Jacob Lucas - Nelson Marlborough Fish & Game
An initiative between Nelson Marlborough Fish & Game and the Nelson Trout Fishing Club has seen nearly 200 traps built for a local catchment group.
The Motueka Catchment Collective (MCC) has been the recipient of the traps, which will be provided to Motueka catchment residents at a subsidised rate to carry out predator control in order to support native bird and insect life.
In early June, 16 members of the trout club met at Nelson College’s woodwork room to build around 100 traps and have since met as a smaller group on numerous occasions to help fulfil the order of DOC for 200 traps and rat tunnels.
The MCC recently held a stall at the Motueka Sunday Market where residents could pick up their traps, and it was encouraging to see such a high level of interest in the trap subsidy and hear about everyone’s ambitions for their traps and the reasons behind why they want to carry out predator control on their land. Most of the time, it was to support native bird life, and trapping is one of the best ways to achieve this.
One of the MCC aims is to get more people into backyard trapping, whether on a small section or larger farm – the MCC hopes to support efforts in this way. There are already some fantastic trapping programmes in place, from larger-scale projects such as Farmers 4 Whio run by Barry Burger, or the well-established Friends of Flora, as well as plenty happening on farms throughout the region by hard-working farmers. All this is fantastic to see, and we hope that by getting more people into trapping, we can support the existing programmes and ‘join the dots’ to achieve greater coverage across the catchment.
It was fantastic to see anglers giving back to conservation, and the good news is the group appears keen to keep the momentum going, as long as there is regular sustenance in the form of bakery items!
If you have some land within the Motueka Catchment and are keen to do some predator control, contact Jacob Lucas, and we may be able to assist - jlucas@fishandgame.org.nz
