Backyard conservation

• Published date: 24 June 2022
• Publication title: Oamaru Mail

For those who aren’t familiar with the Menzshed concept, it brings men together to share skills, enjoy each other’s company and work on practical projects

It’s usually the wider community that benefits from their handiwork, and their latest project — constructing backyard rat and mice tunnel traps — is no different.

Pests and predators are the biggest threat to biodiversity in New Zealand. It’s why rats, possums and stoats are targeted for eradication as part of the Predator Free 2050 goal.

Predator Free 2050 was an initiative set up in 2014 by the then National government to protect our native animals and improve ecological diversity. As National’s conservation spokesperson it’s a piece of work close to my heart.

While the crown-owned charitable company Predator Free 2050 Ltd is charged with large landscape-scale projects, the reality is that we’ll all need to get involved if we want to achieve this ambitious goal.

It’s easy to think of these pests and predators as being a problem for native forests and rural areas, but they’re a problem in urban areas too.

Rats are associated with human activity and will eat birds, seeds, fruit and all sorts of other things. Their varied diet means they’ll happily compete with native wildlife for food.

Young people are naturally curious about our native birds and other species which are unique to New Zealand. Many want to protect piwakawaka, tui and bellbirds, but often don’t know what to do.

There are plenty of fancy and quite...