The Karioi Project’s Backyard Hub supports residents in and around Raglan to act as kaitiaki / guardians of the place they live. Everyone has a role to play, and each household that joins increases the extent and positive impact predator control makes for biodiversity. It also helps create a resilient and thriving community.

Currently, there are 700+ traps around the community in the Backyard Hub. Most of these traps are actively maintained, while others may have been a bit neglected ?! As we’re spending more time at home, now is the perfect time to dust off our traps and get trapping within our home bubble.

As the weather gets colder and wetter, we often see an increase in pests around our properties. Trapping now will help reduce the chance of a winter invasion in the next few months.

Now is also a great time for Backyard Hubbers to log catches onto the Trap.NZ database. This allows us to track how many predators are being caught around our community. Over 13,000 predators have been caught by all Karioi Project traps over the past ten years and more than 10% of these (1,350 catches) were logged in Backyard Hub traps.

We think the actual number caught is likely much greater, as not everyone records their catches. Seeing these numbers reminds us that our contributions are having a BIG impact.

Ensuring a future where NZ will be predator free will require the development of new technologies and tools to help us remove introduced predators for good. Because we have maintained a dataset for 10 years, we’re now contributing to studies that aim to develop new technologies and methods in the future. Thank you to everyone that has contributed to this! Your efforts are very much appreciated!

For BYH members who have forgotten how to log your data on Trap.NZ, look out for an instructional video landing in your inbox soon, along with a competition with some sweet prizes!