Every year our local ōi (grey faced petrel) return to the slopes of Karioi to their natal breeding grounds to mate with their life-long partner. As a vulnerable and endangered species, ōi face many challenges during their lifecycle.
(Listen to the full interview below:)
The Karioi Project is working to bring native birdlife back to Karioi Maunga. They provide wildlife monitoring, predator control and education services in Whāingaroa and we spoke to Nicola and Kristel to hear about what’s been happening as they gear up for another ōi breeding season.
Driven by Passionate Volunteers
“I’m so proud of our team,” says Project manager Kristel van Houte.
“They’re just such amazing people and it’s not just the paid staff. We’re very lucky that we have paid staff, but also all these amazing volunteers. We have over 130 volunteers regularly volunteering – not just one-offs.”
The Karioi Project consists of around 130 regular volunteers and a handful of paid staff that set traps, monitor for predators, and run workshops and kids programmes around conservation.
Seabird Ranger Nicola Wylie recalls she first started volunteering after her children were involved in the Karioi Rangers programme.
“I’d been doing the trapping and everything and slowly learning about the birds. Then there was the opportunity to get some paid work. So I’ve just slowly built up my knowledge over the years because I’ve been doing it for probably three years now, maybe four,” says Nicola.
More recently, former Karioi Project Volunteer and Advocacy Coordinator Bexie Towle has taken on a new position as Project Manager for the Maungatautari to Pirongia Ecological Corridor at NZ Landcare Trust.
Bexie, like Nicola, started off as a volunteer and moved into a paid position at Karioi Project before taking on a leadership position at NZ Landcare Trust.
Ecological Corridors
The Maungatautari to Pirongia Ecological Corridor aims to connect predator-free Maungatautari to Pirongia and Kristel explains it would only take about 23km of planting to create a vegetative corridor that would further connect Pirongia to Karioi.
“From Pirongia to between Toreparu Wetlands, Bridal Veil Falls and then Karioi and all the bits in between. If we planted all that up, we could create a corridor that would then provide an opportunity for robins, kōkako and kākā to fly more easily between the two mountains,” says Kristel.
“Some birds just don’t want to fly across an open plain, they’ll only stay in a forest. Other birds are more than happy to pop across from one forest block to the other. So the more vegetated kinds of areas and the corridors you have, hopefully the more chances that birds will disperse from habitat to habitat.”
The Waikato is often referred to as a green desert due to the lack of bush covering the farmland. In the long term Kristel hopes to see more ecological corridors connecting habitats throughout the Waikato.
“Pirongia is connected to Maungatautari – there are so many birds there and they’ll overflow into Pirongia and then they can overflow into Karioi. So you get this amazing network across the landscape.”
If you’ve never been there, Sanctuary Mountain Maungatautari is an ecological project that uses a predator-proof fence to create an inland island free of predators. Although an expensive project, the fence allows birds to thrive and breed successfully within the protected area.
Monitoring Species as an Indicator of Environmental Health
Kristel says that ōi are indicator species. If ōi are breeding happily then it usually means that predator numbers are controlled, indicating that work carried out by the Karioi Project team is having a positive effect.
Ōi start flying back to their natal breeding grounds on Karioi Maunga around April where they will start to look for a burrow to “do a bit of maintenance and dig around.”
After mating, the birds will leave again but return in July to lay their eggs. Eggs usually hatch around August and once hatched, parents will care for their chicks until about December or the beginning of January when they are fully fledged.
“They bring all the nutrients of the sea and they bring that back to the land. So that’s where they are just so important. All their guano and everything helps fertilize the land and then with all the burrow digging that they do that helps aerate the soil as well,” says Nicola.
Predator Control on Karioi
Unlike Maungatautari, it is highly unlikely there will be a fence for Karioi due to the cost of predator proof fences so for now, a mix of bait stations, trapping and other predator control methods are being used.
“I think we’re really unique here that we have this passionate community that’s close to the mountain and is able to do a lot to get involved. And I think we’re probably a little bit unique in the sense that we have this really strong focus on education as well and also creating careers and employment,” says Kristel.