Dear friends of Flora and Supporters, for those of you who have supplied us with email addresses this is the 1st of our monthly email bulletins to help you keep informed of our efforts to bring the birdsong back to the Flora.

New traps installed. DoC staff and FoF volunteers have been flat out constructing and putting in place a further 400 boxes, each with 2 'masher' stoat traps. It is hoped to have all 400 new traps in place by the end of this week. The traps are spread over 8 new side tracks numbered 'A' to 'H' all leading to our current trap line the 'I' line.

Blue duck chicks thriving. The ten captive reared blue duck/whio chicks destined for the Flora Stream are thriving. They will probably be released into the Flora Stream some time in April.

Progress. In the Decemeber 2002 monitoring we caught: 4 stoats, 6 rats, 24 mice

Since monitoring commenced in Feb 2002 we have caught: 110 stoats, 137 rats, 371 mice, 4 weasels, 1 cat.

Friends of Flora and DoC officers report a noticeable improvement in the bird population since Spring. Keep an ear open for the harsh call of the long-tailed cuckoo/koekoea.

Next monitoring. You are welcome to join us on our next monitoring on Sat 25 and Sun 26 January. It's the usual arrangements - meet in the DoC Motueka yard (opposite the clock tower) 8.30 am either day or at Pokororo or the Flora carpark by prior arrangement. Please reply to this email if you would like to come along.

That's all till February, FoF