PHASE 1, MIRAMAR PENINSULA: 2021/22 IN NUMBERS

Predator Free Wellington isn’t just on a mission to make Wellington the world’s first predator free capital city - we also want to make people’s lives better.

Our eradication work on the Miramar Peninsula has enabled involvement from residents across the community that represent a diverse range of backgrounds.

Unfortunately, this isn’t always the case. Community participation in ecological projects, such as predator eradication, tends to be uneven across different sectors of society and is predominantly from white ethnic groups, highly educated, affluent and middle aged or older (Hart et al., 2022). In Wellington, Dr Danielle Shanahan demonstrated that participation in ecological projects was associated with economic advantage (Shanahan, 2020).

In July 2022, Dr Julie Whitburn and Dr Danielle Shanahan presented our efforts on the Miramar Peninsula as an exemplar of a collective, landscape-scale predator eradication project, a project that amplifies the work of community-led initiatives already operating on the Peninsula (read full report here).

As an eradication effort, no neighbourhood on the peninsula could be overlooked to achieve success and this has likely driven a more equitable approach to community participation in the project and greater equity in ecological or social outcomes.

The researchers were able to explore whether equity existed in this dimension of the project on Miramar Peninsula by examining the relationship between neighbourhood advantage, tree canopy cover (demonstrating existing ecological inequity) and landholders’ participation in the project.

They found our Miramar Peninsula eradication achieved equitable deployment of traps and bait stations across the landscape, irrespective of the socio-economic context or the amount of tree canopy cover in neighbourhoods. This is an uncommon occurrence with social imbalances in environmental outcomes common globally (Hart et al., 2022).

The researchers noted our targeted strategy to engage community environmental groups as collaborative partners and a tailored engagement strategy to recruit landholders’ participation within each community, were key features that helped facilitate these equitable outcomes. Additionally, these approaches may ultimately lead to equitable improvements in biodiversity over time.

Why does equity in conservation matter?

Equitable participation in our project means that the ecological and wellbeing benefits, such as rat free homes or increased wildlife, and potential benefits of participating, such as improvements to people’s psychological and social wellbeing, are not limited to particular sectors of society.

It is hoped that the learnings from this research will have long-term implications for improving large-scale community engagement in ecological restoration projects locally, nationally and internationally. The strategies used to interweave technical expertise and community engagement could be applied to other ‘wicked’ problems that require a systems approach, such as developing a regional response to address aspects of climate change which could culminate in community-wide behaviour change.

Acknowledgment: Dr Julie Whitburn’s research was funded by the Bioheritage National Science Challenge and Predator Free Wellington Ltd.

If you think you’ve been hearing more beautiful birdsong in Wellington recently, your ears aren’t lying.

Latest figures show that observations of native birds have increased by 51% on the Miramar Peninsula since the project launched. This includes a rise in detections of the pīwakawaka (NZ Fantail) population of a whopping 550%, a 275% increase in riroriro (grey warblers), and a 49% increase in tūi.

These results are a real credit to the hard mahi that’s being done, not just by us, but also by volunteer groups, such as Predator Free Miramar, Te Motu Kairangi-Miramar Ecological Restoration group, Forest and Bird - Places for Penguins, as well as all the volunteer trapping groups throughout the wider Wellington city.

Everyone is pitching in and it’s so satisfying to see more and more native birds on the peninsula and in our city.

What can we expect to see in the future?

We spoke to Victoria University of Wellington researchers Dr Stephen Hartley and Dr Nyree Fea to get their views on the bird results and also to understand what we can hope to see in the future.

Dr Hartley shared with us that the riroriro and pīwakawaka are faster breeding than tūi and this could explain why they are showing a more rapid response to the Miramar Peninsula eradication. In a few more years he suspects the highly competitive tūī will continue to increase in numbers and the pīwakawaka and riroriro populations may stabilise, as they have done in Zealandia, see Miskelley 2018.

