Полуостров Отаго официально признан свободным от кенгуровых крыс после 15 лет усилий сообщества

Otago Peninsula celebrating being possum free The Otago Peninsula is cementing its reputation as a birdwatcher's delight, after it was officially declared possum free in March. The milestone marked more than 15 years of hard mahi championed by community members, who said they were already reaping the rewards. When Dunedin mayor Sophie Barker was growing up in Larnach Castle, it seemed like possums haunted the place. They would shriek and growl in the cabbage trees outside her bedroom window. "They would come into the castle at night time so I would perhaps be watching a little bit of TV, sitting on the sofa, and then lo and behold a possum appears, walking towards me and I stood on the sofa and screamed," she said. "And then I realised I actually needed to do something about this possum so I locked it in the bathroom and called my dad who had a gun, so he took care of it." They would eat everything - her mum's roses were a prized treat, and native bird life suffered too. Decades on, she was delighted the peninsula had been officially possum free for about six months. "It's been incredibly inspiring. We've always been worrying about that one possum that's getting away, but the change on the peninsula's just been incredible," she said. "I love that all of the communities worked together and become so excited and dedicated at making it possum free." She would love to see the peninsula eventually revegetated in native bush, but for now, she's welcoming the return of more birds including tui. "I didn't grow up with tui so one time I was up the top of the tower recently and there was a tui on top of a very tall tree, singing away and that was just magic." Closer to Taiaroa Head, Edward Ellison - Ūpoko of Te Rūnanga ō Ōtakou - has lived on the family property near the marae since 1950. "You would hear them sliding down roofs with their claws out, calling at night and just generally leaving their evidence in their spoutings and even at our doors," he said. "So they were a very noticeable problem." But he had not noticed signs of possums near his home in a few years and, now, he was seeing more birds. He would like to see kereru at Ōtākou Marae. "Back in the days when the first Europeans arrived, they talk about the skies going dark with the birds, with the kereru flying overhead and the sound of them was deafening and yet I'd never seen one until actually last year, he said. It had taken remarkable dedication, perseverance and collaboration to get the peninsula free of possums, Ellison said. "It is really exciting and a real testament to what we can go on and do further in terms of restoring biodiversity here on the peninsula." When freelance journalist Rob Tipa and his partner Stella first moved onto their property on the Peninsula 30 years ago, they were greeted by tangles of bramble, ivy and banana passionfruit, and chest-high grass. They spent years clearing it, planting a mix of natives and non natives, creating a refuge for native birds. But Tipa noticed it was not just the birds enjoying the garden - possums were nibbling at his orchard and the banana passionfruit in the nearby gully. "Every day you would walk down and you would see fruit had been stripped off the trees, most of it had been eaten out, so we figure that we probably had a much bigger possum problem than we knew about," he said. By the time he started trapping possums about five years ago, he said they were mostly gone from the area. He was astonished how quickly native birds have bounced back. "We seem to see more breeding birds, younger birds, young tuis, getting to learning how to use a feeder and seeing adult tuis with their young birds is just a thrill," Tipa said. Native bush was resilient if you gave it a chance and conservation efforts could start in your own backyard, he said. "It's a real lesson to us what we've seen, the speed of the regrowth here, that you can create a piece of native bush out of nothing, out of a slip site," he said. In July, Predator Free Dunedin received $3.9 million dollars over three years to advance its predator elimination work, with some of the funding going towards ensuring the Otago Peninsula remained possum free.