Rats Watch Out: Motueka Town Trappers is Up and Running
There were queues at the MCC stall at Motueka Sunday Market last month — and not for coffee. People were lining up to collect free rat traps, ask questions about predators, and sign up to become part of something growing fast across the town.
The Motueka Town Trappers project is officially underway — and the community response has been enthusiastic.
“We heard lots of stories about rats everywhere,” 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.
Rat traps have also been delivered to individual properties, and trap collection points.
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, and getting catches logged on trap.nz. Over time, it is hoped the project will be expanded to include all of Motueka township.
The map on trap.nz is already filling up — and the catches are coming in. Eight critters caught and counting.
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.
Getting involved
If you live in the waterfront area and haven’t yet received your trap, get in touch and the team will come to you. Once you’re set up, logging catches is straightforward via the trap.nz app — or the team can do it for you.
For trap placement or troubleshooting, contact Paul McEntee (paultopnotchtiling@hotmail.com) or Paul Leach (pagleach@windowslive.com / 022 094 1955). For general questions or to get signed up, contact Jacob Lucas (jlucas@fishandgame.org.nz / 021 811 253) or Dana (dana@motuekacatchment.org.nz / 021 526 053).
Not in the waterfront area but keen to trap? Get in touch anyway — the project is growing, and there’s a place for everyone.
Ngā mihi, The Motueka Town Trapping Team