He also said he would like to see kākāriki and kākā increase their presence on the peninsula, but at the moment there may not be sufficient mature forest to support them in any great numbers. Nonetheless, kākā are very mobile and have proven they can adapt to urban and suburban environments in other areas of Wellington.

Should we expect change in bird behaviour with low rat numbers?

Dr Nyree Fea mentioned that the pīwakawaka is a relatively recent arrival to New Zealand, probably having arrived from Australia or the South Pacific. Their not-so-distant fantail relatives evolved with mammalian predators and New Zealand’s pīwakawaka also appears to have behaviours that protect them from rats.

She said it’s possible that with the low rat numbers we are experiencing on the peninsula, the pīwakawaka might now be feeling bolder. This could mean they feel safer to move around more and also feel more freedom to sing. She also said this extra boldness may have influenced our bird count results with bolder birds being easier to hear or spot in 5 minute bird counts.

Previous research into how our native wildlife responds to predator control has mostly been carried out in forests and sanctuaries, and more work needs to be done to understand ecological impact of urban eradications, such as on the Miramar Peninsula. “The impact of climate change and warmer winters might also need to be considered further to better understand the ecological outcomes, as pīwakawaka/fantail survival, for example, is believed to be higher when winters are milder,” Dr Fea said.

Last year we successfully eradicated Norway rats and weasels from the Miramar Peninsula, but the removal of these target species is just one part of the equation. Protecting areas against reinvasion is just as important because the threat is constant.

On the Miramar Peninsula we do this through a number of different approaches, but our virtual barrier system on the Rongotai Isthmus (made up of 354 traps and 363 bait stations) is our frontline defence against reinvasion of target animals. Here is how it performed over the year to protect Miramar locals….

Weasels and Norway Rats have been successfully eradicated from the Miramar Peninsula

The tricky thing with a multi species eradication project is developing methods that will get the job done for all of the individual target species. We’ve written the eradication recipe for Norway rats, stoats and weasels in the urban context, but ship rats have proven harder to sink. To crack this code we focussed on one area of very challenging terrain.

Oruaiti Reserve, off the south coast of Seatoun, was selected as our chosen ‘test’ area. It is 25 hectares of vegetation which borders mainly onto houses and coastline. The only areas where reinvasion could easily occur, were from small sections from the north and west which makes the area easily defendable. This area was also chosen as it presented some of the most inaccessible terrain we have had to deal with and perfect rat habitat - if we could do it here, we could do it anywhere.

Over 8 months we held the initial grid of 50m x 50m to see if we could achieve eradication in this habitat rich environment. During this time our monitoring tools told us we were very close to eradicating ship rats with no chew card detections, trap catch or bait take data, but the inclusion of cameras told us a different story - there was still a lot of rat activity around, and they weren’t interacting with our existing bait stations.

We decided to deploy one new approach at a time to see if there were single interventions we could make to the network that might provide the ‘silver bullet’ approach for urban eradications and ultimately help future eradications be more efficient.

Unfortunately, we couldn’t get the result we wanted using this methodology and realised the area was posing a threat to the surrounding areas, notably Beacon Hill. Working with our partners at ZIP (Zero Invasive Predators) we developed a new set of tactics and launched a blitz named ‘Operation Liquidation’. The area has been our operational focus for 2022, in just 8 months we went from 2,354 rat pictures to zero rat pictures - and with ongoing monitoring we are very close to declaring the Oruaiti Reserve area successfully eradicated.

Number of rat pictures detected at Oruaiti Reserve in 2022

In August 2022, Predator Free Miramar celebrated its fifth birthday. James Willcocks, our Project Director caught up with Dan Henry, Predator Free Miramar Lead to reflect on the last five years and the impact Dan and the volunteers have made over that time.

Firstly, an intro from James:

When I started on this Predator Free Wellington journey it was blindingly obvious that the only way we had any chance of reaching our goals would be through the development of deep partnership with the community of volunteers already doing great ecological restoration work on Miramar.

