Mags Helles, the new trustee for Southern Lakes Sanctuary, has brought together several of Wanaka’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 Wanaka Multi-Sport Trapping, Forest & Bird, Wanaka Backyard Trapping, Wanaka Community Workshop and MT Outdoors.
Murray Gifford, a volunteer for both Wanaka 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 Wanaka.
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 Wanaka Multisport Trapping, emphasised how important trapping was for the local birdlife, saying it was a way to "maintain" bird numbers.
Guy Kennedy, chairman of Wanaka 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.
