WELLINGTON, Aug. 8 (Xinhua) -- The New Zealand government is supporting a project to make Wellington the world's first predator free capital city with a 3.27 million NZ dollars (2.2 million U.S. dollars) funding boost to protect indigenous Kiwi bird, announced by Conservation Minister Eugenie Sage on Wednesday.
Capital Kiwi Project, which was a charitable trust, and Predator Free Wellington, a joint venture between Wellington City Council, Greater Wellington Regional Council and NEXT Foundation, are jointly working to create a predator free Wellington which the Predator Free 2050 Limited funding will support.
The Capital Kiwi Project is working to accelerate the eradication of stoats from the Wellington area to enable kiwi, a New Zealand native bird, to be re-introduced.
"New Zealand has a predator crisis, (as) 82 percent of native birds are threatened with, or at risk of extinction," the minister said.
"Wellingtonians have shown their commitment to saving nature by achieving the country's first predator free suburb with Crofton Downs, and a further 43 of the city's 52 suburbs are running active community-based predator control programs," Sage said in a statement.
Predator Free Wellington and Capital Kiwi Project will scale up these efforts into a 15 million NZ dollars (10 million U.S. dollars), 10-year project to eradicate possums, rats and mustelids from 30,000 hectares within the city boundaries, Sage said.
Predator Free Wellington is supporting predator control in reserves and backyards across the city to continue predator control to protect indigenous bird and lizard populations which are growing dramatically.