Volunteers are critical to the mission - they were doing this work long before we even started and will be there long after we’ve finished our piece. Acknowledging this criticality is one thing, but actually seeing the passion, innovation, drive and determination that people bring to bear continually amazes me.

I first met Dan when I was about three weeks into my new job as the Project Director for Predator Free Wellington Ltd. Those early conversations quickly evolved into a great personal mateship but also into an incredibly effective working relationship delivering incredible results. Predator Free Wellington simply could not launch an eradication on Miramar without the Predator Free Miramar crew and it is only right to shine a light on their achievements. I hope you enjoy this kōrero with Dan….

Dan, why did you decide to start Predator Free Miramar? I was already hooked on trapping, having trapped in Polhill Reserve and was also running the trapping for Te Motu Kairangi. When I heard about the launch of the Predator Free 2050 vision, along with the success Predator Free Crofton Downs was having, I thought we’ve got to do this on Miramar! I saw the opportunity and there was no way I was going to be sitting on the sidelines.

What did you want to achieve? I was driven by the current wisdom of the time, which recommended one trap for every five households. Doing the sums, with around 7,500 households in Miramar, that meant 1,500 traps was the goal. The launch was a good way to make it real - I gave away 80 traps, which was 120 traps less than I had hoped, but in the following weeks excitement started to really grow as word of mouth spread. Emails were flying in from willing trap recipients. We received a very timely grant from the Nikau Foundation which allowed us to purchase another 800 victor traps and start systemising our processes to keep up with demands.

What were some of the key elements in those early days? Building relationships has been critical, not just with residents, but local businesses have been fully supportive of our kaupapa: local café The Larder became a place for locals to collect peanut butter bait for their traps while grabbing a flat white. Placemakers Kilbirnie gave us massive discounts on timber for building tunnels, and our mates at Double Vision Brewing invited us to collaborate on a charity brew with proceeds going back into the mahi. Not to mention Fix and Fogg peanut butter crafters who still keep Wellington trappers stocked with bait to this day!

In terms of getting the word out, the Predator Free Miramar Facebook group has been our main tool and continues to grow.

I would also look at maps to identify the areas with gaps in coverage and would do letterbox drops. In-person events, such as garden centre stalls, school fairs, and presentations were also a great way to meet with people in person. Initially, people were a bit standoffish until we spray painted a big sign saying ‘Free Traps’ - they thought they were going to have to pay for something. The challenge then was ensuring people knew how to bait them and set them, so we set up a website with some how-to videos.

In the earlier days, the momentum was intense and I was doing drop offs to new households the whole time - 10 traps in the car every morning for random scenic routes around the peninsula to deliver them on the way home. I was also using relationships to get traps into areas where there were none. This was the evolution from backyards to green spaces. Why do one and not the other? So we got in touch with the government department managing the 80+ hectares of farmland and bush north of the prison, and gained permission to install traplines in this untrapped area. Two hundred additional traps that yielded a whole lot more rats!

We have trapped 5,500 rats and had over 1,400 traps at our peak.

What are you most proud of? What has given me the most pleasure is the individual connections with so many people from Miramar; random Miramartians whose doors I knocked on, and who gave me their time. I’m proud that it has made such a massive difference to the birds and habitat of Miramar. I’m most proud of how it’s turned the people on to the natural environment, and the messages received from people with their observations: someone’s spotted a possum or some dumped bread on the roadside, or someone’s spotted their first kotare or pīwakawaka in their garden and wants to share that.

During the seven week Covid lockdown the amount of people that stopped me on our sanctioned isolation walks to comment on the birds was epic.

Biggest impact? The positive outcome is opening people’s eyes and ears to their relationship with the natural environment - a lot of people picking up a trap actually never made the connection to the ecological outcomes - we are taking it to the masses!

But it’s been the hard work of so many people. So many local heroes. Fiona Austin has had six traps since 2018. She caught 138 rats in the first two years then it took her another two and half years of patiently waiting to catch number 139! She’d been quietly re-baiting her traps all of this time.

