The rat that was reportedly sighted on Rakino on 11 March has not been located. Neither has any independent evidence of its presence.
The weekend following the sighting saw a large operation swing into action which included several hundred traps, a number of monitoring tunnels and a certified rodent detection dog searching the island for two days. Another certified dog was on the island for two days following Easter. Neither of these dogs indicated a rodent. Likewise, no tracks, or other indications of rodent presence have emerged.
This does not necessarily mean the original sighting was wrong. There may still be a rat on the island. The Department of Conservation has now removed most of their traps and left the island after two weeks of trapping and searching.
The existing network of bait stations and tracking cards will hopefully be renewed next weekend.
Please remain vigilant and report anything you think may be of interest.
This operation was led on the ground by the Department of Conservation and supported financially by the Auckland Regional Council. The cost is likely to have exceeded $10,000. From the first indication that there was a rat on Rakino both agencies immediately and unconditionally threw there support behind us. This was extremely reassuring, and came at what was probably the most difficult time of the year with over 1000 people on Rakino for the Jazz festival and high numbers in general over the long weekend.
As a community our gratitude should be extended to DOC and the ARC who have responded to this crisis [whether it be real or imagined].
Please feel free to contact the following key people, and show them as a community we are very grateful for their support:
Jack Craw Biosecurity Manager ARC jack.craw@arc.govt.nz
Phil Brown DOC – Incident Controller pbrown@doc.govt.nz
Ditch Keeling DOC – Operation Manager pkeeling@doc.govt.nz
Cheers John
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