The East Mohua Trapping Collective Newsletter: Feb 2026

The East Mohua Trapping Collective (EMTC), with three of its own and other trapping networks joining us, continues to expand. Its aim is to assist Abel Tasman National Park and Golden Bay bird recovery by keeping predator populations as low as possible. To keep all these projects humming along, we aim to send out three- or six-monthly data updates to share all the data from each network. Some have yet to submit data to TrapNZ – if you want help to do this, please contact me.

DOC has approved for us to erect signs at the start of DOC reserves or National Park. This will tell visitors about our work and give a QR code for more information, and to allow them to support our work with donations.

• The EMTC now includes 10 trapping networks:
• 7 are self-managed and feature in the trapping data.
• 3 are set up and managed by EMTC.

1/ In & around the Grove Scenic Reserve in Clifton: Managed by EMTC. Volunteers check the traps as needed.

2/ The Motupipi River, Sandspit and Golf course area: Managed by EMTC. The golf course and sandspit are both regularly checked – see photo with the at the time Golf Course president Alan Bradnock, with Chris Rowse from PDVET, and Anna Scheier who is the FOEM administrator. A large expansion is just starting by the estuary, with farmer funding, which is aiming over the next 2-3 years to work up the Motupipi River and tributaries with willing landowners.  An existing network along the Rototai coastline has also joined our collective.

3/ The western side of the Wainui valley: the tracks are cut on four properties, including the Wainui Falls Track, and devices are installed at two of them. Managed by EMTC. A team of volunteers are doing a great job, recruited mainly via Friends of East Mohua (FOEM). We have donations from two landowners to primarily buy extra traps, as well as support for this project area. We have many bait stations and some DOC150 traps in place. More devices: self-setting, and Flipping Timmys traps, suitable for DOC land and remote sites, will be installed soon. This work is building on the ATNP large scale predator control. The photo shows one of a cluster of large ratas to the east of the Wainui Falls Track which are being accessed by cutting a track from the private land there. This predator control will provide a buffer from possums and mustelids coming from the south into Wainui.

• Friends of East Mohua (FOEM), a group of keen volunteers, are steadily adding in landowners to their network which stretches from Wainui to Motupipi. See on TrapNZ their dashboard showing their many properties. The Pohara Reserve has had a trapping network checked by volunteers for years, which stopped and has now passed to a new volunteer to do the checking and the data collection. FOEM will assist its members with using TrapNZ to enter their data.

Project De-Vine Environmental Trust is leading the EMTC with administrative support.

If others wish to receive this newsletter directly, please email: chris@pdvet.co.nz