Licence to Kill: Predator Free Wellington’s Secret Service

Thursday, 8 May 2025

Listen up, all you rodents out there: surrender: you can’t win, Predator Free Wellington (PFW) has an an arsenal of clever gadgets aimed at wiping you out.

Rat-like cunning has nothing on the PFW, which on a tour of its Northland HQ reveals it has as many weapons as James Bond and his fictitious spy agency MI6.

PFW has operation field support officer Keen, Craig Keen rather than Bond’s gadget-making Q Squad.

Keen shows a table full of vermin vanquishers, most just as cunning as Bond’s exploding pen or ejector seat, to MP Catherine Wedd, chair of Parliament’s environment committee.

It starts out simple with the common rat trap, and cranks up.

Blocks of poison, little cards that reveal teeth marks, mayonnaise, peanut butter lures, and an implement Keen calls “the stick of death”. Laid out along a tree branch, it offers a smorgasbord of options to woo an unwary rat. It might even trick a wary rat.

Rats leave urine trails or defecate to tell their mates where there's food “and so we can show that up, we can track rat movements through the foliage, to ascertain exactly where they're sitting,” Keen says.

“Our hi-tech friends from Zip, have designed these tunnels that open for rats to be able to see right through when they come in,” he says pointing to an elongated black plastic box.

“Once they're activated, it releases like a hydrogen gas, that pushes this blue goo down into the reservoir, and then the rat will come along and eat this hearty soup of poison.”

Keen sets off what he calls a heavy duty springloaded trap, causing a tsunami of shock among the tour party. WHAM!!! it goes, resounding through the garage of doom.

Also at the hi-tech end of his arsenal are cameras which broadcast information back to PFW central, so a posse can be rounded up and sent to the right place, in the event a rodent is spotted.

Keen points to a second black tunnel. It pumps in mayonnaise. In comes the rat. It seals so the rat can’t get out. CO2 is released, and it’s goodnight rat. As well it sends a signal back to PFW staff.

Rats caught in this fashion provide useful data in the ongoing war to clear Wellington of introduced pests, Keen says.

What have they been eating, what sex are they, did they recently give birth “are we chasing a litter”?

Last but not least, Keen shows a stick with a helmet on the top end. In goes the mayonnaise, along comes the rat, sticks its head in the helmet, and “boom” a gas canister knocks it out.

Not shaken, not stirred, snuffed out.

Rats, especially the last few, are clever, Keen says. Over time they recognise some traps for what they are, and avoid them. He’s always innovating.

“Basically we're always chasing the last remaining 1% so there's the easy ones that you can get, and then it's the hard ones at the very end, the one we are always trying to get,” he says.

An array of weapons is the best mix, Keen says.

“The most efficient probably is the poison, because you can just have it effectively feeding on and on,” he says. “With a trap, one bang and it’s done. With poison a whole family can come in and feed, and then the whole family is gone.”

Dead rats wind up in a freezer, inside plastic bags, dubbed “the fridge of doom” by project director James Willcocks.

Why all the effort?

In Aotearoa, an estimated 68,000 native birds are killed each night by introduced predators. New Zealand is at the top of the list for endangered species, with around 4000 deemed to be in trouble.

PFW has gradually been clearing the city of pests, moving from Miramar Peninsula to the west. It could have completed the task by 2030, had its funding not been cut.

PFW argues its spending of $3.3 million so far over the past 12 months has resulted in benefits of $8.3 million, $2.49 back for every dollar invested.

It expects the value generated to increase substantially, as the programme expands.

Willcocks points to a 91% increase in native bird numbers on Miramar Peninsula, with a 550% increase in piwakawaka (fantail) and 275% in riroriro (grey warbler), and even a steep climb in wētā.

In a humble former garage that doubles as HQ battered by the Wellington wind, Willcocks outlines the community benefits over the hammering of the roller door.

“There’s this real appetite for people to be involved in something bigger than yourself,” he says sitting in front of a whiteboard headed by “Mount Victorious”. Listing weekly targets, devices serviced, and names of the teams.

On Monday the Government released two discussion documents for public consultation to progress the Te Mana o te Taiao—Aotearoa Biodiversity Strategy 2020.

The proposed cover four themes:

• Prioritising species and habitats for action;

• Increasing revenue and non-government funding for biodiversity;

• Improving evidence and knowledge for effective decision making; and

• Growing capability by developing the right skills.

Key areas for public feedback on the Predator Free 2050 strategy are:

• New goals to achieve by 2030; and

• The list of target predators will remain the current list (rats, possums and mustelids).

Rats would continue to be highest priority for his organisation, Willcocks says.

“There's a case to consider for feral cats,” he says.

“We are working incredibly intensively on rats and that carries a cost profile. Mice and hedgehogs … we'd definitely need some new tools to be able to step into that space.”

Predator Free Wellington would “be taking really particular note” of the 2050 strategy consultation document, he says.

“We’ll be encouraging as many members of the public and community to get involved in that consultation process, and we'll take a lead from what comes out of that.”

Meanwhile the fridge of doom keeps on filling, funding permitting.

N.B. This story has been corrected to reflect proposal in the discussion document is to stick with the current list of predator species (rats, possums and mustelids).