Hero photograph
 
Photo by Sam Gilchrist

Department of Conservation visit Year 1.

Jessica Vader —

As part of our 'Animals and Us' inquiry, we were very fortunate to have Handler Hannah, from the Department of Conservation, come in to school yesterday and share with us some information regarding pests that have been introduced into New Zealand that are harmful to our native species.

Hannah brought along her two dogs, Indie and Harper, who have been trained to sniff out these pests and help us to eradicate them and protect our wonderful native animals.

We asked the children to share their thoughts on what they learnt, and they came up with the following:

  • Indie can sniff for rats and mice to protect our native birds from having their eggs eaten. Birds like kakariki, kiwi, tui, pukeko, whio (blue duck), kea, kokako… 
  • Harper can sniff out Rainbow Skinks - they are bad for our native skinks. They take the food and space away from our native skinks. Auckland has a lot of these pests.
  • There are a lot of animals that need to be protected in New Zealand from introduced pests.
  • We learnt about the jobs that the dogs do and we patted them. 

More info can be found at Predator Free NZ.