Farmer investment pays off

Funding by landowners to maintain inventory and sediment out of the Rangitikei River and its tributaries has been given the massive tick from a inhabitants of Dwarf Galaxiids, which require wholesome streams to outlive.

Dwarf Galaxiids are small non-migratory fish native to New Zealand. In keeping with the Division of Conservation (DOC), they belong to an historic, scaleless fish household referred to as Galaxiidae. Not like whitebait, which migrate to see, some non-migratory Galaxiid species stay out their complete life within the stream or river through which they hatch.

The Rangitikei Rivers Catchment Collective’s (RRCC) Mangawharariki sub-catchment group landowners fenced the primary a part of Mangawharariki River that runs by their farms and have been monitoring the water high quality month-to-month since January 2020.

The Galaxiids have been found throughout a stream well being evaluation workshop the farmer-led RRCC Mangawharariki group organised to look in-depth at stream well being, by counting the variety of macroinvertebrates inside a bit of the river.

Greg Clifton, Mangawharariki sub-catchment group chairperson, says it was “extraordinarily rewarding” to seek out the fish.

“Landowners fenced the primary river a while in the past as a freshwater requirement and some of us devoted landowners have additionally been fencing alongside the tributaries of the river to maintain sediment and vitamins out of the water,” Clifton says.

“This fish aren’t well-known, and it was massively thrilling to seek out the small fish,” says Louise Totman, RRCC catchment coordinator.

Since 2018, the collective has constructed a big regional dataset of water high quality monitoring.

Three to 5 years of information have been collected from 9 of its 22 sub-catchment teams, and that is set to proceed rising year-on-year.

“The fish are indicator of wholesome water, and a scarcity of predators,” Totman says.

“Galaxiids are an ideal snack for launched trout, however due to the outdated hydro energy dam on the backside of the Mangawharariki River, trout can’t rise up this far,” she says.

RRCC is a farmer-led collective of rural residents and landowners working along with funding from the Ministry for Main Industries (MPI) to guard the surroundings and improve biodiversity within the Rangitikei, Turakina and Whangaehu River catchments. RRCC farmer members undertake month-to-month water high quality monitoring at 88 websites throughout its 700,000ha catchment.