Initial elimination operations have now been carried out across 34,000 hectares, with the hopes of scaling up efforts to 300,000. Photo: Sébastien Goldberg/Unsplash
The number of Kea - New Zealand's nationally endangered mountain parrot - is growing in numbers in Aoraki/Mount Cook National Park.
The average flock size in the Malte Brun area in 2024 was twice that seen two years before.
Work in the area to get rid of possums, stoats and other pests over thousands of hectares has been done by Te Manahuna Aoraki Project - part of Zero Invasive Predators.
Initial elimination operations have now been carried out across 30,000 hectares in the alpine zone and 4,000 hectares in the tussock dryland/farmland.
The Project hopes to scale-up to about 300,000 hectares in the long-term.
Te Manahuna Aoraki Project technical lead for kea Nick Foster told Nine to Noon it was difficult to determine the exact increase in numbers, "but the numbers that we started with are looking to have increased quite significantly over the last couple of years".
"The first two years were quite steady, and then in 2024 we had this real significant jump up and that was sort of corroborated with observations from local managers and hunters."
Foster said the figures this year - so far - were up even higher, and even benefited many other animals and plants.
"We know it's good news, but it's really hard to attribute any one cause. It's really hard to say why we have more Kea now."
Foster said there was a possibility that Kea from over the alps could be migrating to the Malte Brun area, where pests were being eradicated.
View up Beetham Valley to Malte Brun. Photo:
He said to survey and get an estimate number of parrots in an area, they spaced carcasses around.
"We break our survey periods down into periods that we are confident that we don't double count individuals... then basically average this, do it over a long period of time and compare between years. That's the short answer."
It was also a steep learning curve figuring out how to navigate the terrain, Foster said.
"The Malte Brun range is very rugged, it's mostly only visited by mountaineers and the occasional hunter.
"It's actually one of the reasons why we choose to start here, if we are going to be successful at eradicating pests from mainland New Zealand, we are going to have to address these areas sooner or later.
"It was an opportunity to learn really quickly how to, you know, work around glaciers, how to stay safe around cliffs and areas of rock fall and of curse in winter there are avalanche risks, its been a really steep learning curve over the last couple of years for sure."
The pests being targeted by the project include possums, stoats, ferrets, feral cats, hedgehogs, rabbits/hears and norway rats.
Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
