Radio New Zealand - Te Reo Irirangi o Aotearoa

Wetland restoration planned for the Lower Taieri in Otago

Updated at 6:45 am on 2 February 2012

The Otago Fish & Game Council has announced plans to restore a wetland on an 80 hectare site that had been unsuccessfully drained for farming.

The Takitakitoa Wetland is on the lower Taieri River, near Henley.

Operations manager Ian Hadland says the land-owner donated the land to Fish and Game after finding it was no use for farming.

He says the site is very low lying and it's been essentially tidal and salt marsh in the past and required floodgates for farming.

Mr Hadland says the council is in the process of getting resource consents to put a very shallow bund about three-quarters of the way up the catchment to get about half a metre of water over a very low gradient valley.

He says it should end up creating 32 hectares of open water and hopefully restoring what was there previously such as eel and whitebait habitat, as well as attracting game birds for hunters.

Mr Hadland says funding will come from duck hunting licence fees and possibly the Gamebird Habitat Trust Fund.

Copyright © 2012, Radio New Zealand