Plant Identification with Wayne O'Keefe
Earlier this November we had the privilege of taking Wayne O'Keefe up Horohoro maunga to help us with some plant identification. As part of our project, we will be undertaking result monitoring of certain key plant species, which are palatable to possums and deer, therefore if the plants are heavily browsed the deer/possum numbers are high. However, if there are areas where these plant species are beginning to re-establish therefore our trapping/culling is working and the plants are starting to recover.
At this stage of our project, it is too early to see much recovery happening, so we took this opportunity to upskill our kaimahi in plant identification and also discuss the idea behind result monitoring and which plant species are important to monitor on our maunga, such as Kanono, Kamahi, Hangehange and Pate.
An exciting part of the day was identifying an area where we had undertaken rodent control this winter and now there are large amounts of Kanono seedlings coming through. This area was marked via GPS so we can continue to monitor it to then see if deer browse the area.
