Maungatautari
On the 11th of March we travelled in cars to Maungatautari. It took us 45 minutes to get there (expect a little longer for those who got lost!) When we go there we met Tom who was our guide. He started by giving us a talk. We learnt about pests and conservationist. Tom mentioned that stoats are a big problem because they attack and eat baby natives. But humans are a problem too. We chop down their homes. Rabbits are apparently one of the worst pests because they have lots of babies. Possums are a problem because they can eat so many leaves in a night. This kills native birds homes. And they eat their babies too!
He also said that at Maungatautari they attract predators by using a trap with peanut butter and ink. They can use this to check if there are any predators inside Maungatautari that shouldn't be. |
We then had a quick lunch and went to the Mountain. The Mountain is surrounded by a fence that is 46km long. This keeps the natives in and the baddies out! On the way we see lots of interesting plants like Bush Mans toliet paper, Rata Vines, and huge silver Ferns. We came to a place where there were lots of Kaka's playing. Dan fed the Kaka's peanuts. We then went up a huge tower into the canopy of the trees. Some of us saw Kereru- Wood pigeon.
We then went on our second walk down a very big hill to get to the Tuatara’s homes. They get all there tuatara from an island in malborough sounds. You can also tell which is male/female because males backs are spikey and females aren’t spikey. When they are baby’s they have three eyes one on their head and normal eyes. They have three eyes to see predators coming from above, they lose their third eye when they get older cause then they can camouflage. And they have a spike on their chin to help them get out of their egg. We didn't see the Takahe, they were hiding. It was then time to go back to school. |
Here are some other interesting facts we learned along the way:
Today we walked 5.46 so we have now walked 18.99km |