Fantastic year for City Sanctuary

The City Sanctuary Team has had a fantastic year.

They’re now active in all three pilot suburbs and have had a huge amount of interest from backyard trappers and volunteers who are eager to help protect native wildlife in the city.

City Sanctuary welcomed two new team members to the flock — Kate Tanner as Community Engagement Facilitator and Zac Martin as Community Coordinator. Kate’s current focus is managing the Caversham pilot site project and supporting community engagement initiatives in priority suburbs and the wider City Sanctuary area. Zac has been busy delivering the North Dunedin pilot site project and leading communications.

Zac Martin (left) and Kate Tanner (right)

All three pilot sites are up and running and at various stages of their journey. North Dunedin has 86 student flats hosting a rat trap and Maori Hill has 76 properties with 92 possum and rat traps. We have gathered valuable learnings from trapper check-ins and surveys that will be invaluable for extending backyard trap networks across the city in future.

A key learning has been that residents highly value face-to-face support, particularly in the set-up stage of their trapping journey. This ensures quality trapping and strengthens motivations to continue staying connected and motivated.

Hitting the streets in North Dunedin

City Sanctuary has been funding a part-time shared role at the Valley Project. Over the past year, the Valley Project has facilitated the deployment of 76 rat traps and 28 possum traps throughout North East Valley, Opoho, Pine Hill, Dalmore, Liberton, Normanby and Upper Junction.

They have also trained volunteers and project staff to manage a trap library. A new one-year service level agreement signed in June will allow the Valley Project to provide face-to-face support for backyard trappers including trap installations and maintaining the trap library.

Dunedin City Council contractors have installed a multi-species trap network throughout the priority reserves and completed a knockdown. In total, 341 Goodnature A24s, 293 Trapinators and 216 Victor rat traps have been deployed, reaching an average density of 1 possum trap per hectare and two rat traps per hectare in suitable habitat. The tally of catches so far has been 513 possums, 350 rats and 142 mice.

Trapping best practice has been refined with trap lines now being handed over to more than 200 people who have signed up to volunteer in the reserves.

Staff have thoroughly enjoyed supporting the resident-led trapping initiatives which have been growing throughout the project area. A collective of residents passionate about conservation from Pine Hill have been supported to install and maintain 17 traps in their neighbourhood. In Ross Creek, a group of landowners living near the reserve have launched a collaborative backyard trapping project to control predators that were moving across the reserve and their private properties.

Ian McLennan at Ross Creek Reserve.

Kākā, kakaruwai (South Island robin) and ngirungiru (South Island tomtit) have been seen in the area, which the group is passionate about protecting and encouraging to their backyards. City Sanctuary supported the residents to design and implement a 6-hectare multi-species trap network that is being managed and maintained by the group with 29 traps now on properties adjoining the trap network in Ross Creek Reserve.

Dunedin’s Kaikorai Valley College High School urban farm programme has included predator control in their suite of learning initiatives. The school has activated a trap network with 15 traps across their urban farm.

Kaikorai Valley College students.

There have been some fantastic opportunities throughout the year to raise awareness and support for the Predator Free Dunedin vision. Trapping workshops have been held at the Dunedin Botanic Garden during the Wild Dunedin festival and at Mitre 10 as part of the New Zealand International Science Festival.

These workshops were a great opportunity to work collaboratively with other Predator Free Dunedin delivery partners and members to showcase backyard trapping and other complementary actions that Dunedin residents can take part in to improve their backyard biodiversity.

Trap workshop at Mitre 10 in South Dunedin.