![]() January behind us. It was not a bad month for trapping. We did 15 possums, 28 rats, 12 mustelids and 7 hedgehogs. The possum number is about average for January. In fact 15 is the second best January ever! Still no trend in sight for declining numbers of possums. Certain areas certainly have fewer possums but then out of the blue there was a possum in trap T18. Its been there for years and done lots of possums the last one being February 24! Almost a year in between catches. Where did it come from?! Never mind we keep on trapping. Between all of us we had twenty outings. There was a remarkable one by Robert and Karen on the 19th January in pouring rain and very cold too. Not even I muster such dedication. I give the trapper of the month medal to them. Another great catch was by Tony who got two pigs! They can make some real damage to the forest and these two pigs even had a go at the walkway itself. Just churned it all up. Another strange day was on the 7th when I got ten rats all on Piccadilly Line! Very unusual. The forest is full of bird song and especially around the coal mine there seem to be a lot of bellbirds and recently two or three kereru! I believe they all feed on the fuchsia trees and are after the berries which are abundant now. I picked myself a few. They are quite sweet but only when fully ripened. A lot of tourists are using the walkway now. From France quite a few, Germany, Holland and England. They love the visitor book and often write lovely comments about the walk into it. I must get the shop up and running! There are no residents yet in the Weta Condo! On the 30th Barry from next door was kind enough to give me a hand to transport 20 new traps to the upper lookout point. He has a nifty little four wheel drive, and the traps fitted into the trailer no problem. We made it right to the lookout point driving across the island. The next day I went back and deployed most of the traps and put them into position. Rather hard work it was going up and down each time with two traps in my hands. But it is all done. The numbers are D139 to D158. Circle Line is now all equipped with DOC150 traps. Every 40 to 50 meters. It remains to be seen how these new traps perform. Some are still in the forest but most are on the open grassland. I guess in the forest it will be rats and on the open spaces more stoats and weasels. Will see.
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