Our borders might be closed, but that hasn’t stopped the influx of some 80,000 summer returnees to our shores. These are not your usual COVID-time travellers, walking in circles in MIQ facilities, they instead are the native bar-tailed godwits (kūaka) arriving home after their annual migration from Alaska. 

Celebrating the collaborative efforts of delivery partners who are making milestones in the island stoat eradication possible. 

As we head into the spring breeding season, the Te Korowai o Waiheke field team are asking the island community to keep their eyes peeled for something hairy, brown, and long but it’s not stoats they’re talking about, it’s their poo. 

Less than a month after the kākāriki photo competition went live across our platforms, we received word that images of a red-crowned parakeet had been captured in our very own Whakanewha Regional Park. 

For an interactive and family-friendly day out head to the Waiheke Collective’s Pestival Festival Day at Piritahi Marae on Saturday 21 August. Celebrating ecological wins and Waiheke’s unique biodiversity, the schedule is packed with workshops, speakers, stalls and more.

Rats have plagued Waiheke Island long before many of us arrived here. They have eaten their way through many a batch, boat, and bird on this little motu. Before the ever-widening range of different traps, snaps, baits, and weights, Waihekeians of times past had to get creative in their efforts to control rats

Te Korowai o Waiheke has teamed up with Waiheke Cinema to bring Fight for the Wild to the big screen next month. The four-part documentary screens in the little cinema over the first two Sundays in August and for admission, a jar of smooth peanut butter will be accepted in place of a ticket.

A brilliant flash of green, and a rapid, high-pitched chattering amongst the trees. These are the characteristics of the New Zealand parakeet, or kākāriki in te reo Māori, that once flourished throughout the forests of New Zealand.

The stoat eradication team were excited to hit the 90 stoat milestone!

Years of dedicated community pest control has led to the exciting opportunity to test eradicating rats on Waiheke Island. More than a thousand people on Waiheke are currently involved in community rat control groups, which is a big reason why Waiheke was chosen to conduct a rat eradication pilot.

Stoats have been caught all over the island, with the majority caught near the coast or a waterway. In this stoat catch heat map, the lighter coloured areas show that the highest density of stoats have been caught at the Rangihoua and Awaawaroa wetlands.

Did you know that recent genetic analysis shows that stoats on Waiheke are inbred?