The health of the native fauna in any restoration project is the final piece of the jigsaw. We really need to be able to measure how things are going. In the bush this is usually done by doing regular bird counts. However we run into difficulty in an urban situation where birds (Tui) can fly from one gully system to another with relative ease. To overcome this the Trust is developing a way of measuring the Tree Weta not just by the numbers present but by the size (length and weight). The Weta is predated on by both rats and possums (as well as Morepork) so we feel this would be a good indicator species for measuring fauna health. We have started to put up specially designed Weta homes for the project with the aim of having twenty or more spread throughout the gully system.
No comments:
Post a Comment