• To control introduced animal pests to a level that allows native birds present to breed and fledge young successfully, leading to a general increase in birdlife around Milford Sound
• Create a potential site where threatened birds may be reintroduced in the future.
Part of this project includes crucial trailing of trapping and baiting methods to prevent the continual interference by mice that currently set off the traps and take the baits making them ineffectual. The outcome of these trials could have a significant impact on rodent trapping and baiting methods used all over Fiordland National Park.
This project compliments wider stoat control programmes maintained by the Department of Conservation and other businesses and community members in the Cleddau area, and is part of the Clinton/Arthur/Cleddau Operation Ark site.
Plans for 2009/10
• Continue stoat trapping
• Continue rat trap trial to find more effective bait type and methods to prevent mouse interference, monitor results
• Install some possum kill traps along the tracks that can be serviced when the stoat and rat traps are checked
• Repeat bird count survey in November 2009 and compare with 2007 results
Cost – per annum $4,000
Cleddau Delta Restoration Project –
proudly supported by Eco Tours
During September 2007 work began on a project to control introduced animal pests in a 40 ha area of coastal forest covering the old Cleddau River delta at Milford Sound. The project is run in conjunction with the Fiordland Conservation Trust and Department of Conservation and is funded on an ongoing basis by Eco Tours Ltd, a tourism operator running guided bus journeys between Queenstown, Te Anau, and Milford Sound.
In 2007 a total of 27 different bird species were recorded which included birds such as the fantail, bellbird, tui and South Island kaka.
Since 2007, a network of rodent bait stations and stoat traps has been laid out, and during the set up phase, possums were also trapped in the area. These trap lines are checked mostly on a monthly basis depending on the time of the year, and whether there has been a beech seed fall in the preceding season. This event (a beech mast) occurs irregularly, approximately every 4-8 years, and creates a boom in the breeding of rodents which has devastating impacts on the survival of many species of birds, bats, insects and reptiles.
