mainland-vector

A Day in the Life of a Chainsaw Operator

Fri, 12 Jan 2024 20:06:31 GMT

With thanks to Mainland Vector, a group of students were recently given the opportunity to experience a day in the life of a chainsaw operator, in collaboration with the Mayor's Taskforce for Jobs.

Ripa, Patric, and Rebekah, crew members from Mainland Vector Contracting transported us out to Table Hill and illustrated what a general day in the life of a chainsaw operator entails. Observers stood at the base of the tree while the crew explained their reasonings behind which direction they wanted to fell each tree. Once the chainsaw operator had a clear indication what was required, all observers moved away to a safe distance using the two tree lengths safety method. We watched as a scarf was cut in the intended direction of the fall, usually a quarter of the tree's diameter. Once the scarf was confirmed sufficient, the chainsaw operator then moved on to the back cut. Back cuts are cut above the scarf and travel through a large majority of the tree's diameter, the aim is to leave a hinge (just like a door) so that the tree has a hold and the direction of the tree manipulated. After the first cut of the back cut was performed, wedges were put in place to prevent the tree from prematurely falling and to ensure the direction of the fall was accurate. They finished with a tree drive to illustrate how you can knock two trees over at once.

Thanks to Mainland Vector for this incredible opportunity. A large amount of health and safety planning went into providing this experience and we want to thank you for making it happen. Experiences like this provide invaluable learning opportunities for our rangitahi.

Kea chicks boost Nelson Lakes kea population

colm@mthuttdigital.co.nz (Colm McGrath) — Thu, 06 Jan 2022 14:02:07 GMT

Six kea chicks are believed to have successfully fledged in the Nelson Lakes area in the past month to boost the kea population.

It is an improved result on only one chick fledging there last breeding season.

As part of efforts to rebuild kea numbers in the Nelson Lakes area, work is carried out to find and monitor kea nests and protect them from predators with trapping through the breeding season.

Two kea nests, each with three chicks, were monitored on the St Arnaud Range this breeding season.

DOC Nelson Lakes Senior Biodiversity Ranger Melissa Griffin said the 100% survival of monitored kea chicks this breeding season was due to the team effort by the Kea Conservation Trust, DOC rangers, the Friends of Rotoiti and other volunteers.

“We’re thrilled to have had six kea chicks successfully fledge this year. Additional trapping of feral cats this breeding season has helped their survival.

“The Kea Conservation Trust raised funds for 20 live capture cage traps to catch feral cats to protect kea nests. Five feral cats and 14 possums were caught in 19 of these traps near a kea nest in the Rainbow Conservation Area between early September and early December. Cats are a major risk to nesting birds and one was captured just 500 metres from the nest.

“The nest was also protected with stoat and possum trapping. A possum was seen regularly visiting the nest on images captured by a motion sensor camera outside the nest. To prevent possum disturbance to the mother and her chicks, our ranger Ricki Mitchell, who does much of the kea nest work, put a possum trap close to the nest. Two possums were caught in quick succession and no more possum visits were recorded.

“The other monitored nest was in the Rotoiti Nature Recovery Project area in Nelson Lakes National Park and benefitted from its ongoing stoat and possum trapping. The area is also protected with live capture traps to catch cats.”

The live capture traps have a Celium remote sensor that sends a signal via satellite if an animal is caught in the trap. This avoids the need for daily checks for animals captured in the traps saving considerable time. Live capture traps are used to avoid killing weka and kea which can also get into the traps.

The last breeding season started with six kea chicks in two monitored kea nests also A stoat is thought to have predated three chicks in a monitored nest in the Raglan Range. Stoat numbers were still high following a 2019 beech mast (beech seeding) that caused increases in rat and stoat numbers. Two chicks died in the other nest, possibly also from predation, with the third surviving chick continuing to be monitored and thought to have successfully fledged. This was from the same nest in the Rainbow Conservation Area in which three chicks were produced this breeding season.

DOC staff named the surviving chick Mōrehu, meaning survivor in Māori. She has been seen in the Nelson Lakes area in recent months.

People are asked to report sightings of banded kea and other kea to a database (external site) to help build a picture of kea numbers in areas and kea movements.

Pressure going on runaway Central North Island pines

colm@mthuttdigital.co.nz (Colm McGrath) — Thu, 06 Jan 2022 13:56:57 GMT

Nearly half a million dollars is going into removing wilding pines from Central North Island conservation areas that were previously being over-run by the pest trees.

The Department of Conservation has been targeting wilding pines for many decades alongside Horizons Regional Council and volunteer groups, including the Wanganui and Hut Valley Tramping clubs.

These years of hard work have meant the unique features of the landscape have not been completely blanketed by wilding pines. However, Erua Conservation Area, Tongariro Conservation Area, Rangataua, and Tongariro National Park still have many wilding pines that need to be removed – and a $467,000 investment from the National Wilding Conifer Control Programme, through Biosecurity New Zealand (BNZ), a business unit of the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI).

Danial van der Lubbe, site project manager for DOC Tongariro, said the work is being undertaken by local contractors and DOC staff, with potential for other existing ‘Jobs for Nature’ projects to also be involved.

“If left unchecked, wilding pines would infest the sensitive landscape of the Tongariro region and crowd out the fragile plant life in the area.”

“National Programme funding through MPI has allowed us to work in areas that previously we were not able to work on. It’s great to see both Horizons and DOC, with the endorsement of the iwi, working together to achieve important conservation outcomes.

“Working together we can prevent the spread of wilding pines and knock these invasive weeds off our maunga.”

One of the first jobs is to aerially-survey conservation areas to locate wilding conifers for follow up control activities. Control will then be either ground based (‘drill and fill’, ‘cut and paste’ or felling operations) or by aerial spraying.

