A sunny and blustery day saw us return to Pukekauri Dam after the holidays. Steve recorded a total of 14 rats/ mice and one possum over the holiday period – so they are definitely back out in force. Today OTP students also collected a good haul, with 3 and a half rats (only the head […]

Students from Ruakākā and Waipu School met with Steve for the first time at Pukekauri Dam. Steve taught us how to check and re-bait each trap, and the kids were excited to see we had caught a few mice. We also think we caught a glimpse of a weweia. The best part of the day […]

Yesterday a new group of keen trappers from Bream Bay College and One Tree Point Schools visited Pukekauri Dam to resume our pest trapping efforts for 2024. After having set the traps for the final time before the holidays almost 2 months ago, we were unsure what would be found. Steve made a trip up […]

Oh the excitement!! Steve’s visit to the dam the other day caught the elusive weweia on camera! Not only the pair that we hoped were still in residence but their two new babies riding on their backs, as is the weweia way! This is everything that the project is about and we are so grateful […]

What a year it has been! This project has been such an amazing collaboration between so many awesome people and I am very grateful to have been a part of it. Seeing the students’ engagement and enthusiasm for protecting our environment has been outstanding. To date we have caught 89 pests – 68 mice/ rats, […]

On Thursday the 2nd of November, Paige and Lilah went to Pukekauri Dam and got the record of nine pests caught. We got … two ship rats, two possums, two mice, one Norway rat, and two regular rats and that’s how we got the record! One rat had obviously been there a long time, it […]

Waipu School had a beautiful day for trapping on the last week of term 3. Apparently, the weweia thought so too and we got to see a pair together and each one came really close to us, which was very exciting. Steve told us that when the babies are born they ride on the adults […]

We checked our first station and discovered a very maggoty rat. We placed 3 new rat traps along our line and also came across a possum we had caught. As we approached station 5 we heard a rattling and banging in one of the traps. This was the first time we had discovered a very […]

Over the past 3 weeks, Steve and I have been checking the traps up at Pukekauri. The predators are definitely making themselves more evident again with the weather warming up. During the last week of term and the school holidays we have caught 9 rats or mice and 6 possums. With the addition of our […]

The Bream Bay College boys headed up to the trap line for their last check of the term last week and struck the jackpot! With the weather getting warmer, there is definitely some more pest movement and we had five traps with pests in them. Along the left hand trap line there were three ship […]