The South Island’s largest wildlife sanctuary is scrambling to fix a large hole in its predator-proof fence after heavy rain struck Nelson yesterday.
While staff at the Brook Waimarama Sanctuary are still getting to the bottom of the damage, initial estimates put the repair cost at more than $50,000.
Around half a month’s rain fell in just a few hours yesterday, causing widespread flooding in the centre of Nelson, forcing a number of businesses to close.
But the sanctuary is tucked away in the hill behind the city and the rain on Monday was worse than the 2022 storm which damaged the region.
Brook Sanctuary operations manager Nick Robson said he quickly received reports from those working on site at the time that it was escalating.
“It was a couple of hours of very intense rain and down our fence track it looked just like a river,” he said.
The fence goes around the outside of the sanctuary and is designed to keep the predators out and the animals in. But a large hole around 6m wide was discovered yesterday afternoon.
Robson said volunteers were quickly on site to cover it with tarpaulin and secure it the best they could.
“We haven’t really spent much time inside the sanctuary because for us keeping the pests out is the priority,” he said.
“Once we’ve got all that sorted out then we’ll have a closer look inside and we’ll be sorting out our visitor tracks so that we can reopen.”
Brook Sanctuary chief executive Chris McCormack said it’s hard to say how much rain fell yesterday.
“So we don’t actually know just yet how much water. Water meters were off the scale which goes to show how much water was actually coming into the sanctuary around the hillside here.”
McCormack said once they have a gauge of the scale of the event and repairs are done, attention will turn to future-proofing the site against similar events.
Earlier this month, the sanctuary welcomed little spotted kiwi back to the mainland of the South Island for the first time in more than a sanctuary.
