We are going on a bat hunt

Mon 7 Sep, 13 hours from now

Long-tailed bats or pekapeka are important to our ecosystem.

A single bat can eat hundreds of insects in one night. This helps to control pest insect numbers, reduce disease-carrying insect populations, maintain ecological balance.

Auckland's pekapeka have a nationally critical and regionally critical conservation status. This is the highest conservation threat level - it means they are at the greatest risk of extinction.

Their populations are declining because of predators like feral cats, stoats, possums and rats, and people removing trees where bats live and breed.

In protected forests where introduced animal predators are controlled, bat populations can grow by up to 10 percent each year. In unprotected areas, populations decline.

The team at Titirangi Urban Sanctuary are keen to find out if there are bats roosting or moving through our area. Bat expert Chris, from Environment Waitakere has begun the process of working with TUS to set up monitoring in our area with the aim to find pekapeka. If they are found, we will step up protection for them.

There are several steps we need to go through, our team needs to be trained to work the monitoring equipment and then establish how to use it safely and effectively. We know there is widespread interest in this project and once we have all our systems in place we will be back to the community with more information.