11/06/2026
✨MAY TRAPPING RESULTS✨
Our amazing volunteer army removed 1,544 pests from around the basin last month, completing 3,899 trap checks - ka mahi to all of these amazing humans.
If wanting to have a go trapping by the moon as discussed in our last post with Cam Speedy - we are about to be in the Tangaroa moon phase, the best time to put effort into rebaiting our traps. This phase occurs 7-12 days after the full moon, which was on the 31st May.
🌙Clear the soil around the front and back of your traps (mimicking rabbit digging)
🌙1/3, 1/3, 1/3 - a third of your bait in the trap, a third around the entrance of the trap and just outside, and a third further out from the trap, luring pests in towards your trap
🌙Creating scent trails towards your trap is always a good thing, even if it doesn't result in a catch, it will create more scent around your traps which means more animal activity - more exciting for others to come and check out what all the commotion is about. If your trap is off the trail, create a scent trail (by dragging some bait or blaze) from your trap to the trail.
🌙Make your trap SHOUT in the environment, not just whisper quietly.
🌙Any other top tricks for this time of year - please comment below!
A big gold star ⭐️to some of our volunteers who have already been putting their learnings into action from the Cam Speedy field trips.
Another good reminder and tip, pests DO NOT like the taste of erayz as it is slightly salted, it is purely a scent lure. For this reason we are strongly encouraging our volunteer to either bury the old bait away from the trap, or take it home with you and throw in the bin. You can imagine if a stoat or ferret comes across a piece of old erayz near a trap, has a taste - EW YUCK - then all of your other traps are baited with this scent, are they going to go to the effort to walk into that box for that scent that tastes yucky? I don't think so... Always good to remember we want all interactions with our traps to be positive, until they are caught.
* Please note for the catch numbers, unspecified kills are rabbits, hares, (10) feral cats and rodents removed from our self-resetting traps AT220s and A24s.
