Last week I went out koura monitoring with Fisheries Scientist Ian Kusabs and Laura, a graduate student from Waikato University. Laura set a series of whakaweku (bundles of bracken) at various sites around bays in Lake Rotoiti. Every few months she records the size and numbers of koura living in the whakaweku. The retrieval and replacement of the whakaweku is very labour intensive as you can see from the photos. Unfortunately not many koura were found living in the whakaweku on this occasion and Laura has to now try and work out why. One of the theories put forward by Ian is that the catfish netting programme is drawing the koura out of the whakaweku and into the nets as they pursue the bait put in to attract fish. Laura also took some phytoplankton samples from the bays and measured factors such as water temperature etc.
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