The start of a new routine

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.

By 9.30am nearly sixty trap boxes with two traps each had been serviced and the Trap.NZ database updated. Not that it's a competition, but the Sunny Bight group were rather pleased with themselves confirming there's now one less stoat and one less rat to trouble our birds. The Hans Bay traps were only very recently made and placed and so no catches this time, noting that rats and stoats are 'newphobic'.  I'm sure we'll have better luck next month!  I certainly enjoyed the conversation and camaraderie as we made our way around the bay. 

A bonus for the Hans Bay group was the report of recent possum catches at Alex Perez's and at the Harding-Andersons. In fact, by the end of the week there were five fewer possums causing trouble in Hans Bay.  All the catches are summarised on the Trap.NZ site. This is what it looks like:

We all met up for coffee afterwards and reflected on our good fortune in being at the lake on a Tuesday morning.  It would have been a Saturday but only one of us knew where the Hans Bay traps are placed and couldn't be there at the weekend.

Now that there's a growing number of people who know where the traps are placed and how to service them, our future trap checking events will be on Saturdays on a monthly cycle. Paul Dunn's using WhatsApp to let those interested in being involved know of exact meeting dates, times, places and cancellations if the weather is super bad. There's no obligation to attend trap servicing events, but if you want to be alerted about them then please contact Paul and he'll add you to the WhatsApp group. His number is 0278028181.