City Sanctuary is supporting residents of Māori Hill to protect native wildlife through backyard predator control.
Photo by Craig McKenzie
Backyard trapping
Māori Hill is one of City Sanctuary's three pilot suburbs where we're supporting residents to get involved in backyard trapping. Along with North Dunedin and Caversham, trapping in Māori Hill is helping us understand the best way to achieve city-wide predator control.
The purpose of the three trapping areas is to reduce predator numbers while finding out which trap types are most effective in urban areas, what motivates people to trap, and what resources are required for long-term predator control.
There are currently about 60 residents with 90 possum and rat traps across the suburb.
Trapping in reserves
A network of almost 800 traps targeting possums, rodents and mustelids has been established throughout Ross Creek and the Town Belt. This network will stay in place permanently to keep predator numbers at low levels. Our reserve areas provide important habitat for native bird species such as the rifleman/titipounamu, South Island robin, kererū, bellbird/korimako and tui.
Project map
The suburb of Māori Hill was defined using boundaries from the 2018 census. We have expanded this slightly to include any houses along State Highway 1 and along the Otago Golf Course.
This area includes 102 hectares and 1,116 households.
How you can get involved
We’re providing free rat and possum traps to residents of Māori Hill.
Our traps are easy to use, humane tested and are safe to set around pets. We don't use any toxins or poisons in our traps.
Along with trapping, residents can help conduct predator monitoring and bird counts from their backyard.
Here’s what’s involved in backyard trapping:
- Sign up for a trap and we’ll make a time to install the trap and show you how to use it
- Check and rebait your trap once a week/fortnight
- Report trapping data using app or website
Sign up to host a backyard trap
Pest monitoring
Chew cards are a pest monitoring tool that help you find out what predators are visiting your backyard. Backyard trappers are helping us do three rounds of pest monitoring so we can see the impact trapping is having on predators.
Once your chew cards have been out for a week, submit your results using the form below.
Guides and resources
Find out more about how to set traps and monitor pest activity from your backyard.
Join our City Sanctuary Backyard Trappers group on Facebook
Share