Community collaborates for conservation

Members of the trapping initiatives, Guy Kennedy, left, Ailsa Rollinson, and Murray Gifford, are...
Members of the trapping initiatives, Guy Kennedy, left, Ailsa Rollinson, and Murray Gifford, are preparing for a trapping information evening on December 3 in Wanaka. PHOTO: RAWAN SAADI
A group of local businesses, initiatives and volunteers have joined forces to help reach Wānaka’s goal of being predator free by 2050.

Mags Helles, the new trustee for Southern Lakes Sanctuary, has brought together several of Wānaka’s trapping initiatives to create a stronger network of people, all of whom are passionate about protecting Aotearoa’s birds and lizards.

Southern Lakes Sanctuary provides support for 12 trapping groups, including Wānaka Multi-Sport Trapping, Forest & Bird, Wānaka Backyard Trapping, Wānaka Community Workshop and MT Outdoors.

Traps made by the Wanaka Community Workshop for trapping projects around Wanaka.
Traps made by the Wanaka Community Workshop for trapping projects around Wanaka.
Each of these groups has done their part in either trapping pests, promoting backyard trapping or making traps for suburban and remote use.

Murray Gifford, a volunteer for both Wānaka Community Workshop and Forest & Bird, works with 70 other volunteers who have set over a thousand traps across the Makarora region, focusing significantly on catching rats and possums.

He also helps make the Department of Conservation 200 traps being used by both volunteers in remote areas and locals in suburban Wānaka.

Mr Gifford estimates over the last few years they have caught over a thousand pests, most of which were rats and possums.

Ailsa Rollinson, co-manager of MT Outdoors Three Parks and member of Wānaka Multisport Trapping, emphasised how important trapping was for the local birdlife, saying it was a way to "maintain" bird numbers.

Guy Kennedy, chairman of Wānaka Backyard Trapping, echoed the importance of protecting existing bird life and said that although they should do bird counts, the areas they covered "were too big".

Mr Gifford commented on bird numbers, saying that there was no official bird count.

However, he and the volunteers he worked with had noticed more tui and kereru in the locations they trapped and their backyards, something he attributed to their successful trapping, he said.

Southern Lakes Sanctuary, along with other groups and businesses, are hosting an information night on December 3 to inform the public on what they are doing and promote backyard trapping.

rawan.saadi@alliedpress.co.nz