Kereru © James Allan
4th October 2021
Whakatipu Wildlife Trust was awarded a grant through the Curious Minds Initiative funded by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) to undertake a Citizen Science Project with a number of our community trapping groups over the next year.
The purpose is “To Use Technology to Engage Community Trapping Groups in Inquiry Based Biodiversity Study”. So what does this mean? Trapping groups identify a problem or question and our coordinator can help develop the question into a science project and then support the groups to complete their investigation. It includes a small budget for equipment such as camera’s and sound lures.
We would like to involve a number of groups over the year and are keen to share the library of equipment out so many groups can get involved. We have started working with the first 3 groups to tailor their science project to their own unique problems and questions.
These range from: “I’d love to eventually have native species reintroduced to our area. What kind of monitoring would we need to do to really see how effective our trapping is?”
to
“We’ve never caught a stoat in our trap lines. Are there really no stoats in our area or are we just not catching them?”
to
“We have threatened species such as Kea and recently sighted Rock Wren living in our area, and our overall goal is to have a really effective trapping system. We want to use technology and science to understand things like the best trap placement, the predator movements, and what works best with pre-baiting. We want to improve our trap lines and make the network even more effective.”
This project will run over the course of the next year, and as we get the first groups up and running, we hope to learn and inspire other groups to get on board. We also hope it might be a way for more volunteers to get involved and inspired. If your group has a question, or wants to do some science monitoring in their area, then please email hello@whakatipuwildlifetrust.org.nz
Posted in: Latest News
Tags: conservation, trapping