The first wallaby catch of the night during one of Te Arawa Kāhui's regular culling expeditions in the hills above Lake Okataina Photo: RNZ/Sally Round
A full moon has the wallabies skittish tonight, Wayne Morgan Ranui warns me as we rumble up a steep forest track one chilly October evening.
I've squeezed into a sturdy truck with the lead shooter and two trainees from Te Arawa Kāhui to try and spot the pests which like to gather and feed at night on the edge of bush.
The vehicle is packed to the gunnels with shooting and thermal scoping gear, extra clothing and snacks for the long night ahead.
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The men are part of a small team, funded by seven iwi and the Ministry for Primary Industries, who are working to eradicate wallabies on their whenua which lies within the Bay of Plenty's 260,000 hectare wallaby containment zone, set up in 2018.
Cyrus Hingston, chairperson of the kāhui and Ngati Tarāwhai Trust, is driving the iwi effort which started last year.
Lakes Okataina, Ōkāreka, Tarawera, Rotoiti and Whakarewarewa Forest are ground zero for the wallaby plague, he says.
"There's no work going on there except what we do ourselves. So that's why we set up our kāhui.
"We said, "No. Our forest, our ngahere, our farms, our exotic forests, being devastated by these wallabies, are going to be last to get resources to try and eliminate them.
"We're supposed to be the tourism jewel of New Zealand, and our forest is being devastated."
Charles Te Kowhai of Te Arawa Kāhui points our the dying forest due to pests like wallaby browsing on the understorey Photo: RNZ/Sally Round
Open areas of what should be dense native forest in the Whakapoungakau Range, damaged by browsing pests Photo: RNZ/Sally Round
The Dama wallaby was let loose around Lake Ōkāreka in 1912 and they have made themselves right at home, roaming further and further afield in the Bay of Plenty and jumping into Waikato.
The Dama is smaller than the Bennett's wallaby found in the South Island. The Parma wallaby was recently discovered to also be in the mix in this region. There are hundreds of thousands of them and there are fears they will spread to a third of the North Island in 40 years if left unchecked.
Willy holds one of the wallabies killed during the hunt Photo: RNZ/Sally Round
Plans for a wallaby-free Aotearoa were scaled up four years ago. The government-funded focus at the moment is on preventing their spread beyond the containment area, with the plan to eliminate them over time.
A 12.5 kilometre fence on the outskirts of Rotorua has been built, contractors have been engaged to hunt them down and the public's been urged to report sightings to prevent more damage.
But that leaves the iwi's land unprotected from the feasting wallabies, except for what they do themselves. They are trialling a number of methods but they have discovered the shy wallaby is bait and trap wary.
Back on the hunt, the crew bag a possum and its baby before the road narrows further and we have to carry on by foot.
The men glide through the scrub without a rustle despite their cumbersome coats, boots and hunting kit, silently pointing out obstacles to me which they've seen with their night-accustomed eyes.
Wayne lines up a shot in the light of the full moon Photo: RNZ/Sally Round
Wayne, with the gun with thermal scope attached, is in the lead and gives a low "sss" to alert Kahu and Willy who are following behind. He has sensed something in the shadows.
We hear the crack of the gun. One more down.
"All your senses get used when you're in this kind of work," Wayne said as Willy leans down to pick up the dead wallaby. He bunches the kill by their tails to make them easy to carry.
"I was listening and I could hear something thumping around in there. It wasn't until I stood back a bit and got a view of it," Wayne tells me.
After several hours creeping silently through the bush we head back to the truck. It's cold and there's another area to patrol.
They were hoping to get at least 15 here tonight but there's only a small haul so far - three wallabies and a couple of possums. Their record in a night is 42.
The catch is smaller than usual Photo: RNZ/Sally Round
The crews work on an incentive system, taking a percentage of what they get for the meat which is destined for pet food. Possum is good for its coat too but wallaby fur's too short to have any value.
But it's not about the money, Wayne said, as he set to, gutting the animals laid out on the back of the truck.
"You get to love being out in the ngahere.
"Money's like a second thought, eh? When you come here and you do something you love."
The hunters use thermal imaging equipment to hunt for the wallabies by night Photo: RNZ/Sally Round
