Walllabies eat forest soil
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The chairman of the Ngāti Tarawhai Iwi Trust says the area around Tarawera and Lake Okataina is the breeding ground of wallabies – but efforts to eradicate the plague are neglected.
The chairman of the Ngāti Tarawhai Iwi Trust says its habitat around Tarawera and Lake Okataina is ground zero for wallabies – but efforts to eradicate the plague are neglected.
Cyrus Hingston says the focus is instead on containment, with the public asked to report sightings over a wide area from the coast around Te Puke to the Mamaku Mountains.
The strategy is to wait until 2025 or 2026 before starting eradication efforts in his region, where he says 95 percent of the population lives.
“Our forest, our Ngahere, is being eaten away at us. Parts of it are on the verge of ecological collapse. We believe the government’s response has been underfunded, inadequate and short-sighted and that this has long-term consequences not only for the environment but also for the economy,” says Mr Hingston.
Ngati Tarawhai is conducting an eradication program with neighboring Iwi, which includes trapping, baiting and night shooting to reduce the population.
They also want to prevent people from trapping wallabies to stock other areas for hunting. This attitude is incredibly short-sighted given the damage they cause: two and a half wallabies eat as much as a population.
