KVH attended the National Education and Training Seminar (NETS) conference last week to present on wild kiwifruit and showcase our industry leadership in this space.

The presentation was well received by the group of over 200 from across the country, garnering good interest and several questions.

NETS is run by the New Zealand Biosecurity Institute (NZBI) and attendees work and/or are involved in fields of biosecurity, and a large focus of the event is invasive species management, attracting a mix of people from different institutions and walks of life - mostly with backgrounds in science, operations, policy, and environmental management.

The conference theme this year was ‘Maintaining the Gains – Puritie te Aronga’ inspired by the hura te ao gecko (Mokopirirakau galaxias), a new species first discovered in 2018 in North Otago. This gecko is found only in the Oteake Conservation Park on the northern boundary of Otago and they are insectivores, feeding on moths, spiders, weta and other invertebrates co-existing within these greywacke alpine tussock environments.

Hura te ao geckos are nationally endangered - the main threats they face are invasive predatory mammals, such as cats, ferrets, stoats, rats and mice, and they could also be vulnerable to poaching, climate change and loss of habitat.

Image: The hura te ao gecko inspired the NETS conference theme this year.