Rat Trapping in our Backyard

Some children from Mahutonga and Matariki have been going down the bank to set some traps. We wanted to get rid of the pests which are eating the seeds, preventing the native bush from growing.

We set 2 traps and we put one weta hotel by the Puriri tree.  We have been baiting them with Peanut butter but as yet have not caught any.  Those rats are really clever managing to trip the trap without getting caught and then cleaning all the peanut butter off so that they are completely clean.  

We are wondering what we need to do differently so that we catch some pests.  Do any of you have any ideas?  Please leave a comment.

Here is one of the traps →.

Oto with one of the traps.

We also did some planting of more native trees down the bank with Brian Thomas, the head ranger for the Eastern suburbs.  We planted some Rewarewa, Tuapata,Tarata, Totara, Kawakawa and Kohekohe as well as some species we don’t know the names of.

By Jack.H and Burton

Down the bank...

Nicola hadn't been down the bank yet so we took her on an adventure. We were looking for fauna (especially insects), flora treasure and anything else...

This is what happened:

Nicola goes down the bank from Nicola Stevenson on Vimeo.

Brian (a ranger from the council) came in to talk to us about the fauna in our local area. 

Brian talked to us about pests. He held up a picture of hedgehogs. Hedgehogs look cute, but they eat lots of our native insects. We are holding insect legs in the picture (above). Hedgehogs can eat all of these insects in one night. 

This is poo from different pests. We will investigate what animals the poo has come from. Find out more about pests at:  

http://www.pestdetective.org.nz/

Brian showed us a homemade trap. We have been designing our own traps. 

Watch this space...