Mātauranga in Action

The 2024 collection of toitoi has now happened! A small team joined a group of Taranaki Whānui ki te Ūpoko o te Ika whānau on April 20th  to collect toitoi from Kohangapiripiri at Parangarahu Lakes. These ika/fish are now in quarantine at Zealandia for around four weeks to ensure they are nice and healthy before we release them into Roto Māhanga.

You can come and see the toitoi while they're in quarantine. Toitoi mini-talks run daily at 11.15am at the Boat Shed, until June 3rd. 

This translocation is super exciting for us, as our kaimahi/colleagues tried using whakaweku for the first time this year. Whakaweku is a traditional mātauranga Māori method of collecting kōura/crayfish and small bottom-dwelling fish. Whakaweku is made of bundles of rārahu/bracken fern which are submerged into water for a few weeks.

While in the water, the bundles act as habitat for fish, insects and kōura/crayfish. The fish choose to move into the whakaweku themselves, making it a less stressful method of catching them.

Over the last few months our team have been trying them out in the Kaiwharawhara catchment to see how much toitoi and other small fish species like them, and luckily for us they moved right in!

Using whakaweku in our translocations helps to revitalize mātauranga Māori harvesting methods and also helps strengthen our connections with each other and the natural world.

If you’d like to help contribute to this important mahi, you can "sponsor a fish" on it's journey to Zealandia. 

Hero image: Kaitiaki Ranger, Tia, holding a whakaweku. Photo by Anna Fensom