Fences could stop animal poo contaminating NZ’s rivers

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2026-06-03 11:40

New Zealand

Photo by Francisco Delgado on Unsplash

Strategically fencing off steep parts of a farm where water accumulates and flows into streams, could reduce how much animal poo contaminates rivers, finds an NZ study. Researchers measured bacteria in deer poo, soil and stream water on a deer farm for two years, before fencing off one of these steep areas for another two years so that deer could not graze there. The fencing more than halved the amount of E. coli in the nearby water compared to the water near the unfenced area, improving water quality and likely reducing health risks, the researchers said.

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Research Elsevier, Web page

Journal/
conference: Science of The Total Environment

Research:Paper

Organisation/s: Bioeconomy Science Institute, Massey University

Funder: The CSA mitigation experiment (Muirhead and Green, 2026) and collection of water samples was funded by the Ministry for Primary Industries, NZ Government via the Sustainable Land Management and Climate Change (SLMACC) fund – contract 406350. The microbiome analysis of the water samples and the additional soil and dung samples collection and analysis was funded by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, NZ Government via the AgResearch Ltd. Strategic Science Investment Fund (SSIF).

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