How has the group evolved? Backyard trapping is still going, but it’s also evolved into the counterinsurgency volunteer efforts who work alongside the Predator Free Wellington field team. We pulled both groups together during the COVID-19 lockdowns, as we were able to capitalise having locals on the ground who could easily hook into the eradication operations. It has a built in fluidity but we have the hardcore band out every weekend. On Sundays at 8.30am we go trapping, no-one is compelled to be there. It’s a flying squad sort of thing - we go where the work needs to happen.

What’s next? Finishing the job - driving that downward trending line into the ground, catching the last rat first and then we will worry about what’s next!

You’ve given a lot personally to this, why? I’ve never thought about giving up, I’ve definitely had moments of frustration like doing four weeks of checks in an area with no rats and going back for one final check in week five and finding a fresh rat and thinking where the hell did that come from?! We are still learning so much and none of us are keen to stop now.

‘Volunteer burnout’ is a term I hear thrown about, but I don’t like that phrase, as it implies there is some sort of failure on the volunteer’s part. We all get busy with family and work and other demands. People give what they can, they come and go, and we’ve found there will always be someone new ready to step up and help when needed. We try and keep things fluid and low pressure, as I think that is really important. It is the human connections we’ve made along the way on this project that will ultimately stay with me.

Why do you turn up every weekend? There is still immense enjoyment for me in doing it, there is still work to be done. I’ve said so many times to so many people that it is achievable and so many people have given so much that I feel a responsibility to steer the ship home. New people coming in keeps it fresh - people bringing their energy is revitalising. And all the amazing outcomes we’re seeing every time we’re out in the ngahere: seeing kārearea hunting overhead, being surrounded by riroriro on a trap line and hearing ruru at night. It’s awesome.

Along with our focus on the Phase 1 eradication on the Miramar Peninsula, we are also preparing for the Phase 2 eradication.

This second phase stretches from Kilbirnie around to Ōwhiro Bay and up through to the CBD. It is an area that is home to approximately 60,000 people. Before we start installing the devices on the ground we need 7,500 households to get on board - as a minimum!

Our team of three Community Outreach Officers have been working in the Phase 2 project area raising awareness about the project, chatting with community groups and doorknocking residents to secure permissions for the required eradication grid of 10,000+ devices.

Our aim is to completely eradicate rats, possums, stoats and weasels from the entire Wellington region, a total area of 30,000 hectares.

The project entails intensive community engagement, which will require at least every third household or business in a 50m grid over the entire urban landscape to sign up and be an active part of our programme. to our programme.

Consisting of five different phases from Miramar up to the border with Porirua, it’s a large operation which involves high degrees of trust and solid relationships to be built!

Wellington map outlining the project phases.Alongside an intensive technical operation. we also rely heavily on partnerships with Wellington’s volunteer trapping groups.

Whilst we are focusing on the eradication projects in phase 1 and phase 2, there are 61 reserve and backyard trapping groups Wellington-wide actively suppressing invasive species and helping bring back our native taonga.

We try to support the volunteer group leads as much as we can, and when we asked how we can help them further, their answer was unanimous — we need more traps and we can help you make them — so regular tunnel building workshops at our Wilton depot began.

Tunnel building workshops are a great way to bring everyone together over a shared activity, fostering connections amongst trappers and topping up tunnel supplies, harnessing enthusiasm and facilitating an expanding trap network.

We have held two tunnel build sessions in the last 12 months, which saw 56 volunteers from 15 different trapping groups come together to build 579 tunnels for local trappers.

A big thank you to Mitre 10 Crofton Downs for the generous donation of timber, and to Perftech for the regular donations of wire mesh.

If you would like to host your own trap building session, we have created a resource that will help you create a workshop that best suits your community.

Acknowledgement: Our heartfelt thanks to every single trapper, for taking the time to check a trap in their backyard or local reserve.