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MAY 21, 2026
Under pressure
By Michelle Lachmann
Sanctuary Mountain Maungatautari is celebrating its booming kiwi population, but its chief executive warns its own survival in threatened. Helen Hughes told The News there was no more than seven weeks of operating cashflow, and the eight full-time rangers were at risk of burn-out after the most challenging year of operations ever. It’s not the first time – The News revealed in June 2024 that the sanctuary was facing a cash flow crisis. “The risk of staff fatigue and exhaustion is our biggest vulnerability, without a question,” Hughes said. “My team is out on chain saws constantly responding to fence breaches, and it can be at 2am, but we only have two chainsaws,” she said There was no extra money to
Helen Hughes
employ more rangers, who patrol and monitor the fence around the clock, maintaining a safe environment for 35 different bird species. The 3400-hectare sanctuary on Tari Road is home to at least one kiwi per hectare, bringing it close to holding capacity. The target was reached nine years earlier than originally planned, expected to be in 2035, Hughes said. However, the past 12 months had been its toughest in its 25-year history, with 22 fence breaches - more than double the normal amount and the most recorded in a single year. In 95 per cent of cases, a fence breach was caused by a tree falling, and that included some of the country’s oldest rimu, more than 700 years old, Hughes said. A six-week trapping programme commences immediately within a 500-metre radius of a breach “It’s not like mother nature serves us up one fence breach at a time. When you get significant winds, you are going to see more trees fall,” she said. “This is conservation at scale, it’s significant - there is nothing else like this in the world. And, we are right on the back door of Hamilton, Cambridge and the central North Island,” she said. About 200 community volunteers are a crucial part of operational work, helping care for bird species, or the 730 different types of native flora and fauna at the sanctuary, alongside predator monitoring and checking trap lines. Ranger staff turnover was high
Just checking – one of the last kiwi to be sent to a new home this season get a health check from Tori Budd, left and Jenny Collie. Photo: Roy Pilott.
due to the relentless demands of the job, Hughes said. She called on Waipā district and Waikato residents to support the sanctuary and its work by becoming advocates. “Come up and be a part of this, get involved, or just come
up for a coffee. We love it when the community gets involved. It’s vital to the sanctuary’s long-term survival,” she said. A request to the Government for $3.2 million over six years was declined this month. Conservation Minister Tama
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Potaka said, in a letter, the financial environment was tough on all conservation work. There simply wasn’t enough money to go around, but he valued the sanctuary’s efforts to species’ recovery in Aotearoa.
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