwi now call Opua State Forest home

In May 2024 we teamed up with others to translocate 21 kiwi from Moturoa Island to Opua Forest. The kiwi came from Moturoa and have bred from an original seven that were rescued from Waitangi in the 1980s before the land was cleared for pine planting. For 40 years, Moturoa has been an island sanctuary for them. But the island cannot sustain the growing population and it’s time to bring them home.

Many people came together to make this happen - mana whenua Ngāti Kawa, Ngāti Rāhiri and Ngāti Torehina, the Moturoa island families, Kiwi Coast, the Northland Regional Council, the Department of Conservation and, of course, the crew at Bay Bush Action.

We were thrilled to be invited to name a number of the kiwi and, in due course, we will tell the stories of some of those names. For now, massive thanks to you all for your enduring belief in this kaupapa and incredible support.

The COVID response gave us a great opportunity!

Our Ngahere Recovery programme allowed us to establish a bait station network across 1163 hectares in Opua Forest and to do our first toxin operation of this scale. The programme was funded by the governments Covid response Jobs for nature fund, directed a providing employment during this challenging time. The toxin operation removed a further 16,000 possums with Feratox and likely a similar amount of rats with Pindone.

In 2019, we embarked on an ambitious project to protect a further 250h of the Opua Forest.

In 2021 we performed a field trial of the NZ Autotraps AT220. The trial has more than 500 traps protecting our native toanga and forest canopy. The results were beyond what we had hoped.

Download Field Trial Report

Read more...

Ngahere Toa

Bay Bush Warriors (Ngahere Toa) is a group of eight kids that help save the forest by setting traps in the bush every Monday after school.

Together, with BBA, they do lots of team building and fun stuff, like kayaking, swimming, beach cleans, horse riding, shooting targets, cooking on campfires and much more.

Every week they learn one new native tree and one new native bird and all about them.

Bay Beach Clean

We have two teams, one that starts at Waitangi and the other at Te Haumi and meet afterwards in the middle at Lets for coffee.

Join us by visiting Bay Beach Clean for times and to register.

Possum Pie Party

Bay Busy Action threw a "Possum Pie Party" to celebrate the hard work of our volunteers and people who are part of the community trap line.

A special thankyou to Raewyn, Molly and Stella for helping out with the making of over 100 possum meat pies!

Dean Baigent Mercer presented lots of interesting information about Opua Forest during the evening.

Russell Kiwi Boxes

The Northland Region Corrections Facility is making up forty Russell Kiwi Boxes with 45 sheets of J-Ply Plywood donated to us by New Zealand Wood Products along with help from a kind donation by Manuka Health

Dogs are the biggest threat to kiwi and can kill an entire population of kiwi in no time. Kiwiboxes help protect them.

Cat Colony

With the support of the Department of Conservation, Forest and Bird, Northland Regional Council and locals, Bay Bush Action worked hard to get a wild cat colony cleaned up in a Paihia town Williams reserve.

After years of arm wrestling with the Paihia Cat Protection group, protests against us on TV, National newspaper stories, Facebook pages, leaflet drops in towns, the Far North District Council finally trapped the cats and the SPCA found fully contained loving homes for them. What we had asked for all along.

Paihia Islands

Each year we tape off the endangered dotterel nest sites on the little islands out from Paihia town, Motu Maire and Motu Arahi. This stops people from walking on their nests and breaking the eggs. Their eggs are very hard to see in the sand.

Waitangi is one of the largest Northland flocking sights for dotterels, with around 50 birds flying in from between January and April.

Community Trap Line

In 2014 we developed the Community Trap Line to compliment our trapping programme in Opua Forest. Many of the homes in the Haruru, Waitangi, Paihia and Opua area back on to the forest. Residents of these areas can get traps from Bay Bush Action for free. All we ask in return is that you log your catch on our website, or txt the results through to us.

It has taken off and the competition between communities is fierce. The Waitangi Community is winning with the most trap uptake but Opua is now well ahead with the number of pests trapped.

Ngahere Toa

With money donated by trustees, specially designed stickers, highly visible to birds were given away to Waitangi, Paihia and Opua residents in an effort to prevent native birds striking glass doors and windows.

About 70 wood pigeons are taken into the Whangarei Native Bird Recovery Center each year after hitting windows.The decals giveaway, the three hundred cat bell collars given away last year along with pest control, all go hand in hand with protecting our amazing native wildlife.

Penguin Boxes

Since the sixties the little blue penguin population has declined by 60%. The main problems have been introduced predators, dogs, cats and set nets.

A DOC design for a penguin box was used to make 30 penguin boxes which were painted by local kids.

Ginger Binge

There had been a patch of wild ginger at the start of the Oromahoe walking track for quite a while.

When left to grow wild ginger can get out of control quickly.

It needs to be removed roots and all so we decided to have a working bee to try and get rid of it.

Ginger Binge

After a kind donation from the Trustees we had 300 cat bell collars to give away!

Peter de Graf put several articles in the local papers and we were able to send out the collars in no time...

If domestic cats wore bell collars in urban areas the numbers of native birds caught and killed could be reduced by as much as half, a University of Otago study shows.

However, all the feedback we received from cat owners was that cats still caught birds, the ringing bell became annoying to some people, and we now advocate for cats to be fully contained.