Predator Free Mystery Creek

20/12/2022

TOP TRAPPING TIP TUESDAY on Wednesday!
Lots of tips actually because it’s Christmas!

Unfortunately not getting catches in your traps is probably not due to the fact you have cleared out all the pests in the area. If it were that easy, we’d be predator free already!

Try one, or better still ALL of these ideas to increase your catch rate;
⭐️ Bait your traps frequently. Do it more often than you currently are.
⭐️ Fresh bait is best. If there’s no bait left or it’s dried and manky, it’s not going to entice pests in.
⭐️ Place bait in the trap, leading up to the trap and bait all around the environment. (Cam Speedys 1/3 1/3 1/3 rule).
⭐️ Scuff the dirt at the entrance of the trap to simulate an animal digging.
⭐️ Ensure the trap is stable so it doesn’t rock and turn off predators.
⭐️ File down or bend the sharp wire (sprags) from the trap entrance.
⭐️ Throw a flour blaze trail around the whole area to make it exciting and obvious to predators.
⭐️ Make sure there is a possum trap and a ground trap in the same spot so that there is more scent trails and activity in the area. One stop trap stop!
⭐️ Use fresh caught carcasses to rub in the trap and create trails leading to the trap box for other predators to follow.
⭐️ Try different baits. Change it up!
⭐️ Place traps near waterways, gullies or in vegetation/bush where the pests are likely to inhabit.
⭐️ Look for signs of pest presence (actual sightings of pest, leaf damage, scratch marks, s**t, animal runs/trails), and put your traps there.

Spend the TIME, make the EFFORT, get the RESULTS! Spend 5 minutes at each trap implementing these ideas.

15/12/2022

Aotearoa is home to over 20,000 species of insects and spiders – and there are still more that need to be discovered! The Entomological Society of New Zealand wants to make sure YOU have the tools to discover the insects and spiders that are living all around you! We have 24 nominees vying for NZ ...

12/12/2022

TOP TRAPPING TIP TUESDAY
Mutton or beef fat (not pork), is a great bait to use in mustelid and rat traps.
🐑 It lasts better than fresh meat in hot weather
🐑 Insects and slugs aren’t so keen to eat it
🐑 Use little blobs of fat around the trap box and along tracks to entice pests
🐑 Rub it on to the wire mesh of trap entrances and inside baffles
You can get mutton fat from home kill operations and some butchers.
Divide it up into portions and freeze until needed.

08/12/2022

TOP TRAPPING TIP TUESDAY (on Thursday...)

Place traps in warm, dry spots as many predator pests don't like to get their feet wet (particularly feral cats and ferrets).

Avoid putting traps in ground dips where water can pool or in soggy patches. This can be tricky in winter time! Sheds and hay barns are great spots too on farms.

29/11/2022

TOP TRAPPING TIP TUESDAY

Depending on what your target species is, the types of bait you use will vary accordingly. However, baits are best FRESH, placed in and around the trap LIBERALLY and also CHANGE baits types all the time to keep those pests interested.

Here are some baits to try that have been recommended;
🥜 Rats - peanut butter (or other nut butters), Nutella, meat, cheese, fresh mouse or rat body, Smooth lure, Eggsellent.
🍏 Possums - Apple & cinnamon, apple & icing sugar, apple & aniseed, dried apricot, peanut butter & icing sugar, any seasonal fruit, Smooth lure, Possum Dough.
🥩 Mustelid (stoats, ferrets, weasels) - fresh rabbit, Erayz dried rabbit, egg, fresh rat body, fresh mustelid body, mutton fat, Lure-it salmon lure

Using a fresh bait and a longer lasting bait in the same trap can be helpful too.

Note that all the commercially prepared baits mentioned can be purchased online.

27/11/2022

Predator free goals. Great stuff!

Introduced predators and habitat loss saw New Zealand’s national bird vanish from the capital 100 years ago. A new cohort of 11 birds is changing all that

21/11/2022

TOP TRAPPING TIP TUESDAY
Place a ground trap and a possum trap in the same location. In the first photo, both traps had caught pests.
It's easy since it's one stop for checking traps but more importantly, it means there are more predator pests visiting this one spot and leaving scent trails for others to follow. It becomes a place of intense interest to predators.
It also means when you are using lures and blaze, you only have to do it in one place reducing products used. See second photo with blue Smooth lure and flour blaze around both traps.

21/11/2022

Great info from Predator Free Hakarimata

Possums don't like water. 💧During all this rainy weather they will be camped up at home. Once this rain clears it's a really great time to have all your traps firing as they will be coming out looking for other food sources and be keen to meet up with all their mates to head out to dinner and party. 🥂 We'll be on high alert and we hope you are too. 😎😎
📷: Greg Townsend: Brushtail Possum, invasive aussie predator, Hakarimata.

17/11/2022

Great to see this Pepkapeka tou roa/Long-tailed bat being released after rehabilitation after being caught by a pet cat in Hamilton. Most pekapeka aren’t so lucky after a cat attack.