In 2020, three locals conducted an e-DNA sample of our local stream near the Buckley Reserve Playground as well as the water in the pipe under the landfill.
The sampling produced some encouraging results. Not only are there Kōura (freshwater crayfish), which we already knew about from sighting them, but there were signs of a native fish, the banded kōkopu. These creatures are surviving in our very fresh but only inches deep spring water, cut off for 70+ years by the landfill pipes.
Not surprisingly, the results found no fish life in the stream once it had entered the pipes below the landfill.
