Dogs flown to Whanganui to sniff out Bushy Park Tarapuruhi rats

Miriam Ritchie, of the Department of Conservation, and her rodent dogs Will and Ahu. Photo / Supplied

Whanganui's Bushy Park Tarapuruhi managers had to call in the dogs after a rodent scare.

In February park volunteers found what they suspected to be a family of rats in the driveway area of the park below the homestead, forest manager Mandy Brooke said.

The rats were caught and trapped relatively quickly and, for the next three weeks, there was no further sign of rodents in the park's traps or tracking tunnels.

However, to be sure the park and its native wildlife were free of pests, they needed the expert nose of rodent dogs. Certified Department of Conservation (DoC) dogs are the only dogs allowed into the fenced area of the sanctuary.

DoC ranger Miriam Ritchie and her rodent dogs Will and Ahu flew in from Auckland on March 22.

For the next two days, they checked for any evidence of rats across the entire park monitoring network. No rats or traces of rats were found.

Bushy Park gets a full check from DoC conservation dogs every year to make sure the park is free of rats and mustelids, such as stoats and ferrets. These checks mean that the park has no pests apart from mice.

Brooke said she was thankful Ritchie was able to fit in the trip to Whanganui between her scheduled off-shore island work.

Brooke also thanked Air Chathams which was able to get Richards and her dogs to Whanganui at short notice.

"They helped us enormously with flying the dogs and the handler down," Brooke said.