Source: NZ Department of Conservation
By Kristen Clements
“When they made their way, not without difficulty, through the intertangled forest, and passed beyond the line of the great trees, they found themselves confronted by still more serious difficulties. The soil became a complete swamp, and was covered with a multitude of low shrubs, lianas, and herbs of all descriptions, whose intertangled growth formed an impassable barrier.”
I read this passage aloud to my Camp Cove companions – an excerpt from Francois Raynal’s ‘Wrecked on the Reef’, an account from 1864 about the sailors from the wreck of the Grafton who spent nearly 20 months stranded on subantarctic Auckland Island. My teammates laugh, mostly out of a deep understanding of the scene being described, having just finished three days of field work installing a grid of cat-monitoring trail cameras across this landscape.
One of our teams’ main objectives for being on Auckland Island is to understand more about feral cat behaviour around a novel predator bait, as well as their abundance in different habitats. We’re using 4 different flavoured, non-toxic meat sausages to do this. You can read more about this new bait in a recent media release on the DOC website. This research will feed into the Maukahuka Restoration programme, which entails eradicating feral pigs, mice, and feral cats from the main Auckland Island (46,000ha!) over 8 years. Once successful, the removal of pests from this wild environment would enable the return of thousands of nesting seabirds and the reinstatement of ground dwelling birds like Auckland Island teal and rail which cannot survive here currently with the ever-present pressure of predation by feral cats.
Not long before the wreck of the Grafton, Auckland Island was a safe breeding ground for 38 bird species, including nine found only here. It was also abundant with more than 280 invertebrate species. This diverse range of avian wildlife and small critters created a complementary 5-star smorgasbord for feral cats to establish and thrive. And thrive they did! Since feral cats were introduced by sealers on Auckland Island roughly 200 years ago, nesting seabirds have been all but wiped-out from the main island. And during the last two weeks here, I’ve seen the wreckage of this assault first-hand.
Examples of feral cat scavenged seabirds (left Carnley Harbour, right Western Cliffs) on Auckland Island. : Kristen Clements | DOC
During my time installing these trail cameras, I frequently came across ‘cat scavenge’ – the remnants of a feral cat’s all-you-can-eat buffet. Typically, these predators leave behind the least digestible or nutrient-rich pieces of birds, resulting in us rangers finding cast aside legs or wings of said victims. However, as confronting as it is to see the remains of a spritely storm petrel or squabbily sooty shearwater scattered along the coast, these messy eating habits happen to provide perfect clues for understanding feral cat behaviour.
Finding a feral cat among dense subalpine scrub and treacherous cliffs is like a morbidly satisfying treasure hunt. However, knowing what to look for in this vast ‘impassable barrier’ as Raynal called it, leads us one step closer to removing these predators from this ecosystem. Whether it’s an obvious sign such as a scavenged bird wing, muddy paw print, or not so subtly placed scat, or perhaps a craftier indicator of these predators’ existence like a game trail leading to a cliffy overhang, each clue brings us closer to our sharp-toothed prize.
The phrase ‘be the cat’ is often heard throughout our camp. And it’s true. To capture quality data investigating feral cat behaviour, you have to think like one. Thankfully, my teammates and I have become adept at crawling on our hands and knees through scrub to set up our trail cameras. And so, as we pull in our first round of camera data, we find numerous feral cats have been recorded interacting with these non-toxic sausage baits.
It’s a momentary pat on the back for the team, as we acknowledge the days of gruelling scrub bashing which went into capturing this footage. However, this respite quickly turns to determination, as I begin to imagine what it would be like to find the last few feral cats inhabiting this place – the reality of the latter stages of a feral cat eradication. I smile to myself, as I look forward to this muddy, scrubby, arduous hunt on the edge of the world.
I ponder further, as a deeper appreciation for the reverberations of this project sink in. I imagine a time beyond writhing through a sea of scrub to catch feral cats. When the elusive Auckland Island snipe can return to nest here, and when tītī chicks can safely emerge from their warm burrows without even knowing of the existence of feral cats. When hoihō parents can lumber back to their nests knowing their fluffy grey chicks await their return without being a feral cat’s main course, and the air is full of the sound of white-capped mollymawks’ courtship rituals. A time when the mana of Auckland Island has been restored.
And so, from our crude base camp which we so fondly know as home, my team and I put out a call for action. Will you support the restoration of Auckland Island? To learn more or donate towards this world-first effort by DOC and Ngai Tāhu to remove feral pigs, mice, and feral cats from Auckland Island follow the link below. To hear more from my companions and I in the field, follow DOC’s Conservation Blog over the next four weeks.
Getting to know Maukahuka is the first step toward its recovery—you can be part of this ambitious endeavour by supporting the project through the NZ Nature Fund, you can help turn every trail camera checked and every mouse trap set into a future Auckland Island free of introduced pests and full of thriving native wildlife.
LiveNews: https://livenews.co.nz/2026/04/10/what-it-takes-to-find-a-feral-cat-on-auckland-island/