User:DrDonStewart/sandbox

Robin Judkins initiated the first "Coast-to-Coast" race in 1983. In the first two years over 200 athletes used the walking tracks that ran up the Deception river valley, crossed over into the Mingha Valley via Goat pass, and ran down to the Bealy river junction. Following the second race public concern was raised about the large number of participants and the presumed damage to the valley's special environment. Robin, after funding a program of track upgrade, made his own inquiries and identified the substantial damage caused by exotic feral animals especially the stoat, rat and opossum, as the more important factors in the decline the viability of native bird life, especially the Blue Duck/Whio and the Kiwi. In response Robin Judkins initiated a program of trapping designed to exclusively eliminate stoats, rats and opossum from the Mingha and Deception Valleys. Repeated surveys by DOC and program workers have documented a decrease, and in some areas presumed elimination, of feral animals coupled with an increase in the frequency of blue duck sightings, identified kiwi calls and a perceptible increase in the intensity and complexity of "the dawn chorus".