Malinda Matthewson from Horizons Regional Council is the lead for the MPI Management unit “Tongariro” which includes both conservation and private land.

“Controlling wilding pines is achievable, but we still need to work consistently to manage them.

“Now that we have the National Programme this has really helped, as we have a better handle on where the trees are, and where the work needs to be done on a national scale.

“The relationships between DOC, Horizons and public groups have been very important in supporting the wilding pines work.

“This work could not be done without public support as well, and people now realise the importance of protecting our iconic landscapes.”

Wilding conifers or wilding pines are introduced trees that are spreading across the landscape through natural regeneration. They already cover more than 1.8 million hectares of New Zealand and, prior to the National Programme, were spreading at an estimated 90,000 hectares a year.

The National Wilding Conifer Control Programme was set up in 2016, taking a coordinated, collaborative approach to preventing the spread of wilding conifers.

Without the large-scale control undertaken by the Programme, 20% of New Zealand would be impacted by wilding pines within 20 years, resulting in the loss of native species and natural landscapes.

“Now that we have the National Programme this has really helped, as we have a better handle on where the trees are, and where the work needs to be done on a national scale."

More wins than losses in latest bird threat report

colm@mthuttdigital.co.nz (Colm McGrath) — Mon, 20 Dec 2021 13:54:56 GMT

The latest bird threat classification report is a testament to conservation efforts throughout Aotearoa, but we can’t take our eye off the ball.

Of the 491 birds assessed by an expert panel, 25 species have improved in status while 22 have declined since the last assessment in 2016. Five species have moved out of ‘Nationally Critical’ – the last category before extinction – and none added to it.

Significant improvements in threat status of kiwi include North Island brown kiwi moving from ‘At Risk – Declining’ to ‘Not Threatened’ and Haast tokoeka moving from ‘Nationally Critical’ to ‘Nationally Vulnerable’.

Researchers have uncovered more black-billed gulls than were previously known, taking them from ‘Nationally Critical’ to ‘At Risk – Declining’. The change is based on more accurate aerial surveys and careful ground truthing of breeding pairs.

Antipodes Island snipe and pipit have reaped the benefits of the ‘Million Dollar Mouse’ eradication project on Antipodes Island creating a predator free home. Likewise, Campbell Island teal continue to increase, and have a status upgrade, nearly two decades after rats were removed from that island.

Haast tokoeka have benefited from intensive management including predator control as well as the discovery of another small subpopulation in 2019, bringing the total population to about 450 birds.

In contrast, the status of spotted shag has worsened, moving from ‘Not Threatened’ to ‘Nationally Vulnerable’. Breeding pairs on Banks Peninsula were decimated following the destruction of many cliff ledges used for nesting during the Christchurch earthquake, coupled with numbers declining elsewhere in New Zealand.

Ian Angus, Department of Conservation Director – Terrestrial, says the improved status of 25 of our native birds over the past five years is reason to celebrate.

“In the case of brown kiwi, it shows that the sustained conservation efforts over 30 years by community groups, iwi and hapū, Save the Kiwi (formerly named Kiwis for kiwi), scientists and government agencies are working.

“But there is no room for complacency. Even birds with an improved status, such as brown kiwi, are flagged with the qualifier ‘Conservation Dependent’ meaning that they will almost certainly backslide without continued, concerted conservation management.”

Ian Angus says climate change is really showing its teeth, with 69 birds that are or will be affected by climate change impacts such as increased frequency and/or intensity of droughts, floods, storm surges, and mast fruiting and seeding events that fuel predators.

Threatened alpine-nesting species such as tuke/rock wren and Hutton’s shearwater are particularly vulnerable to ‘thermal squeeze’ – a climate change phenomenon where alpine environments become warmer and therefore more welcoming to predators such as rats and stoats.

“I’m pleased to note that commercial fisheries bycatch mitigation now done routinely in our Exclusive Economic Zone has assisted some seabird species, including the encouraging recovery of flesh-footed shearwaters that used to be caught accidentally in large numbers.

“Investment in conservation means we’re seeing an overall positive trend, especially with species that are managed whether it’s through intensive management, community conservation efforts or a combination of both.

“However, we need to continue ramping up conservation work because so many of our native bird species will slip into more threatened categories without ongoing effort,” Ian Angus says.

Silver lining: floods help rabbit control programme

colm@mthuttdigital.co.nz (Colm McGrath) — Thu, 13 Feb 2020 22:35:56 GMT

Silver lining: floods help rabbit control programme

Last week’s flooding did not break everyone’s hearts. In fact it helped one group of workers. Mainland Vector Contracting pest controller Tony McNutt said his team had been working solidly for the past several weeks on rabbit extermination in the wider Balclutha area and the floods actually helped.

“It condensed them into a much smaller area making them easier to target and drowned all the younger ones in the ground as the water levels rose,”

In just more than three nights of pest eradication, Mr McNutt’s pest control team has shot 932 rabbits in the Riverside Reserve-Balclutha Aerodrome area.

“Since the last Otago Regional Council control event about four years ago, they have come back, making a hell of a mess in the motocross track area, out on the aerodrome runway and on the nearby rugby playing fields, with all the burrows and holes they have dug.

“Over the past four months we have taken over 1600 rabbits off these areas, that’s similar numbers to what we would get in central,” he said.

Mr McNutt said the operation had been a combined Clutha District Council-ORC event and he had found the residents in Balclutha very supportive of their night-time operations.

“People have been telling us about how many rabbits they have seen, everyone has been very supportive of us and our work and they have all obeyed the signs and notices we put up before starting operations each night.”

He expects them to be working on the reserve area for another week..