MPI Technical Paper No: 2024/27

The Ministry for Primary Industries has developed a methodology for estimating agricultural greenhouse gas (‘GHG’) emissions at the farm-level with the intent of standardising emissions calculations across the agricultural sector.

This standardisation, in combination with the methodology’s transparency and scientific integrity, is expected to build market confidence in the sector’s emissions claims at the farm and processor level. A standardised method will also enable innovation by calculation tool and service providers.

An effective lure can increase wallaby numbers around bait stations and hence increase numbers consuming toxic bait. This research evaluates non-semiochemical olfactory (smell) lures and their attractiveness to Bennett’s wallabies.

Building our capability to undergo strontium testing on wallaby samples to provide insights around movement patterns of individual wallabies across their lifespan and whether they are of local origin to the area where they were discovered. Of particular importance in assessing whether a wallaby was illegally translocated to an area.

This research aims to build our capability to undergo strontium testing on wallaby samples to provide insights around movement patterns of the sampled wallaby across their lifespan and whether the wallaby is of local origin to the area where they were discovered. This is of particular importance in determining the likelihgood the wallaby was illegally moved to the area.

Finding wallabies in areas outside containment is extremely challenging and resource intensive. Knowing where to look is a key component when planning surveillance. A cost effective way to measure the likelihood of wallaby presence is needed. The creation of grid-based risk maps for both dama and Bennett’s wallabies in mainland New Zealand is one such solution where the maps can be used to assist in the prioritisation of search effort to areas most likely to be inhabited by invading wallabies.

The objective of this research is to determine whether translocated Bennett’s wallabies show high site fidelity when released in areas well outside the wallabies' natural range. The outcomes of this research may provide insights when planning surveillance in these areas as well as its implications when planning future detection probability research.

The illegal capture and release of wallabies in areas well outside their natural range, significantly compromises our efforts in eliminating wallabies. Understanding non-compliance behaviour in the illegal capture and/or release of wallabies and mitigation strategies to reduce this behaviour are the main objectives of this research.

Very little is known about the basic ecology of Bennett’s in New Zealand. This research aims to inform the home range, habitat selection and estimates of daily movement rates of Bennett's wallabies and the impact surveillance has on wallaby movement patterns. Potential to provide valuable insights into how one could optimise the deployment of surveillance and control operations.