Hard work pays off for Whirinaki kākā
Date: 19 May 2008
A cacophony of kākā calls can be heard to ring out around the Whirinaki Forest Park at dawn and dusk.
Department of Conservation staff have recently completed their annual a survey of kākā found within the Whirinaki Ecological Management Zone (WEMZ) and counted 365 birds. The same survey undertaken last year counted just 157 kākā.
The WEMZ core area consists of 1000 hectares of intensively managed podocarp forest nestled within the Whirinaki Forest Park, located approximately 100km to the south west of Whakatane. Since 2004 intensive pest management throughout this area targeting possums, rats, stoats and ferrets has seen an increase in bird and insect numbers.
Part of the WEMZ success story:
three young kākā chicks
Kākā are a good indicator species to see how effective the intensive pest management is working.
Sarah King, Threatened Species Ranger for DOC, is pleased with the results. "This year was a breeding year and so we expect more kākā to come in to breed in the forest, so we would have been counting the young that were produced. It just shows that all the hard work around WEMZ has produced these results!"
Kākā are sporadic breeders as they do not nest every year, but appear to time their nesting for years when rimu and kahikatea trees are in fruit. This is on average every third or fourth year.
During a breeding year both juveniles and adult female kākā are susceptible to predations by stoats, rats and possums whilst in the nest hollow and in the first few weeks after they fledge and learn to fly. Funding from Transpower has enabled Sarah and her team to monitor the kākā juveniles through the breeding season. This included the fitting of 15 transmitters to juvenile birds. Only two out of the 15 juveniles were killed by predators over the season, leading to an 87% survival rate, which is an excellent result and proves that the pest control is doing the job.
"I am really excited about the future of this project" said Sarah. "Visitors to the area that I talk to are just amazed about the almost deafening dawn chorus that is present in the forest now. This really is the proof in the pudding that our philosophy towards whole ecosystem management is paying off."