1 February 2006

While many of us were preparing family feasts over the festive season, dedicated Pukaha Mount Bruce staff were busy catering for the culinary demands of 17 captive bat pups.

The 17 lesser short-tailed bat pups were born in captivity after their pregnant 'mums' were transferred from a threatened population in the Waiohine Valley in the Tararua Forest Park to Pukaha Mount Bruce last December. The pups are being prepared for transfer to pest-free Kapiti Island in February where they will join the other juvenile bats transferred there this time last year.

Department of Conservation biodiversity unit programme manager Geoff Underwood is pleased with how quickly the bats have adapted to their temporary home.

"The adults and their young have adjusted remarkably well to captive conditions, and whilst three pups have needed to be hand raised they are thriving on the artificial milk formula we are using and rapidly gaining weight."

The Department of Conservation pulled off a world first successful translocation of bats for conservation purposes for the first time last summer when 25 pregnant bats were taken from the Waiohine Valley to Pukaha Mount Bruce. The 20 bat pups born at Pukaha Mount Bruce were then translocated to Kapiti Island in February 2005. The bats are still being seen on the island confirming that they adjusted to their new home.

Previously, all attempts at moving bats to safer locations were thwarted due to their incredible homing instincts and the diminishing population of approximately 200 short tailed bats in the Waiohine Valley faced an uncertain future. Bat pups were transferred to Kapiti Island when they were still young enough to lack a homing instinct, reducing any fears that their homing instincts would drive them to return to Pukaha Mount Bruce, or to the Waiohine Valley.

DOC Wellington Conservancy fauna technical support officer Lynn Adams is excited with the success of the project so far.

“Without this intervention, we may eventually have lost what is believed to be the last remaining population of lesser short tailed bats in the lower North Island. Translocation to predator-free islands has secured a number of species in New Zealand and now we hope to include bats on that list. It also has important implications for bat conservation world wide”

These short-tailed bats are genetically distinct from others in New Zealand, isolated from other bat populations about 90,000 years ago by volcanic activity and glaciation and are now thought to be under siege from predators.

DOC plans to transfer more juvenile short-tailed bats from Tararua Forest Park to Kapiti Island over the next year, using the same techniques applied to this transfer. When a thriving population is established on the island, attempts will be made to transfer bats back to other sites in the lower North Island.

Short-tailed bats aid the pollination of native plants and establish their roosts in tree cavities deep in the island's older forests. The colony of around 200 short-tailed bats found in the Tararua Forest Park in the late 1990s is the only known population of short-tailed bats in the southern North Island. It is thought they are related to both the volcanic plateau and the southern short-tailed bats.

For more information please contact Colin Miskelly or Sue Galbraith on +64 4472 5821

For more information please contact Geoff Underwood, Pukaha Mount Bruce on +64 6375 8004.

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Visit the Pukaha Mount Bruce website: www.mtbruce.org.nz