Ian Rasmussen checks a trap in the Ruahine Range. Photo: RNZ/Jimmy Ellingham
Work to restore kiwi to a 23,000 hectare patch of the lower North Island - from farmland to alpine ridges - is making progress, but the future of the project remains uncertain.
The Ruahine Kiwi project's funding from the Jobs for Nature government programme runs out in June, when the post-Covid stimulus package ends.
Checkpoint spent a day with Ruahine Kiwi project co-ordinator Ian Rasmussen, checking a line of traps in the Ruahine Range near Rangiwahia, more than 70 kilometres northeast of Palmerston North.
The traps were laid about two months before our visit.
The Ruahine Kiwi project aims to restore North Island eastern brown kiwi to the southern Ruahine region by 2026.
It has set up nearly 2000 traps over the past few years, mainly trying to reduce the number of stoats and ferrets in the region, as they threaten kiwis' ability to breed.
Rasmussen checks and clears the traps, and re-baits them. Alongside Checkpoint, he checks 14 while climbing to about 1200 metres above sea level.
On the two ridges near where we walk, the project's found about 20 stoats in its 50 traps in just two months.
There were not any stoats when we head out, but the traps are not empty.
"We've got a DOC 250 trap that was checked 14 days ago, and we have a rat," Rasmussen said at one of the trap sites.
"This trap, in its two months of existence, has caught three hedgehogs, which isn't great, but now we've caught a rat.
"We've got another trap, an SA2 trap, that has been set for cats. In that cat trap we have a big possum."
Every find is recorded into an app.
Rasmussen said the group hoped to get kiwi to release from a sanctuary in Hawke's Bay.
Ian Rasmussen says kiwi could be released now, but they wouldn't have success breeding. Photo: RNZ/Jimmy Ellingham
'We are getting a lot of cats'
Although their main predators were stoats and ferrets, there were other introduced threats too.
"Within the project area we are getting a lot of cats. I think a lot are dumped.
"It's a lot of nice road ends with a lot of nice bush and I think people are dumping them, and the farmers are all saying they've got lots and lots of cats.
"We have a few cat traps set up, but not huge numbers. We are mainly targeting stoats."
We find a few hedgehogs and rats. Rasmussen said the lack of stoats could be a good thing, after this trapline caught five in the past two months.
The Jobs for Nature government funding scheme - which winds up in June - has given $930,000 to the project.
Rasmussen said kiwi could probably survive now, but the project's goal was to get rid of as many predators as possible so their numbers could grow.
"There's most probably nothing stopping us putting kiwi in here [now], however, they will never have breeding success," he said.
"It's all about breeding success. What we're trying to do is reduce stoat numbers.
"Once we reduce stoat numbers and once kiwi come back, and more kiwi have breeding success, they'll be able to sustain or grow the population."
The project has eight staff - a mixture of full-time and part-time workers - and has trapped 500 stoats, ferrets and the like, pests that were originally introduced to control rabbits.
But when its Jobs for Nature funding runs out, the project may work differently.
"It's just one of those things. I feel that Cyclone Gabrielle and the Auckland floods - those sorts of weather events have certainly taken any expectation of funding away.
"The funding has to go towards those weather events," Rasmussen said.
"For us, it's looking at donations, sponsorship and co-ordinating volunteers to take up from where our paid staff get to by the end of June."
Kiwi are found in the northern Ruahine region and Rasmussen said they were sighted in the southern region until the late 1990s.
There might even be the odd, old and lonely, kiwi left, but they would not be breeding.
Ruahine Kiwi's work also benefits whio - the blue duck - and other bird life too, and it was work Rasmussen wants to continue.
"The office is special, but you can see the difference. We're not leaving it to the next generation. You want to be able to say, 'At least we tried.'"
For Rasmussen the next few months will prove crucial in trapping as many as possible, and mapping the project's future.