Our phenomenal volunteers
Shout out to our phenomenal volunteers!
Our regular volunteers have slugged it out over a wet winter, and we are seeing a greater number of birds than ever before! Communication is key and it's awesome to hear that the volunteers are keeping in touch with both their trapline buddies and Jasmine, our Volunteer Coordinator. It makes for a smooth operation!
In July, we laid new traplines at Rangitahi, and it is heartwarming to see a whole neighbourhood work together towards a predator-free peninsula. A few dedicated peninsula residents are checking the traps very regularly, and the Rangitahi team plans to extend the traplines further! Ka pai!
With our bait station network intensifying, we have needed to recruit some new faces to join the squad. Students from Toi Ohomai in Tauranga camped out and spent the day with our team on the maunga learning new skills. CK Treework, the Hamilton-based arborist crew sent five of their staff out to fill bait stations for a day. They loved spending time appreciating the diverse botany Karioi has to offer - so much so that they want to return for another day of volunteering!
We also had Livestock Improvement (LIC) and Department of Conservation staff jump at the chance to spend a day or two on Karioi, and a few companies even used these days for team building! The work that 25 volunteers can do in one day would otherwise keep the rangers busy for a whole week!
Looking ahead to 2023, we will be looking for more volunteers for our bait deploy days, so if you have yet to give it a go, try it once… and you’ll most likely want to come again! We’re also looking for a few extra sets of legs to cover some traplines on a fortnightly or monthly basis to intensify our predator control around the coast to protect the ōi.
Remember there are many ways to volunteer! Fundraising, marketing, writing, data entry, seabird monitoring, monitoring camera analysis, trap box building, wax tag making, track clearing and maintenance... the list goes on and on… so if dead animals aren’t your thing, let’s think outside the box for a well-rounded team!
