Predator Free Wānaka has set up and manages trap lines around Wānaka, Hāwea, Hāwea Flat, Albert Town, Luggate, and the Cardrona River.
The volunteer-led organisation has installed numerous trap lines, containing more than 1,100 traps in total, as we work to reduce the number of introduced predators.
Our many volunteers clear the traps on a regular basis throughout the year.
Newcastle line
It’s not often you need a jet boat, quad bikes and a team of volunteers on mountain bikes to install traps but we needed all those for setting up the recent 14 kilometre-long Newcastle trapline, which extends from Albert Town through to Luggate.
Three PFW volunteers did monitoring prior to putting the trapline in, finding mice, rats, stoats, ferrets, hedgehogs and possums. Four volunteers took a ride in the jet boat to deposit traps along the riverbank, another used a quad bike to shuttle traps into the right location, eight others rode mountain bikes to bait and set the traps, and 10 volunteers are rostered to check and re-bait the traps.
It’s really been a community effort. The Rotary Club of Wānaka provided funds to get the trap line set up and Aspiring Rotary Club also contributed funds while a team at the Wānaka Community Workshop built the traps that were installed.
Cardrona river trap line
A new trap line has been set up alongside the Cardrona river. It starts at the bridge which crosses the Cardrona river on the Wānaka-Luggate highway, heads towards Ballantyne road, and continues south of the road along the river to Hill End station.
Monitoring for the six-kilometre-long trap line was undertaken by Megan Davies (Predator Free Wānaka), Sam Reay (Southern Lakes Sanctuary) and Predator Free Wānaka volunteer William Grieve.
Megan was then joined by Predator Free Wānaka’s Ian Clarke and Emma Fitzpatrick to lay out DOC200s and DOC 250s which trap rats, stoats, hedgehogs and ferrets, and include mouse traps inside. There have also been possum traps installed along the trap line.
This follows the line of a future track in planning stages by the Upper Clutha Tracks Trust.
