5,000 birds saved, 152 critters eliminated, 72 traps deployed, 33 traps in backyards at the lake, 20 families sponsoring a trap, five external organisations we are working with, two funding grants received

The April event was on Easter Saturday with lots of people at the lake expressing their support for the trapping programme. We had a great crew of young and not so young helpers at Hans Bay including at the young end of the spectrum Albie Moore (chief photo journalist), Xanthe Moore (digital technology operator) and their friends Flyn (power tool operator) and Emily (team supervisor). At the older end of the spectrum we had David Richards, Trevor Cassie, Liz Holland and me. O

Saturday was a typically calm warm Lake Kaniere day, where two teams set out to check the trap lines: one in Sunny Bight consisting of Liz Sawkins and Paul Dunn; the other in Hans Bay consisting of Ian Anderson, Sandy Robbins and myself Malcolm Robbins. I'm kind of new around here - a bit more on that later.  I performed the easy task of removing the lids, while Ian performed the less pleasant task of removing the remains and Sandy kept the community vibe going.

At 8.00am on another perfectly clear and windless morning two separate groups assembled at Hans Bay and Sunny Bight to check traps and replace stale bait.  The Hans Bay group comprised Colin Boniface, Steve Blackwood and Ian Anderson. The Sunny Bight group was Liz Sawkins and Paul Dunn.

Before Christmas, 85 year old George Cooper took the cage off his trailer, hooked it up, and drove us down to McMullens ITM for another load of timber to build the second tranche of trap boxes. There's a lot of timber in a trap box... 2 metres of 250 x 25, another 2 metres of 200 x 25, and other bits and pieces. I think we had about 90 metres or so on his trailer. It was HEAVY. George drove us back to his place where we cut the timber into the lengths needed for the traps, in

"Don't expect any catches for at least three months" was the advice from Eigill. Apparently, rats and stoats are 'NewPhobic' i.e.: they're super wary of new things in their environment and it can take many months for them to get used to a new trap box before getting curious and brave enough to have a look inside, regardless of the lure of the bait.

First 20 traps are out there

Lessons from Eigill of DOC in thinking like a stoat