The Riverside Walk along sections of the Ruamāhanga River, near the Waihenga Bridge will – once complete – open up a significant area near Martinborough to both walkers and mountain bikers.
The creation of this walk, partially supported by the Pain Estate Fund, is being led by members of the newly formed Waihinga Catchment Group. Opening up areas near the river not only provides improved recreational opportunities for both visitors and locals, but also allows access to put a pest animal trap line along the route. This will help suppress introduced pest animals such as rats and stoats.
Predator Free Martinborough’s proposal is to put 40 traps along the newly accessible route next to the river, half being DOC200s which are good for larger pest animals, and half Envirotools Supervisor Max traps which target rats. Traps have been procured by Predator Free Martinborough and Ruamāhanga Farm Foundation, through grants from Greater Wellington Regional Council and Air New Zealand’s Every Corner Project respectively.
The Wairarapa Catchment Collective will support monitoring with trail cameras and chew cards.
The traps were recently delivered, and we are now looking for volunteers to help with set-up and clearing of traps, recording of trap line success , and coordination of the trapping roster.
We envisage time commitments for the volunteer roles of:
- approximately half a day every 6-8 weeks for trappers. Walking the trap line, clearing and re-baiting traps and recording results in the TrapNZ app could be done in pairs or individually
- a couple of hours or so monthly for a trap volunteer coordinator
- half a day (a one off) for a few handy people to help us prepare traps for use, label them etc.
Full training given. If you have more questions, think you can help, or have any ideas about what groups we could approach, please email Jane Lenting on swbg@xtra.co.nz. In the first instance we’ll organise a meeting where I can show people what is involved with the three volunteer roles.
