Wildlife Protection Services New Zealand

27/07/2024

With a very heavy heart we say farewell to our best boy. Bail was one of new zealands' best rodent detection dogs and one of the longest serving. After two years of training, he spent 11 years working on our off shore islands looking for rats and mice to protect the native wildlife living there. He had the most loving, loyal character and was a star wherever he went. He will be incredibly missed and leaves a remarkable legacy that we are all very proud to be a part of. Rest in peace old boy 🐀

03/07/2024

Katie is now officially a Conservation Dog, specialising in the detection of rodents and joining the Wildlife Protection Services dog team. In 20 months of training she has shown an incredible amount of intelligence and natural talent for the job. Here's to the start of her new career searching for the presence of rodents on predator-free sanctuaries across New Zealand amongst some of the country's most protected species. 🥂 As always a Conservation Dogs' training never ends but what an awesome start to pass both her exams. Special thanks to
Phoenix Working Whites,Whippets and Welshies

25/04/2024

Bail in action

Delta team Ben and Igar search for bike thieves. Biosecurity NZ’s Karen and Nitro find a funny package with serious contents. DOC rodent dog team Leona and Bail head out to remote Mangere Island.

08/02/2024

Katie is now officially interim certified!

17/01/2024

Mission down to Stewart island this week to check for rats on Ulva Island.
Bail and his team mates Gadget and Mica didn't find anything so hopefully the island is back to pest-free status.

16/11/2023

The old boy still got the skills

19/08/2023

Dogs are helping the Ashley­-Rakahuri Rivercare Group locate rats along the braided river near Rangiora. Leona Kirk, who runs her business Wildlife...

09/07/2023

28/06/2023

Motunau Island

28/06/2023

08/03/2023

0% Rats detected in our monitoring 😍

I want to let you all know the good news, we are still 0% rats on our tracking tunnel monitoring!!

We caught a rat on C track which swim around the fence by TCC and got caught just a few metres inside the fence on the 17th of Feb.

Fortunately DOC happened to have 3 rat detection dogs visiting Picton which were available to come out and do a sweep of Kaipupu which showed no more signs of rats!

This week we also carried out our tracking tunnel monitoring across Kaipupu which showed NO RATS‼️ and low mice numbers. There was even a native grass skink and wētā footprints recorded showing the native species are happy running around without predators.

24 hour tracking tunnel results:
• 0% Rats,
• 19% Mice,
• 3% Native grass skink,
• 3% Native wētā
We will always catch the odd rat that swims onto Kaipupu, but 2 years of 0% tracking in our monitoring shows that we are catching these rats before they build up a population. This is a truly amazing result.

Great work everyone, thank you for all your help and support !!

08/03/2023

Been 9 days of searching in the Marlborough Sounds for these two.... they're happy to take a break now. Ara got lucky to come along as an interim certified dog and get some first hand work experience.

10/11/2022

06/11/2022

Harsh reality of the consequences of the introduction of rats. Not only effecting the wildlife in our native forests but also on our riverbeds.
Below a cache of stored tern eggs and a predated adult black fronted tern that has fallen prey to resident rats who have been harassing the birds as they try to breed for the year.
The dogs were able to kill one rat and indicate on other nests which will hopefully be dispatched with toxin and trapping...

09/10/2022

Found a breeding female already nesting and caching black fronted tern eggs... safe to say she was dispatched.

13/01/2022

Searching for rats with the old boy on Ulva Island this week with Detector Gadget

07/12/2021

40km of tracks over two and a half days on Anchor Island in November, most likely our last rodent surveillance job for the year. This old boy is still very much up for it!

05/09/2021

Back to work again! New dog in training is allowed to come along and get used to the bikes.

09/07/2021

Our field staff finished up after a few months of wild pine control in the Mckenzie country. Big areas - plenty of invasive trees!