Rat-free Tauranga vision for Envirohub project

The construction of traps has begun for a project to rid Tauranga of rats and stoats.

Envirohub wants to see a rat trap installed in every fifth backyard, and was preparing to launch trials in Matua and Merivale.

General manager Laura Wragg was inspired by the explosion of bird life where trapping had taken place in Wellington - thanks to the efforts of Kelvin Hastie of Predator Free Community.

Envirohub's goal was for traps to go into every urban neighbourhood throughout the Bay of Plenty. It was collaborating with local councils, New Zealand Landcare Trust and the Bay Conservation Alliance to make it happen.

''Wellington was pretty much rat free,'' she said.

Her announcement of the project to a meeting of the city council's Environment Committee coincided with the start of Envirohub's Sustainable Backyards month that kicked off on March 1. A record 140 events were being held around the Bay of Plenty in March.

The Men's Shed at Tauranga's Historic Village was cutting donated wood to shape and members of the Tauranga Rotary Club and Tauranga Sunrise Rotary were assembling the traps.

Envirohub was planning a soft launch of the project in Matua, including the Night Owl outdoor cinema show at Fergusson Park on March 24 where there would be a pop-up shop inviting people to sign up for a trap. In Merivale, the launch would be through the community centre.

''Men's Shed has cut a lot of wood, it's ready to go.''

Wragg said there had already been a lot of interest from other areas of the city that had become aware of the project.

Envirohub needed people to champion the trapping in each suburb, a go-to person who would work with the project co-ordinator. Wragg said Envirohub had applied to TECT for funding to employ the co-ordinator who would be responsible for unrolling the project across the whole of the Bay.

The beauty of the project in Wellington was that people were not only prepared to put a trap in their own backyard but, if their property backed on to a reserve, to trap in the reserve as well.

The project grew out of a presentation to Envirohub members in October last year. ''We were so inspired by what Kelvin had achieved that we decided to do it here.''

Envirohub obtained seed funding from the Regional Council and the Tauranga City and Western Bay District councils.

Men's Shed manager Dave Harper said the Whakatane District Council had provided the wood being used to construct the first lot of traps. The eventual target was to build 10,000 traps for distribution around the region. They could be assisted by Te Puke's Men's Shed.

A rat trap big enough to also kill a stoat would be placed inside each box and laced with peanut butter. A sliding piece of wood under the trap allowed the easy setting and clearing of the trap that looked like a mouse trap but much bigger.

Long-term goals of Wellington's predator-free communities
- Have a city teaming with birds.
- Reintroduce iconic species like kiwi and kokako.
- Reintroduce rare native lizards.
Source: Predator Free, Wellington