Southern View: December 08, 2022

Thursday December 8 2022 5
Trapper committed to saving wildlife
EVERY TUESDAY you’ll find
Quentin McDonald doing his
weekly trap check in Cracroft
Reserve, next to the Sign of the
Takahe.
A retired chemist, McDonald
lives in nearby Hackthorne
Rd and he’s been doing this
volunteer work for the past four
years, after his son’s scout den in
Cashmere started getting “eaten
alive” by rats gnawing through
everything they could find,
including books.
After contacting Predator Free
Port Hills and making a formal
arrangement with city council
rangers, he set up and started
monitoring 11 traps placed
around the reserve.
“The scouts assembled those
original wooden boxes and
placed them as a map-reading
exercise,” McDonald said.
“I’ve caught 160 rats over four
years and 80 of those were in the
first year, 2019. They’ve nearly all
been ship rats, which you can tell
if you fold the tail over the body
and the tail’s longer.”
He uses American-made Victor
traps and places them inside
the wooden boxes. Catches are
recorded on graphs that show
rats are far and away the most
common predator, along with
a few mice, a very occasional
hedgehog and one or two stoats.
Using an ink card to track
animal footprints is another way
of monitoring the rat population
in the reserve.
It’s the winter months that see
the biggest spike in catch numbers
as there’s less natural food
available, so they come in closer
to where humans live.
Perhaps due to his scientific
background, McDonald enjoys
recording the data and experiments
with different types of
food and trap placement.
“They love the trees, it’s like a
highway for them in here. They
like drains and damp areas as
well; I try and choose places that
‘feel ratty.’
“I do move the traps but not
very far because they don’t have
a big range, it’s generally only
around 50m.”
Because rats are known to be
or become shy of the boxes, at
times he places ink cards nearby
that creatures walk over, leaving
their foot prints on the un-inked
part of the card.
“It’s another way of monitoring
the population.”
For bait McDonald has traditionally
used walnuts and Nutella,
as rats are thought to have
a sweet tooth, but he’s currently
trialling a ceramic bait to see if it
is more attractive.
McDonald is one of hundreds
of people across Christchurch
and Banks Peninsula who are
helping to reduce the population
of predators through backyard
and community trapping.
Their work is helping to protect
our native bird species and
our skinks, beetles and rare
invertebrates.
“It feels like you’re part of a
REDUCING PREDATORS:
Volunteer trapper Quentin
McDonald doing a weekly
trap check in Cracroft
Reserve. Above – Ink
cards are used to monitor
populations.
PHOTOS: NEWSLINE
movement, something bigger
than yourself,” said McDonald.
“I do feel sad every time;
they’re beautiful animals, they’re
well adapted but they don’t
belong in this environment and
we brought them here so we’ve
got to deal with it. There’s no joy
– but there’s a certain satisfaction
in knowing we’re going in the
right direction.”
• For more information
about backyard trapping
visit the Predator Free Port
Hills website.
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