Park off-limits while rats exterminated

The Shakespear Regional Park on the Whangaparaoa Peninsula north of Auckland. Photo / Martin Sykes

A helicopter will start dropping 16.5 tonnes of poison rat baits at Shakespear Regional Park tomorrow in a bid to create a haven for rare birds.

Visitors to the coastal park on the Whangaparaoa Peninsula, a 40-minute drive from Auckland, will be barred from entering the pest-fenced enclosure from tonight until mid-December.

Parkland west of the fence will be closed only on bait-laying days but seafood gathering is subject to scientific tests giving the all-clear.

Three drops of brodifacoum-laced cereal pellets inside the park's pest fence were approved by Auckland Council independent commissioners in March, with strict conditions for toxic loading on the land and for monitoring risk to human health, native birds and the marine environment.

Drops will be staged a fortnight apart, said project manager Matt Maitland, co-ordinator for northern sanctuaries, including Tawharanui.

"It is a robust, peer-reviewed process and we want the public to feel that everything has been covered ... We will be watched - and judged - by our actions."

Baits would be trickled from the helicopter in 5m swathes, he said.

This was a different technique to dropping the baits in the standard aerial 40m swathes used in drops at Rangitoto and Motutapu Islands in 2009.

The side of the bait bucket facing the sea was blocked off to try to avoid baits landing in the water.

Yesterday, Shakespear Tuesday Volunteers raked the beach and removed two trailerloads of seaweed, in which sandhoppers and other bugs gather. This is intended to reduce the risk of secondary poisoning for two bug-eating dotterels which live in a nearby paddock.

Shakespear Open Sanctuary Society president Allan Parker said the volunteer group would keep the shore clear of seaweed throughout the closure.

The society built the 1.7km fence hoping that getting rid of pests would allow the reintroduction of kiwi and add more sanctuary area to that provided at Tiritiri-Matangi Island.

Mr Maitland said consent conditions included a protocol with the Department of Conservation to monitor, observe and rehabilitate wildlife such as dotterels, bellbirds and kakariki. Eight brown teal ducks (pateke) living at the park were captured, banded and taken to Tawharanui.

A popular photograph subject for visitors, the resident peacocks, have gone to temporary homes in other parks, with Shakespear's 93 cattle and 955 sheep. They will return when the bait has broken down.