Operation Flagstaff began in early-October around Flagstaff / Swampy Summit and is targeting a total more than 8300 hectares, split across five separate blocks, to the north of Dunedin city.

Contracted professional hunters are being used to search for wallaby and wallaby sign (scat), which includes the use of dogs, drones, and trail cameras.

ORC’s Project Delivery Specialist, Gavin Udy, says the wallaby operation has made good progress over the last month in searching the City Forests block for any wallaby presence.

“It’s crucial that the entire area is searched thoroughly to ensure any wallaby that are present are found and removed.”

 “While none have been detected to date, or any other wallaby sign (scat), finding wallaby in this landscape where very few are present is challenging,” Mr Udy says.

ORC’s Moeraki ward Councillor Kevin Malcolm is also Chair of Otago Wallaby Regional Co-ordination Group, part of the Tipu Mātoro National Wallaby Eradication Programme, the latter funded and co-ordinated by Biosecurity New Zealand.

“Wallabies pose an immense threat to the sustainability of agriculture and the environment in general around Canterbury and Otago. We need to take this opportunity to ensure wallaby populations are eradicated and don’t spread further southward,” he says.

Mr Malcolm says of the Flagstaff wallaby programme that it is critical all operations around wallaby control stick to the national objective of eradicating wallabies completely – across the country.

Mr Udy says the search team’s efforts have primarily focussed on searching animal game trails as wallaby use these paths as natural travel corridors through the dense vegetation found in this area.”

Over the next few weeks, the contractor team will look to complete their search of the 1566ha City Forests block and then start in the adjacent 1005ha Silverstream block.

Mr Udy says the search team will be taking a break over the holiday period before returning in mid-January to continue the operation – which will continue through 2026 until completed.

The public can help by reporting any wallaby seen, dead or alive, at reportwallabies.nz

To find out more about the Flagstaff operation, go to orc.govt.nz/operationflagstaff