Rare native bats discovered on the West Coast for the first time in decades

Friday, 13 August 2021

Long-tail bats have been discovered near Franz Josef by tourism workers.

Rare, long-tail bats/pekapeka have been discovered near Franz Josef on the West Coast for the first time in decades.

Conservation Minister Kiri Allan said the bats were found by tourism workers funded by the Government’s Jobs for Nature programme.

The programme allows tourism businesses to contract their workers to carry out work with the Department of Conservation (DOC) while international borders are closed.

DOC South Westland operations manager Wayne Costello said records were scant but the last extensive survey for bats in the 1980s found no trace of the native species in the area.

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Three Franz Josef Wilderness Tours workers collected sound recordings of the endangered bat from forested areas around Ōkārito Lagoon and in the Waitangitāhuna and Whataroa river valleys last summer.

Conservation Minister Kiri Allan says finding the rare bats in a new area of the West Coast is exciting news. (File photo)

The recordings were confirmed by DOC bat experts.

“This is a really exciting find and is a tribute to Franz Josef Wilderness Tours, who, despite being hard hit by the downturn in tourism because of Covid, embraced new Jobs for Nature work opportunities,” Allan said.

“DOC’s predator control work will have helped to protect the bats and the Predator Free South Westland project now under way, will help secure their future.”

Franz Josef Wilderness Tours owner Dale Burrows said Jobs for Nature had been a lifeline for his business and he and his staff enjoyed giving back to nature.

“It’s been a real buzz to discover the long-tailed bats right in our backyard, and we’re looking forward to being involved in further work to find out more about the population and protect them,” he said.

“We’ve learnt heaps about native species and conservation through this work, and this has brought value to our business as we share this knowledge with the mostly Kiwi visitors who now come on our tours,” Burrows said.

Allan said DOC had coordinated the bat survey work and provided training to the workers, who then put out bat recorders in likely-looking spots and did the initial data analysis using a “bat search” programme.

“DOC has long suspected that the lush lowland rainforests around Fox and Franz Josef glaciers might be home to pekapeka and have had a few anecdotal sightings over the years, so it’s fantastic to now have this confirmed.

Further surveys are planned for next summer, when the bats are active, to learn how widely they are spread.