Note: These blogs are in date order with the most recent at the top of the page.

Tuesday, 11th February, 2025 - The start of a new routine (by Ian Anderson)

At 8.00am on another perfectly clear and windless morning two separate groups assembled at Hans Bay and Sunny Bight to check traps and replace stale bait.  The Hans Bay group comprised Colin Boniface, Steve Blackwood and Ian Anderson. The Sunny Bight group was Liz Sawkins and Paul Dunn.

By 9.30am nearly sixty trap boxes with two traps each had been serviced and the Trap.NZ database updated. Not that it's a competition, but the Sunny Bight group were rather pleased with themselves confirming there's now one less stoat and one less rat to trouble our birds. The Hans Bay traps were only very recently made and placed and so no catches this time, noting that rats and stoats are 'newphobic'.  I'm sure we'll have better luck next month!  I certainly enjoyed the conversation and camaraderie as we made our way around the bay. 

A bonus for the Hans Bay group was the report of recent possum catches at Alex Perez's and at the Harding-Andersons. In fact, by the end of the week there were five fewer possums causing trouble in Hans Bay.  All the catches are summarised on the Trap.NZ site. This is what it looks like:

We all met up for coffee afterwards and reflected on our good fortune in being at the lake on a Tuesday morning.  It would have been a Saturday but only one of us knew where the Hans Bay traps are placed and couldn't be there at the weekend.

Now that there's a growing number of people who know where the traps are placed and how to service them, our future trap checking events will be on Saturdays on a monthly cycle. Paul Dunn's using WhatsApp to let those interested in being involved know of exact meeting dates, times, places and cancellations if the weather is super bad. There's no obligation to attend trap servicing events, but if you want to be alerted about them then please contact Paul and he'll add you to the WhatsApp group. His number is 0278028181.

Tuesday, January 7th, 2025 - Bang, bang, bang, bang, he's unstoppable (by Ian Anderson)

Before Christmas, 85 year old George Cooper took the cage off his trailer, hooked it up, and drove us down to McMullens ITM for another load of timber to build the second tranche of trap boxes. There's a lot of timber in a trap box... 2 metres of 250 x 25, another 2 metres of 200 x 25, and other bits and pieces. I think we had about 90 metres or so on his trailer. It was HEAVY. George drove us back to his place where we cut the timber into the lengths needed for the traps, including routering slots for fitting the baffles. After about four hours I was exhausted but George looked like he could go another round. It was like working with a 4WD in low range... unstoppable.  By the end of the day all the bits were trailered and put into my shed with extra help from Colin Boniface.  The three of us then went back to George's to give him and Phyllis a hand to get their new lounge suite upstairs from the garage to the lounge. "It wont' fit" Colin and I advised after measuring doors and trying to squeeze bits through with no luck. "We'll have to come back with some young blokes in the new year and lift it over your balcony" we said. "I think it will fit..." said George "but, oh well, we'll wait till after christmas then". 

After Christmas, in fact on 7th of January, George Cooper, Neil Challenger, Paul Dunn, Paul Harford and I set-to assembling the trap boxes and installing the traps. There was quite a racket. Each box has nineteen 75mm nails hammered into it, and sixteen screws driven in with an impact driver. And another four screws to fit the traps. PaulH and George were on nail hammering duties.  Approximately 200 nails each. Neil, clearly colour blind, decided to paint the traps red with his blood rather than the required black paint. For a while he seemed to have an unlimited supply of blood but it did run out eventually. PaulD was on quality control and trap adjustment. About 25% of the quite expensive trap mechanisms needed significant tweaking to be made to work. Disappointing, and a new supplier will be found for the next batch. I took on the role of supervisor and first aid supplier. I don't recommend electrical tape for major cuts.

The trap builders taking a break - except for the unstoppable one:

Some of the results of their work:

There was of course unfinished business from before Christmas. Colin and I'd promised to rustle up some young lads in the new year to lift George and Phyllis's new lounge suite up over the balcony. But, as it turned out, we didn't need to because the day after Colin and I'd assured George and Phyllis there was no other way of shifting it, they removed a door and a banister and did it themselves. 

 

Monday, December 23rd, 2024 - Bang, Bang! We're off to a good start! (by Ian Anderson)

"Don't expect any catches for at least three months" was the advice from Eigill. Apparently, rats and stoats are 'NewPhobic' i.e.: they're super wary of new things in their environment and it can take many months for them to get used to a new trap box before getting curious and brave enough to have a look inside, regardless of the lure of the bait.

