Taranaki farmer surprised by results from stoat trapping on farm

Tuesday, 9 February 2021

Oaonui farmer Andy Whitehead is encouraging other farmers to get involved in the Taranaki Regional Council’s predator trapping campaign.

A Taranaki dairy farmer has had surprising results after increased efforts to eradicate mustelids from his coastal farm, and surrounding areas.

Andy Whitehead, of Oaonui, is among a large number of coastal property owners who have volunteered to join the next phase of the Taranaki Regional Council’s Towards Predator-Free Taranaki trapping programme between Okato and Rāhotu.

After helping set predator traps to protect dotterels and gecko for the past 15 years, Whitehead gave permission for TRC contractors to set and initially monitor, 11 traps on his 138ha farm.

He now re-set the DOC200 and Podi brand traps on the farm himself, when required. The catch rate has surprised him, he said.

Whitehead shows off a stoat caught in one of the Podi predator traps set up on the farm.

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“I was expecting we would get two to five stoats a year around here,” he said.

Stoats are being trapped and released with GPS collars to monitor behaviour patterns in and around Te Papakura o Taranaki.

“Already in the first two months we have caught 10, and I know of another farm where 27 have been caught.”

Whitehead encouraged other Taranaki farmers to join the predator-free programme.

“Most of the farm owners have volunteered to be part of it and there a few who haven’t for their own reasons, which I can’t understand.

“It’s no real benefit to my farm except to get rid of stoats which kill native, and ground nesting, birds.

“If people don’t volunteer, the next step could be legislation to join the programme.”

Whitehead said he was a conventional farmer who tried to farm with minimal impact on the environment.

He planted wildflowers and sunflowers on the roadside verges to encourage insect and bird life, practised “no-tillage’ regime, used minimal spraying, fed out minimal palm kernel, and used a lime-based fertiliser to reduce harmful effects on the land.

Towards Predator-Free Taranaki project manager Toby Shanley said the monitoring results from the first two years of the initiative were a welcome boost.

The programme has reduced mustelid numbers by 90 per cent along the Waiwhakaiho River, and Te Papakura o Taranaki national park boundary during the first two years of operation, he said.

Shanley said the project would not be possible without the support of landowners in the affected areas.

TRC pest contractors, Robin and Lisa Pearce, who laid a variety of traps on DOC200, DOC250, and A24 traps on 30 coastal farms, said they caught 260 mustelids, rats and hedgehogs during the initial knock-down period.

The couple supported the regional council’s proactive response to predator control in Taranaki.

“The council gave us the ability to hunt predators and prove what can be achieved to reduce their numbers,” Robin Pearce said.