Trapper Monthly, April 2025

April was relatively quiet. We had twelve outings. Which is reasonable. The reason for this lower number is that I was away on two walking trips. One was the Humpridge Track and the other the Rees/Dart Circuit. Plus, it was my birthday month. A good enough reason to almost have a break from trapping.

Anyway, we got nine possums. Astonishingly most of them on Piccadilly Line and two of them in trap T58 which had never had a possum before despite having been there for over two years! Now suddenly in one week there were two.

We also had 32 rats. Again, most of them on Piccadilly Line like in D7. Then there were two stoats, one weasel and seven hedgehogs. They are now off to their winter hibernation and should not appear again until September or October. They are still my least favourite catch if you can have favourites among the catches. Prickly to get out, smelly and maggoty. Really need gloves to get them out.
This month I also purchased two more cameras because I think the project is at a stage where  we need to do a bit monitoring to see what is going on. The cameras are really helpful. Like I put one near T37 because we had not caught anything there for a while. Is it really predator free around there? Well after a week the camera picked up two possums, mother and child, which was riding on the back of the mother. Frustrating it was to see these two. So, I shifted the trap right where the camera picked them up and visited more often to put fresh apple into the trap. And sure enough after a few days the young one was caught and a while later the other one. With help of the camera the trapping can be a bit more targeted and we might get the last stragglers or at least we know where they might be.

Then one of the new cameras I put down by the river near a new AT220 trap. The footage is quite astounding: a hare went by, a cat came and went and two black pigs turned up and then a huge coloured one, maybe a boar. Anthony has taken care of one or two of these pigs now. They caused a lot of damage on the walkway if it was these three pigs. No possum showed and no rats. Now I hope to get the cat in the AT220. They are very good at catching them.
 
 

 










​Here is a link if you want to see more:
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/6ir25vvtez3gcpkhob1i2/MFDC0014-Pigs.AVI?rlkey=je76u6ydk76mvyddekaoh1hap&st=7vwj76dk&dl=0
 
As you might already know when I did the Rees/Dart walk I saw three Takahe of which 18 were released in February. I noticed a lot of traps along the walkway and I asked the ranger what they were mainly catching. Stoats! They are targeting the stoats and as he told me they catch them even high up above 1000m in the tussock grass lands. Amazing. They also get hedgehogs up there. And some stoats are caught up in the Remarkables at over 2000m. The birds to protect up there are rock wrens and kea. And in fact when I stayed at the hut, Shelter Rock hut, at 920m, that is where I saw the Takahe, at night a possum appeared. Just shows how far they have spread. The rats on the other hand seem to be sensitive to cold temperatures and certainly to snow on the open tussock lands.
Would it not be amazing if one day we had Takahe in the Rakaia Gorge? I could imagine them on the island which has lots of tussocks. Their preferred food. But maybe the area is not suitable for Takahe but it certainly would be for kiwis!

Below is an image of three Takahe I saw in the Rees Valley! As you can see they are all tagged and have an antenna on their back. 

Thank you all for supporting the fantail trust! 

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