It was less than two weeks since we'd built and placed the traps in the Kahikatea Walk so, when Paul Dunn said he was planning to check them on Monday, my thought was the best we could hope for was that there'd been no human interference with them. 

So there was great surprise and excitement when Paul sent through a photo of trap box KW014 with a dead rat in one trap, and a dead stoat in the other.  The picture below (don't look if you're squeemish!) shows how the stoat was attracted by the rat, coming in from the same end and over the top of it before being trying to exit over the second trap. 

Rats, stoats and other pests kill 25 million NZ birds a year.  That's two less to worry about.

Rat and stoat caught in KW014 in the Kahikatea Walk:

 

Tuesday - Thursday December 10th & 12th, 2024 - Building and placing traps in the Kahikatea Walk (by Ian Anderson)

Thanks to the generosity of the Lake Kaniere Community we got sufficient funds to build the first 20 traps for the Kahikatea Walk and material for another forty to go into the backyards of properties around the lake. The first priority has been to build and place the traps in the Kahikatea Walk and special thanks for this stage needs to go to:

• Mike Cole - ITM Greymouth, for supplying free of charge much of the timber needed for the first 20 traps
• Hamish McMullen - ITM Hokitika, for supplying more timber for the next tranche of traps at a discounted price
• George Cooper - Collecting timber from ITM Hokitika and cutting and routering it into kitset form for another 25 traps

• Liz Holland - Doing the research and grid mapping of trap and monitoring station placements, and designing the trap stencils
• Eigill Wahlberg - DOC Hokitika, who spent half a day helping place and adjust the traps for best results
• The team involved in the trap placements and set-up including Elizabeth Sawkins, Liz Holland, Neil Challenger, Eigill Wahlberg, Paul Dunn, Richard Mackley and me.

By late Thursday we'd got all the traps, tracking tunnels, and bird count stations in place and recorded in the Trap.NZ App. There's been a great sense of shared purpose and achievement amongst our group and we look forward to enabling the many volunteers who've put up their hands to be involved in some way soon. In the meantime, here are some relevant pictures:

Twenty trap boxes (each containing 2 x DOC200 stainless steel traps, ready for placing around Kahikatea Walk:

Placing traps in the bush:

All the traps, critter tracker tunnels, and bird count stations are recorded in Trap.NZ:

It was a very busy week for all those involved. It also provided some important lessons for the future:

• The most efficient trap building process requires a construction jig and two people. 
• Add the bait and egg nails before assembling the box.
• 25% of the stainless steel traps need adjustment and it's best to do this before putting them into the field.
• GPS location recording on Trap.NZ is pretty ropey when amongst 60M high Kahikatea. Marker tape will help narrow down where they are.
• It's best to keep your hand well clear of the pulverising plate when testing it - eh Paul!

Friday October 25th, 2024 - Meeting Eigill at the Kahikatea Walk (by Ian Anderson)

Emma and I'd met Eigill several months earlier at the DOC workshops in Hokitika. He's DOC's trapping expert and has been in the business for more than 20 years. A planned 15 minute visit turned into more than an hour of questions and explanations. We'd gone in there not knowing what we didn't know about trapping, and left much better informed but also knowing there was much much more to learn.

Fast forward to late October and Emma, Elizabeth Sawkins, Liz Holland, Paul Dunn, Waikohatu Scott and I were standing in the Sunny Bight carpark at the Kahikatea Walk entrance chatting with Eigill.  We'd arranged for him to give us guidance on where to place traps around the Walk.

Eigill taught us to think like a rat or stoat... finding the easiest path through the grass, travelling along paths and edges of water ways, sheltering from the rain, and looking for its next meal.  We also talked about the design of the traps, why stoats are mostly caught in the second trap in a double-trap tunnel only after the first trap has caught a rat, and how he's designed a break in the floor of the trap to stop sympathetic firing of the second trap when the first goes off.

It was a fascinating field trip, with one hour turning into two very quickly. We had plenty to think about and plan over coming weeks. Our short term ambition to place and maintain 20 traps around the Kahikatea Walk seemed very doable compared with the 3000 traps Eigill and his team have put in and maintain to protect the Whio in the mountain rivers.