A kiwi has died after a ferret attack on a conservation island near Whangārei earlier this month, with rangers concerned about how the ferret got there.
Matakohe-Limestone Island, which has been a wildlife sanctuary since 1989, was thought to be ferret free — and at its closest point, the island is hundreds of metres away from the mainland.
Despite that, kiwi patriarch Sir Ed was killed in a ferret attack in early September, leaving rangers stumped.
“We suspected it was a ferret from how Sir Ed was killed… we put a camera up, and got a couple pictures of a ferret revisiting the kill site,” ranger Bevan Morgan said.
“It’s impossible to say how it got here, or when it got here,” ranger Courtney Smuts-Kennedy said.
“It’s about 300 metres from the closest point on land… [ferrets are] not very strong swimmers, it’s unusual for them to swim at all, especially at a distance like that,” Smuts-Kennedy added.
The rangers are not sure how long the ferret had been around, or if it had killed any other animals on the island. The ferret, which has since been caught, had attacked a petrel nest as well.
The island did not have ferret traps set up because it was believed impossible for ferrets to get there.
The Matakohe-Limestone Island Facebook page has since posted that its existing trapping network will be modified to include ferret traps.
