Robert McLean (centre) with whanau and supporters, and CHB District Mayor Alex Walker, receiving a Community Services Award for service to pest control and the conservation of biodiversity. Photo / Jackie Lowry Photography
Robert McLean (centre) with whanau and supporters, and CHB District Mayor Alex Walker, receiving a Community Services Award for service to pest control and the conservation of biodiversity. Photo / Jackie Lowry Photography
Pōrangahau identity Robert McLean has spent a lifetime caring for his environment.
He was recently a recipient at the Central Hawke’s Bay Civic and Community Services Awards, nominated for his life’s service to pest control and the conservation of biodiversity in Pōrangahau.
McLean has done everything from predator trapping, collecting seeds for eco-sourcing, including from the 850-year-old Tautane rata and 650-year-old Ropiha rata, to growing, gifting and planting native seedlings (including the Whangaehu riverbanks) and sharing his knowledge.
He was only 20 when his whānau gifted Te Ana/McLean’s Bush Scenic Reserve to the Department of Conservation to have it retired, fenced protected at his request.
He has also helped to set up three QEII covenants along the Whangaehu cliffs while also playing a part in the eradication of possums from the district and, more recently, cats and rats.
Robert McLean making a submission when CHB District Council presented its anti-amalgamation submission to the Local Government Commission in 2014. Photo / Paul Taylor
McLean has been involved with Wainui Rātā, a volunteer group that preserves and propagates the few remaining Northern Rātā in the Wimbledon-Whangaehu district.
However, his and many others’ good work may be under threat because anecdotal evidence has possum numbers increasing, and Hawke’s Bay Regional Council has plans to reduce pest control funds.
Iain Maxwell, group manager integrated catchment management, says the decision was made by the regional council during its annual plan deliberations in July.
“The decision was made to reduce funding in pest animal and pest plant activities, including research, while staff were redeployed to rural recovery. Funding for this work is proposed to be reinstated in the new financial year, subject to council approval,” said Maxwell.
He says funds for pest control work are not allocated to areas of the region, but are based on operational demands.
No funding was “allocated” to Central Hawke’s Bay pest control, he says.
“General funding for biosecurity work across the region has been reduced by $1.23 million for the current financial year to offset reduced income and increased operational costs in response to Cyclone Gabrielle. We are still covering 300,000ha under our Possum Control Area Programme,” said Maxwell.
The Cooks Tooth Gang: Robert Mclean (left), Bowen Mclean, Mark Stoddart and Hamish Mclean.
McLean is happy to share his knowledge of pest control. He is no stranger to the spotlight, although he is a lot more comfortable behind it.
“I just wanted to put an alarm up to jog memories of the early days, when we were overrun with possums.”
McLean has been working to reduce possum numbers after his father witnessed their impact on their fruit trees when he was a boy.
“The possums came into the valley in 1945. Dad noticed that the apple trees with the little shoots were being eaten, so he said to the rabbiter Scotty Mills one day, ‘what’s eating our buds in the trees?’ And Scotty said that it was the Aussie possum. It comes out at night of course, and no one had dogs so no one had noticed,” he said
Possums are big eaters, and destroy trees such as pōhutukawa, rātā, kohekohe and kāmahi. They eat flowers, stopping seeds from forming so the forest cannot regenerate.
“We were the Cooks Tooth Gang, we were the possum hunting gang every weekend. Every Saturday we would go out, from age 9 till we left school,” said Mclean.
Possums were introduced to Aotearoa from Australia in the mid-1800s.
Mclean and other Pōrangahau boys would head out at night to track and kill the possums, which had exploded in numbers.
“Three fox terriers and five of us boys, with tomahawks and knives, we’d do all the bushes — all the bush areas right out to the Cape and Island Rd and down the Fingerpost Rd, Cooks Bush, down the coast there, everywhere. Probably about 8000- 10,000 acres we would cover in different weekends, different bush at a time,” he said.
“Our top tally without guns — we weren’t allowed to take guns until 1967 — we got about 35 with no gun,” said Mclean.
“They had tracks coming out of the flax on the cliffs and they were heading to the poplars and we would go out there and sit on a track and turn the spotlight on; boom — get one and they just kept coming,” said Mclean.
As the numbers exploded, Mclean says his nights out killing possums were never shy of excitement.
“At night you could just go all night, but it was quite tiring so you would have to say okay that’s enough, we would call it a night,” he said.
“Previously, when we were kids, with the dogs we could go in any bush and in front of the house you could get 25 just in the rushes. Every few metres you would get a possum in the cutty grass or two or three in a cabbage tree hole,” he said.
Possums destroy trees such as pōhutukawa, rātā, kohekohe and kāmahi, eating flowers, stopping seeds from forming and leaving bare forest floors.
Recalling a conversation with former pest controller Ron Dick, Mclean explains the shift in pest control methods.
“The pest board started after 1962. Before that it was the rabbit board, and the rabbits of course were the main pest up until the 1950s. The pest board was funded by the rates so they had the pest board, the catchment board and the obnoxious pests so they were all separated under the council and that finished in about the 1990s.”
“So the farmers ran the pest board in those days,” said Mclean.
According to Archives Central: “The Southern Hawke’s Bay Rabbit Board was formed in 1940. In 1968, due to changing legislation, the Rabbit Board became a Pest Destruction Board. In April 1974 the board amalgamated with the Akitio, Central Hawke’s Bay, and Pahiatua Pest Destruction Boards to form the new Southern Hawke’s Bay Pest Destruction Board.”
“So the rabbiters eventually became the possum hunters, so you had the rabbiters with their dogs and then they started to do spotlighting to get the possums. One instance Ron gives is down the Birch Rd, they were getting possums and rabbits and they were hanging them on the fence and there were so many that someone complained,” said Mclean.
“The rabbiters didn’t really like the possum hunters because they were showing them up, so then the rabbiters got rid of their dogs, they weren’t doing the job — it was spotlighting with shotguns,” he said.
Rural communities regularly hold hunting tournaments to help rid their environment of introduced pest species.
Possums were not just causing problems for the fruit trees, native plants, and birds, but were the carriers and transmitters of the bovine tuberculosis, spreading disease.
“The TB started and Ron said it was in Ongaonga, they were trapping the possums and found out that possums were spreading it,” he said.
Possums in New Zealand are carriers of bovine tuberculosis (TB) and can spread the disease to other mammals such as deer and cattle. Infected possums eventually die, but can be contagious for months.
“By 1990 TB was out here, Tautane got a reaction so that is when they came out to get rid of the possums. The Government gave a lot of money and the men stayed up in the cottage, we hosted them and off they would go, and that’s what they would do, they jammed every paddock,” said Mclean.
Despite pest control taking on many forms across the years, it has been noted by Porangahau Catchment Group Committee member Ed Mackie that possum and pest numbers are on the rise again.
“There is a definite increase in possum numbers throughout Hawke’s Bay. You will now often see possums on the road at night and flattened ones during the day,” said Mackie.
“Pest control is something that always needs more money spent on it as at the moment we are losing the battle,” said Mackie.
McLean, while disappointed in the council’s decision, believes it shouldn’t be too detrimental going forward.
“We won’t be going backward, but I just wanted to put an alarm up to jog memories.”
“A lot of young ones don’t know what it was like, the sheer numbers, and the birds. It’s conservation and biodiversity that will bring it back and I think that will be our saving — biodiversity,” said McLean.
