Predator Free army makes gains across city
This article was originally written by our Board Chairperson Tim Pankhurst and published by The Post on 29 June 2024. See original article here.
A resident tūī in a scruffy tree alongside the steep Church St steps from Boulcott St up to The Terrace gives pause to those puffing by.
Its sweet song, chortles and gurgles may well be one of thanks.
Predator Free Wellington’s Alastair Henshaw and Massey University’s Charlie Potter co-operating on campus
The Predator Free Wellington army is making big advances in its citywide war against rats, its many supporters including The Post in this weekly Return of the Dawn Chorus series.
After exiting the Miramar Peninsula, declared predator free last November, the PFW team is making good progress through phase two from Ōwhiro Bay north across the central city.
Ship rats, Norway rats, stoats and weasels have now been eliminated from more than 1200 hectares, which includes the suburbs of Rongotai, Kilbirnie and Lyall Bay. Challenging areas through Hataitai and Evans Bay are also coming under control.
Catch rates and bait station interactions are all declining rapidly, showing the battle of attrition is swinging in the team’s favour. At its peak in Hataitai, over 250 separate bait station interactions by rats were being recorded a fortnight in that suburb alone.
Hataitai and Roseneath presented a daunting prospect. Native bush, dense vegetation, gullies, steep escarpments, cliff faces are difficult to access and are ideal rat habitat.
The campaign logistics are impressive. The network of traps and bait stations is so intensive it is almost impossible for rats not to encounter them. A total of 1489 traps and 3401 bait stations have already been installed in phase two. They are being monitored by 504 cameras. The full rollout will incorporate 2596 traps and 8488 bait stations.
As areas are successfully cleared and the focus moved to long term biosecurity, labour resources are pushed forward. The team has started elimination work in Mt Victoria, Evans Bay and Oriental Bay.
Mt Victoria is also proving to be ideal rat habitat with the camera network recording 400 photos of rats in a single night. Groups like the Mt Victoria Vermin Trappers, among more than 100 active volunteers, are helping make faster progress.
No stoats or weasels have been recorded on Mt Victoria. Nailing the rats removes a food source and any mustelids that are present will become less trap and bait shy.
Householders in some cases have questioned the need for traps on their properties, saying they do not have any rats.
“People who say that are kidding themselves,” PFW project director James Willcocks says. “They are everywhere and they are in very high numbers.”
Even posh people have rats. Once Evans Bay and Oriental Bay are cleared, the active front will swing south with backs to the sea on the march towards the southern boundary of the phase two area.
The move off Miramar Peninsula has brought a new predator target species into the sights – possums. They were eliminated from the peninsula by Greater Wellington Regional Council partners in the early 2000s. Working with the council, the Mt Victoria green belt area has been comprehensively swept, confirmed by a specialist possum detection dog.
The work also involves establishing internal buffer systems to minimise the risk of target animals accessing active elimination zones.
A 30ha slice of Te Aro between the Basin Reserve to the east and Taranaki St to the west encompassing Massey University’s former Dominion Museum site, Wellington High School and Pukeahu National War Memorial Park represents another challenge.
Alastair Henshaw, Predator Free Wellington’s field supervisor – community outreach, was considering a plan of attack when the university coincidentally stepped up.
Massey sustainability, policy and communications co-ordinator Charlie Potter was looking for a way to reconnect staff and students with the campus after the dislocation of the Covid pandemic.
Trapping predators and supporting native wildlife in the bushy surrounds seemed the perfect answer all round.
“We are training the students and staff, setting the network up and then giving them responsibility for managing it,” Henshaw says.
He was also contacted by staff from Te Papa’s wet collection facility in Tory St concerned about rat sightings in their area, home to a population bold enough to move about during the day.
Henshaw says once the bait stations and traps are in place, the resident rats will soon be dealt to with the help of the new volunteer programme.
“Increasingly we are having not just volunteers but different partnership projects,” he says. “That takes the workload off us.”
The ultimate measure of success is not rat and mustelid corpse count, or number of traps, bait stations and cameras, but rather return of native birdlife, lizards and invertebrates.
Pīwakawaka, tūī, kākā and riroriro (grey warbler) are all thriving. The latest bird count shows a near doubling of native numbers on Miramar Peninsula since the inception of PFW in 2017.
Posted: 29 June 2024