With its lake’s edge-hugging native bush, Bob’s Cove is one of Queenstown’s most-cherished visitor spots.

In past years, it’s also been a popular habitat for predators like possums and rats that have decimated the native wildlife.

But thanks to Pippa Speedy, in particular, that situation is reversing and native bids and bats are coming back.

Growing up on a sheep and cattle hill farm in southern Hawke’s Bay, Pippa says her passion for conservation was initially ignited by a neighbour “who used to walk us through the bush and tell us the names of the species and that sort of thing”.

After going to Marton’s Nga Tawa Diocesan School, “I moved around a little bit” then, at 20, she moved to Australia and attended floristry school in Sydney.

She then worked for a florist before opening her own shop, however got out of it due to “terrible dermatitis on my hands” from wiring work.

Pippa then retrained in nursing, and worked at Kareena Private Hospital where she met husband-to-be Geoff Speedy, who practised as a physio.

They decided living in a unit in Cronulla was not conducive to starting a family, so looked for somewhere else.

After hiking Fiordland’s Hollyford track, they alighted on Queenstown “and went, ‘well, this is pretty nice, if we can get jobs here, we’ll stay for a year’”.

After renting in perma frost at the top of Queenstown’s Fernhill, they moved to Arthurs Point while building on land they had found at Bob’s Cove.

They moved in in 2010, just before their son Tommy was born.

Pippa says “I was walking my dog one day and noticed all these possums — about 25 — in leg traps”, waiting to be plucked for their fur.

“Seeing how many possums we had here, I realised we had a predator problem, so that started me on this little mission to get cracking.”

She started with five possum traps — they love Bob’s Cove’s gums, she says — and also put out rat traps as they like being around the water.

Though handling dead animals wasn’t initially her cup of tea, “you just desensitise yourself”.

“You know, nursing, you’re trying to save lives, and out here we’re trying to kill things.”

In 2017, Pippa became a founding member of the Whakatipu Wildlife Trust with the likes of Tom Pryde and Phil Green.

“We thought if we set up a charitable trust we could get traps for free or GST-free, but we realised we couldn’t.”

However, the trust has been invaluable in educating trapping groups on traps and baits, and under the trust’s auspices groups could trap on Department of Conservation land. 

Pippa has also signed up to its lizard monitoring and latterly moth monitoring programmes.

Over the years, her predator group has laid 300-plus traps across seven lines connecting Bob’s Cove to Wilson Bay, 12 Mile, Closeburn and Moke Lake.

She personally walks between Lake Dispute and Moke Lake every week or two, rebaiting traps along the way, which can take over four hours — “I love it because it’s quiet and beautiful and you don’t see anyone”.

Having caught 10,000-plus predators in the area, trappers have been rewarded with the likes of native bats and kakariki birds returning.

“They say we’re at 85% predator-free in Bob’s Cove, which is pretty amazing — it means you can actually reintroduce species.

“We’ve made huge headway with the predators here, and if we can get traps on the Jessie Peak ridgeline, we’ll stop them coming in.”

Asked her opinion on Bob’s Cove’s controversial Waimarino Lodge plans, Pippa says she is on the fence — “I don’t really want to go on record saying anything about it because in his resource consent [the developer’s] got to do a lot of trapping”.

“If we can get him to actually fulfil that consent with all the trapping that is supposed to be done, it would be fantastic.”

In terms of threats Pippa’s more concerned with plans for a commercial zip line operation at 12 Mile Creek, “where we’ve got our traps on both side of the track”.

Her “little goal in life” is to introduce native whio using hatchlings from Queenstown’s Kiwi Park.

However, she says noise from the zipline, along with “screaming” clients, would put paid to that.

Pippa, who is also involved in the Regenerate Bob’s Cove neighbourhood group, says she loves the area — her family moved into another home there about 10 years ago.

“I love the bush, there’s a lot of history in here, and I love the community — there’s not many places in Queenstown that still have that community feel, and people are working together which is really lovely.”

Despite having spent so much time and money on trapping — “most of those traps we have to fund ourselves” — she’s not sure she could have become a fulltime conservationist.

“I think I do it because it’s my passion, and I’m not doing it as a job.”

As a parting shot, Pippa says it would be great if people who love walking around the area could commit to rebaiting traps along the way.

“And I’d love to see more people putting traps in their backyards because, if we do, we can reach the 2050 predator-free [goal].”

scoop@scene.co.nz