Kids Restore the Kepler is a project based on the Kepler Peninsular in the Fiordland National Park. The project is focused on bringing back the native birdsong to the area which has been lost due to predation by invasive species introduce when Europeans arrived. Involved in the project is the 5 education institutes in Te Anau which includes Fiordland College, Te Anau primary school, Maraoa Primary School, Fiordland Kindergarten and Southern Stars Early Childhood Centre.
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The project is run in partnership between the education institutes, Fiordland Conservation Trust, DOC and Kids Restore New Zealand who are the primary sponsor of the project.
Operations
The project uses kill traps to kill he pests in the area. These traps are targeting Stoats and Rats. There are over 500 traps in the 3000ha area managed by the project spread out along a network of tramlines.
The traps were built by a business studies group at Fiordland College in order to gain the capital for their business project. The traps were then distributed throughout the network of trap lines in the Kepler area largely by the community. Now the traps are checked every 6 weeks, with some trap lines being 'operated' by community groups.
Poison bait stations have been used in the project in order to manage possum numbers. There is also a trial of the new self resetting trap A24 in the Kepler area.
History
The project was initially conceived under the name of the backyard bird song project, which failed to receive funding from DOC. The Fiordland Conservation Trust then picked up the project and down scaled the project from a 15,000Ha project to a 3-stage project, stage 1 of which is the Kids Restore the Kepler project. The Fiordland Conservation Trust gained funding from Kids Restore New Zealand which went towards the set up costs of the project. The funding for the project has since been renewed.