Recent monitoring in Te Hoiere catchment shows that a programme running from 2021 to 2025 to release dung beetles with landowners was a success. Dung beetles are known to help improve freshwater and soil quality by eating and burying stock dung. Once buried, it can no longer be washed into waterways in the rain, and it adds organic matter into the soil. This tunnelling activity also aerates the soil, improving soil structure.
Overall, 11 landowners participated in a subsidised programme to release dung beetles in Linkwater, Lower Pelorus, and Rai Valley and surrounds. This initiative was part of Te Hoiere Project, funded by Ministry for the Environment and carried out by landowners with the help of Marlborough District Council.
In March, monitoring across all 11 properties was undertaken by Ngahuia Pengelly, Catchment Care Advisor, and Wilhelmina Borst, Project Co-ordinator for Te Hoiere Project.
Dung beetles were found at 10 properties. The one property where no beetle activity was found only saw beetles released last year, but this doesn’t mean they aren’t present, said Ms Borst.
“Technical experts advise that populations aren’t at full carrying capacity until at least nine years after introduction,” Ms Borst said.
Beetle activity was found to be significantly higher at properties where they were introduced four or five years ago, Mrs Pengelly said.
“In Linkwater, neighbours banded together to be the first to release beetles across multiple farms in 2021. On one of these paddocks, we found 86 percent of cowpats showed evidence of dung beetle activity,” Ms Pengelly said.
“One landowner mentioned how much quicker the cowpats were disappearing in the paddocks now that dung beetle populations had established. Before dung beetles, it would take a few weeks for pats to decompose, and now it takes around ten days,” Mrs Pengelly said.
The success of this monitoring follows another Te Hoiere Project report, released last year, that shows significant improvements in freshwater across the catchment where landowners have taken action to fence waterways, plant natives and release dung beetles.
Find out more about dung beetles here
