Trapper Monthly, September 2025

Dear Trappers and Fantail Friends, greeting from Switzerland!

It is sensational. In September we only caught two possums! Last year it was 29! It seems we are on top of the pest. Some will still be lurking around down there but not many. Cameras will be showing what and where. And then we can target those with more traps! It is very exciting and promising. The birds will love it.

Thank you all for doing the work and going out and looking after traps. The weather seems to have been quite bad in September too. But despite that the shop has been doing a roaring trade with lots of souvenirs taken and lots of postcards being posted.

Rats are of course still around too, and we caught twelve of them plus one stoat. That is a good result too. There are some hotspots for rats like around D15 on Piccadilly and D37 on Waterloo. That is very pleasing too.

There are mice as well. There is a phenomenon called mesopredator release which means that when one species like rats is eliminated another one like mice takes over and the population just explodes and causes real damage to ecosystems, like  stripping of seeds, predation of insects and skinks or geckos and ground nesting birds.

This month was also the New Zealand Bird of the Year competition which was won by the falcon or Karearea. There were 73 birds contesting the competition and the New Zealand Falcon won with 21% of the votes out of 75000 participants.

The falcons hunt at great speeds reaching up to 200 km an hour when diving for their prey. There are only about 5000 to 8000 of them left putting them at risk of extinction. Incidentally Sue and Jon on one of their trapping rounda saw a pair of them in the Rakaia Gorge. Hopefully they will be nesting somewhere in the cliffs above the river.  They are magnificent birds as the two pictures below show. 

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There are 38 species of falcons worldwide and the New Zealand falcon is the only one endemic to this country. It is found both in the North and South Islands even down to Auckland Island. There are three forms of which the bush falcon lives in the forest mainly in the North Island, an Eastern variety in the central South Island and a Southern one in Fiordland and Auckland Island.

They usually lay three to four eggs which take up to 33 days to hatch. The falcons do not build nests but lay their eggs in scrapes on the ground or under rock outcrops and sometimes in an emerging forest on an epiphyte.

That makes them very vulnerable to predators. Especially cats are a problem as even the falcon finds it difficult to defend the chicks against such a large predator. But rats, stoats and even hedgehogs are known to have attacked their nests. Another problem seems to be windfarms, shooting by people despite their protected status and electrocution on power poles.
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There are positive things too in this battle for a better world. There are areas where real success has been achieved in eliminated predators like the Miramar Peninsula in Wellington, Zealandia of course and other sanctuaries. That is great motivation to continue the fantail project and turn the Rakaia Gorge into one of those sanctuaries. So, thank you again for your support and trapping efforts.