Boffa Miskell Ltd | Waihi North Project | Terrestrial Ecology Values and Effects of the WUG | 22 June 2022 19 4.7.2 Habitat Assessments and Surveys Bat surveys were not carried out at the Willows Road property or within CFP as part of this assessment due to seasonal constraints11 and uncertainty around the location of potential vent raises. Potential bat habitat within the Willows Road property is limited to isolated large trees within pasture, further described in Section 5.5. Bat surveys will be carried out in the vicinity of potential vent raise sites if they contain suitable bat roosting habitat during the site selection process, prior to vegetation clearance. These surveys will be undertaken using acoustic recording devices (ARDs, model ARM v1.2) which are programmed to passively record both long-tailed bat (40 kHz) and lesser short-tailed bat (28 kHz) echolocation calls on two concurrently operating frequency channels. They operate remotely by recording and storing each echolocation call (bat pass), along with the date and time of occurrence (Lloyd 2017). Long-tailed bat activity is influenced by overnight temperatures and rainfall (O’Donnell, 2002). Weather data collected from the Oceana Gold weather station during the survey period will be analysed to ensure conditions are suitable for bats to be active and therefore detectable via acoustic recordings. Acoustic data from fine weather nights will be analysed using BatSearch 3.12, a programme designed by the DOC. 4.8 Assessment and Survey of Avifauna 4.8.1 Desktop Analysis New Zealand Bird Atlas records were reviewed for grid AG76 and AH77 (NZ Bird Atlas, accessed 26 April 2022). Bird records described in the Coromandel-Thames SNA report (Waihi ED; Kessels & Associates 2010) and plot data from the national biodiversity monitoring programme were accessed and the details for the nearest site (Site CU46) (DOC, 2017) were reviewed. Previous surveys of birds have been carried out within the Wharekirauponga catchment (BML 2019b, 2022b). These surveys included 5-minute bird counts (5MBCs) at 26 sites, acoustic recorders at 14 sites and incidental observations of birds (Appendix 2). We consider that the bird species recorded in the Wharekirauponga surveys are consistent with what would be expected in the vicinity of potential ventilation raise sites in CFP. 4.8.2 Surveys Bird surveys were carried out at four sites within Willows Road farm using the five-minute bird count method (5MBC, Dawson & Bull, 1975) on 19 November 2021. Bird surveys were not carried out at potential ventilation raise sites because of the overlap with existing bird data from the Wharekirauponga baseline surveys. Repeat 5MBC surveys and bird nest checks will be carried out prior to vegetation clearance when ventilation raise sites are confirmed. 11 Surveys for bat presence should be undertaken over a minimum of two weeks when the temperature is above 10°C at sunset, and there was less than 5 mm of rainfall during the night, between October and March when bats are most active.
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