Learning how to terminate killers

There is little point in trying to trap a stoat with an apple.

Why? Stoats are carnivores.

That was one pearl of wisdom handed to those attending a predator trapping workshop in Queenstown last week.

A dozen people from trapping projects throughout the Whakatipu Basin attended the workshop, including The Remarkables ski area, Rees Valley Station and the Kiwi Birdlife Park.

Department of Conservation senior biodiversity ranger Lisa Thurlow said the workshop, a collaboration with the Nelson Marlborough Institute of Technology, aimed to help the region’s ‘‘extremely passionate’’ community trappers get the best possible results from their efforts to control predators such as rats, stoats and possums.

The participants were also taught the importance of monitoring results; not only the number of predators they caught but outcomes such as vegetation regrowth and bird numbers.

The Remarkables pest management co-ordinator Michel Lepage said he and a colleague attended the course as part of a 3-year-old project by their employer, NZSki, to protect endangered kea visiting the ski area.

‘‘We’re getting a good success rate, but it was good to learn on the course about the things we could improve on — there were a few.’’

Mr Lepage said they already managed 50 traps, but he wanted to double that number and carry out more predator monitoring.

In the past three years, the number of trapping projects run by community groups and businesses in the Whakatipu Basin has increased from about a dozen to more than 50.

Earlier this month, the umbrella group for the region’s trapping projects, the Whakatipu Wildlife Trust, reported more than 8500 rats, possums and mustelids had been caught in the past 12 months — a threefold increase on a year earlier.