Queenstown-based Southern Lakes Sanctuary’s (SLS) on an urgent mission to save the mohua/yellowhead, amid fears the birds could
become extinct in a single season.
SLS has launched a Givealittle ‘generosity generator’ crowdfunding campaign, facilitated by The Funding Network NZ, hoping to raise at least $10,000 to go towards rat traps and bait stations in Mt Aspiring National Park to protect mohua against an anticipated rat plague near
Makarora.
The project’s necessitated by a recent ‘mast season’ of native beech trees, which happens every two to six years, producing a large number of tree seeds.
Once predators have eaten the seeds, they turn to native species.
SLS biodiversity coordinator Jo Tilson says they’re preparing for an ‘‘explosion’’ of rat numbers, which could wipe out the entire mohua population, found in only a few areas of South Island beech forest, in one season.
‘‘We are on a knife’s edge from losing these birds.’’
SLS fundraising manager, Sarah Fredric, says charities apply to be part of the ‘generosity generator’ programme — SLS, as well as Queenstown’s Te Atamira Whakatipu Community Trust were two of 36 selected recently.
The Givealittle pages close at midnight on Friday, November 17.
