Busy week for volunteering at Bushy Park bird sanctuary

Mandy Brooke checking a tunnel card for animal prints. PHOTO/BEVAN CONLEY

The bird sanctuary at Bushy Park got some special care for Conservation Week.

On Tuesday, volunteers spent the day tending bait stations and tracking tunnel cards; and on Wednesday students from eight Whanganui schools took part in a variety of activities at Bushy Park.

These events were part of Conservation Week, which runs October 14-22.

Sanctuary manager Mandy Brooke said Bushy Park had weekly volunteer days, where a core group of volunteers worked on projects in the sanctuary.

"But since it's Conservation Week, we decided to open our volunteer day up to the public."

Mrs Brooke said on this particular day, volunteers were checking bait stations and fencelines, and tracking tunnel cards to see which animals were passing through.

"The tunnel cards are showing that we have mice passing through, but no rats at this stage. We can't really get rid of mice - we manage their population. Rats are far more dangerous than mice, anyway," she said.

Robin Paul is one of the volunteer education coordinators at Bushy Park, and he helped organise the day for students.

"We had a number of activities for the students including making art, predator control, planting, habitat monitoring, and studying wetlands and invertebrates."

He said all schools in the district were invited to send two or three students each for the day.

"We'd love to see many more schools take part in our education programme."