Threatened freshwater fauna - critical habitat (no fish)

The threatened species flora and fauna data is contained in 4 datasets: * Biodiversity - Threatened Freshwater Dependent Flora * Biodiversity - Threatened Freshwater Fauna - Critical Habitat (NoFish) * Biodiversity - Threatened Lamprey - Distribution * Biodiversity - Threatened Shortjaw Kokopu - Distribution. These datasets identify 16 critical freshwater habitats for 13 freshwater dependent threatened flora species, 18 critical freshwater habitats for four freshwater dependent threatened fauna species (excluding fish and freshwater invertebrates), and two threatened fish species in the Bay of Plenty. Freshwater dependent threatened fauna Ahikā Consulting 2021 identified candidates for inclusion as freshwater dependent threatened fauna in the BOP region. These species were reviewed by BoPRC Senior Environmental Scientist and DOC Fauna Technical Advisor, with four species included in the final list: Australasian bittern/matuku-hūrepo, blue duck/whio, grey duck/pārera and New Zealand dabchick/weweia. Otawa Hochstetter frog is included in this list in 2025 due to the elevation of its conservation status from “At Risk” to “Threatened - Nationally Critical”. This layer includes only those sites considered most essential/important to species persistence in the region, it does not include all sites where the fauna species is known to occur. Some sites were previously identified in a 2016 project by Wildlands Consultant in 2016. In 2016, Bay of Plenty Regional Council commissioned Wildland Consultants to identify key populations/sites for threatened species (excluding fish and invertebrates) as part of the process of developing our Priority Biodiversity Sites. GIS co-ordinates (not polygons) for each site were presented in a spreadsheet with sites classified as A, B or C. These categories have been carried over to this dataset for most sites. Category A - Management at these sites is essential for species persistence. These individual sites are unique in their value for achieving the persistence objective. Category B - Management at a selection of these sites is essential for species persistence, but each individual site is not unique in its value for achieving this objective and some sites could be interchangeable as long as a stated number/distribution are managed. Category C - These sites do not present the best option for management for the species persistence objective, but they are viable populations that could be picked up for management, e.g. if they coincided with management for other species. Ahikā Consulting Report 2021 The 2021 Ahikā Consulting Report compiled a metadataset based on observation records, excluding fish and invertebrate species. This dataset was derived from 23 sources, including Auckland Museum collections, BOPRC EPT, BOPRC Key Biodiversity Flora Sites, BoPRC Marsh Bird, CHR Allan Herbarium, DoC databases, eBird, iNaturalist, MBIS Marine Fauna and Flora observations around New Zealand, MPI Protected species bycatch in New Zealand fisheries, National Vegetation Survey, NERMN, NIWA Invertebrate Type Collection, NIWA Freshwater Fish Database, and NZ Arthropod Collection. Permission for data usage was granted through Creative Commons or obtained from hosting organisations. While the dataset cannot be shared directly, it serves as a foundation for identifying water bodies that support threatened or rare freshwater-dependent species. Freshwater invertebrates Assigning threat-classifications to freshwater invertebrates presents multiple challenges. For many taxa, especially those in less accessible or lightly sampled habitats (such as seepages, small headwater streams or spring‐fed systems), there is very limited distributional data. Furthermore, much routine sampling conducted by regional councils focuses on higher-level taxonomic resolution (often to genus or family level, rather than species), which means that many species cannot be reliably identified. This means that their conservation status cannot be tied to site-by-site records. Finally, large spatial gaps exist in sampling coverage — for example, seepage or zero-order stream habitats are grossly under-represented in monitoring programmes yet may host specialised or range-restricted taxa. As a result, even when a taxon has been assessed under the NZTCS (e.g., Dunn et al. 2017), its true regional occurrence, habitat associations and population trend may remain poorly known. In the Bay of Plenty, the only freshwater invertebrate taxon currently recorded under a national threat status of “Threatened” is Edpercivalia borealia, with a single observation in the Motu River. This river is already listed as the critical habitat for blue duck and grey duck. The mayfly Siglaenigma janea was identified as threatened in 2014, but its conservation status has improved to “At Risk – Declining” in 2018 (presumably reflecting more data having been collected at a national scale), thus excluded it from this listing. ETL Name is ‘Biodiversity - threatened freshwater fauna - critical habitat (no fish)’. This is not set to run on a schedule as the data does not change often. If it does change please manually run the ETL job.