Community Stoat Trapping
The Waiheke community has been working on trapping predators for many years. Below are some of the stoat projects that led to the island wide stoat eradication.
Rob Morton with trap
The Awaawaroa Ecovillage has been trapping stoats for 25 years. Over this time they have caught 120 stoats, the majority of which were caught in one trap on a narrow bridge across the water.
A small number of traps are active all year around, however, the number of traps are increased significantly from the end of August to the end of February during native bird breeding seasons. A team of six volunteers man the 25 traps daily.
The HGCT stoat pilot project ran from October 2016 to March 2017 across private and public land from Whakanewha to Onetangi. 154 traps were laid out on a 400m x 400m grid involving 68 landowners. Five stoats were caught during the pilot. The pilot was an important stepping stone in order to get the funding for Te Korowai o Waiheke.
Whakanewha ranger Natasha Beletzky
Stoat trapping has been happening in Whakanewha Regional Park for the last ten years. Initially, it was focused on protecting the dotterel breeding area, however, the number of active traps has grown each year from 20 seven years ago to 57 today. These traps usually catch two or three stoats per breeding season.
The Collective Stoat project followed the HGCT Stoat project with an additional focus on protecting areas of high biodiversity eg kororā and kākā nests. It has been running for two years in several areas of the island including; Hekerua/Enclosure Bay, Onetangi beach/Onetangi Reserve and Rangihoua. Volunteers and paid trappers are both involved in managing these traps.
