Kia ora,
I hope this finds you and your loved ones safe and adjusting to our collective new 'normal'.
Now that we have settled into our new work environments for at least the next four weeks, I wanted to let you know the status of the Zero Invasive Predators (ZIP) team and our programme of work.
All of the ZIP team members are now working from either their usual residences in Wellington, Christchurch and Hokitika, or staying with family members in other parts of the country. We are all in regular video, internet and/or phone contact with one another.
Almost all biosecurity and conservation work has ceased on public conservation land (with the exception of some offshore islands) and, consequently, our programme of work in the Perth River Valley is on hold. Likewise, trials at our Lincoln predator behaviour facility are also on hold, although we are continuing to look after the resident possums, rats and stoats.
While our field work and trials are on hold, we are well placed to stay busy and productive during this period. Disruptions to the planned programme of work are not unusual in our context, and the ZIP team is well set up to cope with change. We also know that each disruption also represents an opportunity to review and refine our work programme, and perhaps to even catch up on some overdue tasks. You may remember that our predator removal operation in the Perth River Valley was scheduled to be carried out in 2018, but delayed until the following year by weather conditions and heavy snow. We took this opportunity to develop and test new techniques to mitigate risks to kea, and then deployed these alongside the operation when it was eventually carried out in 2019. Another year on, and we are pleased to see a healthy population of kea living and breeding within the field site.
Over the next few weeks our team will take this current opportunity to complete a range of tasks including writing up and publishing research results, analysing the immense database of images acquired through our network of trail cameras, ensuring we are ready to continue developing our new predator detection camera when supply chains re-open, checking and maintaining our field supplies, reviewing and refining our programme of work, and refining and developing our internal administrative systems. For those of you running landscape-scale predator free projects, we are just a phone call away (although we are currently unable to supply products).
We will continue to notify you as soon as possible about any significant developments that affect our programme of work, and for some of you, seek your continued input into planning the work and your advice on how we can deliver it. Please don’t hesitate to contact us if required.
In the meantime, I’d like to wish you and your families all the best over the coming weeks.
Al Bramley
Chief Executive, Zero Invasive Predators