The 2025 year in summary

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

Saving - About this time last year we installed our first 20 traps at the Kahikatea Walk in Sunny Bight, over the year increasing this to 72 traps between Sunny Bight and Hans Bay. Excitingly, since we started we have trapped 152 critters: 14 stoats, 91 rats, 28 possums, 11 mice and a few whose grizzly remains we couldn't identify. Amongst this tally are six rats and five mice killed on the Hans Bay Islands, where we had our last kill in August. There has been no sign of predators on the islands since, so we are regarding them as our first ‘predator free’ enclave (yippee) - well at least until the next rat swims over there. Conservatively speaking, if we hadn’t got these 152 critters first, they could have killed 5000 birds for dinner. So a great result, perhaps explaining why people are saying there are more birds at the lake!

Thinking - These successful results are the front end stuff, which involves ordering, assembling and installing traps and checking and rebaiting them every month. Supporting these results, there is a lot of work going on ‘behind the scenes’, working on the what and how of our next moves. Key among these is seeing if we can make the Canoe Cove Peninsula predator free and expanding the area we cover at the Kahikatea Walk and along Sunny Bight. With this in mind we have been deploying thermal/motion cameras (camera traps) to try and work out where the most critters are (the cameras were purchased with a grant gratefully received from the West Coast Community Trust). Once the results are in, over the next six months we plan to set up at least one trap line on the Canoe Cove Peninsula.

Collaborating - Birds for Life leads the charge on work at Lake Kaniere, but it is very much a team effort. What began with a handful of people from ‘the lake’ has expanded to include not only a great many more people from ‘the lake’ but to also reach far beyond it. In applied education, the project is now working with staff and students from Westland High School and Kaniere School. In strategic thinking it is working with trappers from adjacent trapping areas - particularly the Mt Te Kinga Group. Institutionally we are working with the Department of Conservation and the Regional Council and are part of an initiative looking Coast wide at predator free issues and opportunities. There are people writing grant applications. There are people plotting the way ahead. It's a community thing and its success comes from the efforts of the many.

Pretty good for our first year.