May 23, 2017
Way cleared for kokako return
Conservationists, community groups and iwi are getting ready for the return of kokako to a Waikato mountain after more than 20 years.
Waikato Regional Council is giving Pirongia Te Aroaro o Kahu Restoration Society $110,000 towards the initial stage of the project, which will entail shifting 40 birds to the Pirongia Forest Park.
The aim is to eventually create a self-sustaining population of 500 birds.
Society chair Clare St Pierre says traps and bait have been laid to clear predators from a safe area of about 1000 hectares.
The first birds will be caught at Pureora around dawn on June 20 and released on Pirongia about five hours later.
"We will be accompanied by a number of iwi groups who are wanting to be there and be part of the ocassion and that's been a special side of preparing for this project. To make connections with those iwi groups and let them know what is happening and asking them what role they want to play on that special day," she says.
Clare St Pierre says next year some kokako will come across from Tiritiri Matangi Island in the Hauraki Gulf, descendants of birds removed from Pureora in the 1990s.
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