Across the expanse of Arapaoa Island, a small team is working hard to eradicate stoats with a plan to bring back kiwi.
Arapaoa Kiwi Project leader and founding trustee Steve Dawson has been working quietly on the project since 2023, giving back to a place that brings him joy.
“I live in Waikawa and I do a lot of boating around Arapaoa Island. I believe in giving back to the community I live in, and the Marlborough Sounds is my playground, that’s where I do my recreation,” he said.
“We New Zealanders should be doing everything we can to conserve kiwi, our national bird.”
At 75 square kilometres, the island in Queen Charlotte Sound is now home to 1,200 traps, each spaced 100m apart. Four paid, part-time trappers and an administrator work alongside Steve and volunteers to set and check the traps each month.
For the past three years, Arapaoa Kiwi has benefited from Council’s Mahi mō te Taiao, Working for Nature Grant. Funding has been used to buy new traps to expand the network.
“We’re really thankful for the Working for Nature grants from MDC because that’s provided us with money to buy more traps. We get the traps made by Renwick Menz Shed or by Picton Dawn Chorus, so it’s not a commercial company; the money goes into other charities,” Steve said.
As at March this year, more than 4,300 volunteer hours had been clocked up, and many stoats caught, including 170 in the past 12 months.
“We’re still catching stoats; we need to get the number of stoats right down. There are also lots of feral cats on the island, so we’re trying to catch those too,” he said.
The trust is planning to reintroduce kiwi to the island once pest numbers are low enough.
