Mangarakau Matuku Muster

Help save Australasian Bittern | Matuku-hūrepo from extinction in New Zealand by joining the Love Bittern Project to monitor Bittern in Mangarākau as part of The Great Matuku Muster - a nationwide synchronised count of male Bittern booming.

Mangarākau Swamp is considered to have a stable population of Bittern, however active monitoring has not been repeated since it was carried out in 2015, acoustic monitoring using automatic recording devices has been used as the method to detect trends in male boom records since then.

By repeating active monitoring (people stationed around the wetland to record time of boom, number of booms in a sequence, location of booming bittern) we will be able to more accurately estimate the number of individual males and compare these with the 2015 results.

We need sponsors to cover our event costs, the target for this event is $500

To help fund this project you can…