Trapper Monthly, March 2026

March it is and marching on we do. Great month and the weather finally settled a bit. Good stretches of sunshine and no rain. Good for trapping and outings. In fact, we had 18 of them. The good weather enabled me to finish two new lines: Top Fairway and Lower Fairway! And hard work it was too cutting a path through dense undergrowth.

These lines are just below the golf course and go through some beautiful native bush full of broadleaves and fuchsia. In between lots of ferns and pittosporums. Unfortunately, there are also quite a few sycamores. But Ecan seem to be taking care of that. There were some patches of brambles too. Very hard to get through. But now all sorted. The traps will go in shortly. They might not yield many possums but certainly the rats will get wakening up!

There are rather a lot of birds in there too. Usually, bellbirds and grey warblers but also many fantails. At some point, when cutting through the undergrowth, I was surrounded by about ten fantails all going on in crazy acrobatics and very excitedly as if welcoming my intrusion or disapproving. Almost a telling off! I just love these little birds. Cheeky, trusting, noisy and nosey. What’s going on Trapman?!

Well, we are trapping as never before. And getting those critters in big numbers. Watch out we are going to get you! And here are the numbers: 23 possums, 35 rats, 3 stoats and 3 hedgehogs. The possums are a bit of a mystery. They are well up on our average catch for March and way more than the average of the last few months. It is sort of disappointing. It is almost a record number!

Most of them were caught on the edge of the forest where we have traps as a sort of virtual predator fence. So maybe these are attempted re-invasions caught just before entering the forest. The rats are a bit all over the place, but the catches are very much lower on Piccadilly Line, which is the first line we established. That is good news. The stoats are just unpredictable as they have such a large range of territory.

The birds are certainly there. Plenty of bellbirds, silvereyes and grey warblers. The fantails are prolific too and so are the kereru. Mind you not hundreds of them, but enough to be able to observe them almost every day.
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Then we had two special outings to the Totara Tree! One with Marcel, chief trapper, and Jon and Sue, also chief trappers, plus Christine, chief trapper wife, who managed to get there without too much complaint albeit with a little drama. Now that is exactly five people who have seen the Totara, a five hundred year old tree in the Rakaia Gorge! It does not get much better than that in my world!

Christine and Sue under the Totara tree

Talking about trees we have also discovered a stand of old narrow-leaved lacebarks. At first, I was not sure what it was, but when I put a photo onto iNaturalist, it was confirmed as being a lacebark. It is endemic to New Zealand and officially named Hoheria angustifolia from the family Malvaceae. Late in summer or early autumn it is full of lovely white flowers. It is evergreen although some trees might lose part of their leaves in winter.

I always thought that it was a bush or a shrub rather than a tree, but when I came upon this specimen it had very smooth straight trunk, dividing further up, with weeping branches hanging low down. The bark was sometimes used by Maori to make traditional textiles. The Latin name derives from the Maori name: houhere.
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Hugh Wilson, biologist over on Banks Peninsula, and guardian of the Hinewai Reserve, found a lacebark with a diameter of 130 centimetres, which is very unusual as they normally are only about 30 centimetres thick. However, ‘our’ tree is at least 60 centimetres in diameter making it also older than the average. Just wait a few years and we are going to beat Hugh Wilson! 

Lacebark

The shop performed exceptionally well too during March. In fact, we run out of things to sell! Anybody out there keen in producing little tokens or souvenirs for sale in the shop? Jon cannot keep up with painting the stones. Christine has not enough clay to make more souvenirs and Juliana is stressed with printing more cards! Maybe we should make the shop bigger too. Who would have thought of that.

A Swiss couple were so impressed by the shop and our work that they donated a substantial amount to the cause and wrote this email: ‘During our holiday in New Zealand we experienced so many beautiful things, above all in nature, that we would like to leave something behind… we hope that thanks to you many more birds and other animals will find their way back into the Rakaia Gorge’. It makes for a fuzzy brain or heart.

The visitors’ book too is full of encouraging comments and makes very inspired reading. I usually open the book when passing and just have a look as to who has been visiting. People from New Zealand and from all over the world. And the post box is amazing. I pick up every time a few cards to be sent to Australia, America, England, all over. We even had to order more stamps. The Fantail Trust stamps of $2.90.

So, it is all good news about the Fantail Trust. But other people have been at it as well. All working to the common goal of making New Zealand predator free or as I would prefer to call it, making New Zealand a paradise for birds and all native species. The movement, if it can be called a movement, seems to be getting traction.
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There was the good news that Otago Peninsula near Dunedin has been declared possum free! What a milestone and what an achievement. It took a huge effort with many organisations involved, like the Halo Trust, City Sanctuary, Predator Free Dunedin and many others. They removed more than 26000 possums in an area of over 9000 ha. It took 15 years of sustained effort to get to this point, more than a 1000 volunteers and Scout, the possum dog. It proves that with support from industry and the public that it is possible to clear large-scale areas of possums. 

Scout, the possum dog

Another good news story is that near Stewart Island, on Anchor Island, the first kakapo chick hatched on Valentine’s day! Remarkable as they only breed every two to four years and then face many challenges of survival.
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According to Predator Free 2050 this season there are 187 eggs of which 74 are fertile. Not all of them will hatch but it is a good number and brings a lot of hope of having one day a sizable colony of kakapo on Stewart Island. You can watch the chick growing up on the webcam:
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HB00JW39528

Kakapo Chick

Yet one more little uplifting story, if you are in the business of trapping, is one also from Otago, but this one among the mountains in the Rees Valley. The one I walked last year where I spotted four takahe. Well, staff from the Southern Lakes Sanctuary, while putting in a new trap line, saw a pair of Whio in the Rees River!
These birds have not been seen in the river for more than 50 years! What a return on effort and investment! It is a significant milestone and of great importance to Ngai Tahu. A Taonga is returning to a stunning river valley deep in the mountains of New Zealand. Important surely for all of us. We must keep going and as Paul Kavanagh, of the Southern Lakes Sanctuary, says:  “Our conservation efforts, it just has to keep going. You can't take your foot off the gas so hopefully this pair of whio stay in the area, others naturally return and we get a breeding population of whio soon”. Here in the gorge, we are eagerly awaiting the arrival of Tuis!

So, a lot is happening all over New Zealand. But so much more needs to be done. If the goal of Predator Free 2050 is going to be achieved we need more efficiency, better traps, better lures and maybe better poisons too. We should not completely disregard humane poisons that kill effectively, fast and are not a burden on the environment. Because how otherwise are we going to get large, rugged areas, say Fiordland, predator free?

There are many people and organisations working on that, to develop a next generation of tools and technologies to achieve the goal. We use some of these tools like the AT220 automatic traps and the A24 traps for rats. Our network has now grown to just about 600 traps all along the walkway and further into the bush as well. We also use cameras to monitor different areas of the forest just to see what is happening and what predators are still around.
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But as clever as new technology is, it will not be enough to become predator free by 2050. It needs people. It needs you! Therefore, thank you all who have contributed in some way to the future native bird and plant sanctuary in the Rakaia Gorge. And a special thank you to the Chief Trappers! Sue and Jon, Marcel and Mel, Paul and Jo.