Trapper of the month – May 2023

Congratulations to Maria from Pakiri who is our Trapper Of The Month (May 2023). Maria contacted the Trust to ask if she could help check the traps she’d noticed on her regular walks around her rural neighbourhood. Maria then organised permissions and access to those properties for TrapNZ so that she could log catches and when she rebaited traps. Since then Maria a High School teacher has been checking more and more local traps!

Maria explained that she got the conservation bug a few years ago. “I started as backyard trapping at home as a result of a mailbox flyer from Pest Free Hibiscus Coast. Then I started an environmental group at school, and Jenny Hanwell from PFHC came and spoke to the group about trapping etc. I decided to train as a trapper and was then assigned a community line and took over the trap line at school. Another one has since been installed, so I am now looking after around 5 traplines.
I love getting out early in the morning and catching lots of rats, possums, and stoats. It’s great exercise and just really satisfying.
The hardest part is resetting the traps (but the trap resetting tool is amazing!!) and walking down the steep, slippery hill to Pakiri beach to the lone DOC200 at the bottom.
Motivation is that if I don’t do it, maybe no one else will, and that will impact our beautiful taonga that have been battling against these pests that we are responsible for bringing here.”

A big thanks to Maria a true Conservation Hero