Motueka Town Trappers records its 50th rat!!
The Motueka town Trappers had their 2nd trap collection meet up at the Motueka Library last Sunday where people from Motueka could come and pick up their free rat trap and box and join up to the Motueka Town Trappers Group on TrapNZ. This meet-up was also an opportunity for those alread with a trap to come and ask questions and get some advice from the trapping team shown above.
The town now has 120 traps registered on TrapNZ populating an area around the Motueka waterfront, along with other traps scattered through the town. The project has just registered its 50th rat caught and 77 overall catches which is a great milestone and demonstrates the enthusiasm the community has for catching these pesky vermins and looking after our local wildlife!
MCC and the Pest Management Group kicked off the project with a very successful stall at the Motueka Sunday Market back in April during Conservation Week, where we gave out over 50 traps.
“We heard lots of stories about rats everywhere and a few people said they’d seen possums!,” says MCC coordinator Dana Carter, who was at the market alongside a team of volunteers as shown in the above photos, including trapping leads Paul McEntee and Paul Leach, Jacob Lucas and Steve Holloway from MCC’s Pest Management group, MCC’s Lucy Maxwell, and others who gave up their Sunday morning to share their knowledge and get people set up. “We’re very much looking forward to hearing about everyone’s catches.”
The videos and photos below show some of action on the very busy market day.
The timber for the trap boxes was sourced at cost from Placemakers, and the Nelson Trout Fishing Club made the boxes. Funding for this project has come from Predator Free NZ Trust after MCC was successful in being awarded $5000 after applying last year. It’s a team effort!
The project is focused on the Motueka waterfront area — around Motueka Quay, Thorp Street, Teece Drive, Harbour Road, Adair Drive, and Fearon Street — where rats, stoats, and other predators threaten the taonga sea and shore birds, skinks, and lizards that live along the estuary and sandspit. Free Victor rat traps are being distributed to households in the area, with local trapping leads on hand to help with placement, baiting, keeping cats and children safe, and getting catches logged on trap.nz.
Why it matters
Motueka sits in an extraordinary location. Kahurangi and Abel Tasman to the west and east, the Raukūmara area, the Motueka River, the sandspit and estuary — native life surrounds the town on all sides. That proximity is both an opportunity and a responsibility.
Predators undermine all of it. Rats degrade houses, chew wiring, destroy gardens, and devastate ground-nesting birds. Stoats and possums do the same.
Urban trapping directly protects the birds and wildlife on our doorstep — and connects the town’s effort to the wider network of trapping initiatives across the region, from Farewell Spit to Nelson, from St Arnaud to Wakapuaka, that may groups are helping to coordinate.
The benefits aren’t only ecological. Research and experience from successful urban trapping programmes in Wellington and Dunedin show real gains in community connection and wellbeing — people getting to know their neighbours, sharing a common goal, noticing nature returning to their backyards. It turns out trapping is a surprisingly good reason to talk to the people next door.
Ngā mihi, The Motueka Town Trapping Team