A joint approach to pest control

Mount Pihanga's diverse range of native animals and forest types are at risk from pests such as rats and possums. 

Not only do possums drive native animals to extinction, but they also spread bovine tuberculosis to cattle and deer. 

OSPRI, DOC and Project Tongariro have joined forces to achieve the best pest control possible for farmers and wildlife.  

Paul Green — Project Tongariro

Project Tongariro this year is delighted to sign an MOU with OSPRI who manage the animal health program in this area, the TB program and DOC because what its given us is a chance to work together and get the most efficient outcomes for the area. 

Dave Conley — Department of conservation

The real exciting opportunity here is the fact that we're moving into a partnership at a place which is incredibly special in terms of biodiversity values but also the opportunity to pull resource and work smarter. 

Paul Green

You know we either want a good animal health or we want good biodiversity values and by joining in together we can get efficiencies that just aren't possible if we're working independently, good use of taxpayers' money too. 

Matthew Hall — OSPRI

Instead of three parties spending half a million dollars on ultanate years, we're able to combine resources and save three or four hundred thousand dollars every operational cycle. 

Nick Singers — Freelance Ecologist Project Tongariro Advisor

If we weren't to do pest control pretty much every single nest of our common birds would be predated. 

Dave Conley

What we're really looking to do is push this project into a much greater scale where we've 3,000 odd hectares under sustained pest control, rodent control and the tool that we need to do that with this 1080 it's the best tool we've got. 

Nick Singers

Community groups very rarely have the opportunity to actually use aerial 1080 because of the regulations that we have. So it's a fantastic opportunity for us to partner with TB free and the Department of Conservation. 

Matthew Hall

OSPRIs TBfree program aims to eradicate bovine TB from New Zealand. 1080 is an essential tool for us to achieve this objective. 

Nick Singers

Aerial 1080 provides us the opportunity to grow our project for the same amount of resources we'll be able to treat about six to eight times the area and that means we can actually start doing one of our most significant objectives which is reintroducing locally extinct species. 

Dave Conley

Having that rodent control in place and utilizing 1080 as a key tool than that as a part of a broad set of tools that we're already using, it's going to hopefully allow us to bring in species like Weta (bird species?), some of the key species that are based like ...? 

Paul Green

It is the most important biodiversity area than the central North Island here and it's the one with the most potential and it's the one where we've put in a lot of investment over the last 12 years, and it's got exciting possibilities ahead. 

OSPRI — Department of Conservation, Te Papa Atawhai - Project Tongariro