First Aerial bait drop

After building up for this over the last 12 months it was a relief to get this first one completed..

The team of five from ARC, Natural Logic and the computer expert arrived by Great Barrier Airlines at 1pm on Tuesday as did the truck with the fuel cells and food. Two staff from DoC joined us to help transfer the bait from the 25kg paper bags into the 500kg loading bags.

The helicopter arrived later in the afternoon with a crew of two loaders and pilot. All stayed overnight in Seaview Cottage and the DoC single quarters and were up at first light on Wednesday.

children welcoming robins


The first order of the day was to transfer George Wilson from DoC and Jonathon
Boowe from ARC to the Broken Islands then
a safety briefing for all participants.

Two volunteers from Orama and Gary Winger assisted Dave Galloway and Rebecca Kemp from the ARC to hand distribute the bait around the dwellings in Karaka Bay while FitzRoy House staff and Halema and Hillary from DoC hand distributed bait around the buildings here.

children welcoming robins


Meanwhile the helicopter was busy flying its grid over the peninsula dropping 10 tonne of Pestoff brodificoum pellets before heading for the Broken Islands to do the same.
The weather was overcast with very little wind and no rain. We ended up with two days clear before the rain came. Not ideal as we would have preferred three days dry but we can’t control the weather!

The second drop is planned for approximate three weeks time depending on the weather.