Students lay traps for pests (+video)

Otonga Rd School assistant principal Belinda Herbert (left), Hazel Hulme, 11, Jessica Duncan, 11, Ethan Cameron, 11, and Rotorua Canopy Tours conservation manager Gary Coker. Photo / Supplied

A local school can now say it contributes to the protection of one of our native forests after sponsoring two pest traps.

Otonga Rd School chose the Rotorua Canopy Tours forest restoration project as its fundraising target for 2014.

By the end of the year, pupils at the school raised enough money to install a possum trap and a rat trap in the Dansey Rd Scenic Reserve.

Former Otonga Rd School pupils and student council members Hazel Hulme, 11, Ethan Cameron, 11, and Jessica Duncan, 11, were picked to do the canopy tour and help lay the possum and rat traps.

Hazel said she had done the canopy tour with a friend and learnt about the need for pest traps in the forest.

"I took the idea back to the student council and everybody thought it would be a good thing to fundraise for.

"It's good to feel like we're a part of the community and it feels good to be able to see what our fundraising has gone towards," she said.

"I feel really lucky to be able to get involved in actually laying the traps, it's not something you get to do every day," Jessica said.

Rotorua Canopy Tours conservation manager Gary Coker said the traps were GPS located so the pupils could keep track of how many pests they caught with their sponsored traps.

"It's not a cheap thing we are doing here and we don't receive any outside funding so it is wonderful to have this kind of support from our local schools and businesses.

"There is a lot of good will in our community and it will pay off when we can see our native birds more frequently."

Otonga Rd School assistant principal Belinda Herbert said the whole school got behind the cause. "We fundraised throughout the year to sponsor these traps and all the students were really supportive of the environmental cause.

"As a school we feel it is important to teach the pupils about charity and doing something for somebody else and being able to give back in our own backyard really inspires and motivates the kids."