Before being declared a national park, the coastal areas of the Abel Tasman National Park were farmed, and large parts of the forests were milled. Consequently, habitat loss and degradation has taken its toll and many native species were locally lost. A range of native bird species are still present in the park, but due to higher rat densities in the lowlands along the coast, their distribution is mostly limited to higher elevation areas. The goal of Project Janszoon’s predator control is to reduce rat abundance to a level that allows native bird species to expand towards the lowlands and successfully establish there.
To collect data on how forest birds are doing in the lowlands, our Science Adviser Dr. Ruth Bollongino ran an acoustic monitoring programme from 2019 – 2022. We were pleasantly surprised with the results
