The battle to bring native birds back to our backyards has begun.
As part of the Government’s Predator Free 2050 goal, community volunteer groups such as Predator Free Bay of Plenty are trapping backyard predators in droves.
“We started in 2018 with just Matua and Merivale and it expanded from there to cover the whole of the Western Bay and Tauranga districts,”Predator Free BOP co-ordinator Tracey Valentines said.
“It’s always been a problem, I think people are just starting to recognise now that there’s something they can do to help.”
The goal is to see native birds return and thrive in people’s backyards.
“We’ve got a lot of predators out there,” said Valentine.
Besides rats and mice, the campaign hopes to rid our backyards of possums, ferrets, weasels and stoats.
“We’ve mostly been focusing on rats, which can eat up to 50 birds in their lifetime. They predate on a lot of our birds and their eggs — chicks don’t even get a chance to fledge a lot of the time.”
Besides rats and mice, possums, ferrets, weasels and stoats are also being targeted.
“Every time you have a kill in your backyard, you can put in your address and number of kills you’ve had and that will show up on our map and give us statistics for each area,” said Valentine.
