Dear Friends of Flora (FoF) and supporters, Here is our email newsletter No.6 to keep you informed of our efforts to bring the birdlife back to the Flora.

New Committee The existing (or rather, remaining) committee members were all re-elected at last month's 2004 AGM, with the addition of a new committee member, Christine Johns. For those of you who may be wondering, the committee is:
Chris Potter (chair)
Maryann Ewers (secretary)
Bill Rooke (treasurer)
Paul Ewers
Bruce Porter
Wayne Elia
Kim Turner
Ivan Rogers
Christine Johns

Together we plan and lead each monitoring, liaise with our DoC partners and plan and prioritise our all activities including publicity and fundraising.

Whio Update. The 7 remaining whio (10 were released in March) are causing DoC some concern about their weight and feeding behaviour, but not sufficient to consider recapture and 'feeding-up' at this stage. Further weight checks will occur as birds are recaptured to have their radio transmitter harnesses adjusted. Needless to say they are being very closely monitored.

A word about our sponsors. A big FoF thanks to Motueka Sportsworld who provided 3 new packs at a heavy discount. And another thankyou to the Motueka Tramping Club for a generous $100 donation.

Pest Parade Last months efforts have rid the Flora of a further 9 stoats, 29 rats and 11 mice, bringing the cumulative totals (since Feb 2002) to:

Stoats:164 Rats: 282 Mice: 452

plus the odd wasp nest, weasels, cats , possums and so on.

Fashion Corner FoF now has a very fetching cloth badge available for a $10 donation. It looks just like the 'whio' logo at the start of this email and will make your pack, beanie, swanni or whatever looks just fabulous! Ask your team leader next monitoring.

Changes After a yarn with DoC, Friends of Flora will now take on responsibility for the F trapline (Mt Hodder) and the B line (Horseshoe Creek). This adds to our responsibility for the A line (Mt Arthur) and G line (Lodestone). In return our responsibility for the core I line now extends only to Horseshoe Creek. This will minimise vehicle traffic and be a more effective use of our time and DoC's.

From next monitoring (your team leader will contact you) we will be trialing salted meat baits as well as eggs and subsituting chocolate buttons (no tasting!) as rat bait rather than messy old peanut butter.

That's all for June. Talk to you next month.

Ivan Rogers FoF Committee