Predator Free New Zealand Trust

🔗 High-Tech Meets Low-Tech: The Ultimate Possum Eradication Team 🔗 On the Otago Peninsula, the battle against possums blends cutting-edge technology with the timeless reliability of a dog’s nose. 🐕💡 Jonah and his border terrier, Scout, are part of a powerful team combining AI, drones, and good old-fashioned tracking to find and eliminate the last remaining possums. With possums nearly gone after years of control work, Scout’s impressive ability to sniff out possum poo helps pinpoint their locations. A jar of possum scat may seem low-tech, but it’s crucial for keeping Scout sharp and on target! At the same time, Halo Project’s Kim Miller oversees AI-powered traps, which use real-time monitoring to catch only target species, making predator detection faster and more efficient. Heat-detecting drones survey the peninsula’s rugged cliffs, marking spots where possums hide—areas even Scout can’t reach. Together, these high-tech solutions and low-tech tools save time, cover more ground, and make eradication efforts more effective. Since 2018, over 60,000 possums and thousands of rats and mustelids have been removed, allowing local wildlife to flourish. The fusion of advanced AI and a skilled dog like Scout shows that sometimes the best results come from pairing high-tech innovation with simple, tried-and-true methods. Jonah says it best: “We’re gonna get to zero.” Predator Free 2050 Limited

Have you tried some of our troubleshooting tips but still struggle to catch predators? It doesn’t mean there aren’t any left out there. Here are five *more* things you can do if your trap isn’t catching.

“Without a framework, the challenges of kitten dumping, growing stray colonies and increasing feral cat numbers will continue. As will the predation of native birds, bats and lizards,” says Jessi Morgan, Predator Free New Zealand Trust chief executive.

Biologist and wildlife rehabber Sabrina Luecht never expected she would one day become a proud cat owner. Her work, after all, revolves around saving native birds, many of which bear wounds of feline predation.

Toroa (northern royal albatross) soar the skies over the sea, sleep on the waves and don’t return to land for years. When it’s time to return to solid ground, some go to Taiaroa Head at the end of the Otago Peninsula to breed and raise chicks. Last season was a record-breaker, and this year is a tie. 📷: Laura Findlay

A new breakthrough in predator control is on the horizon — a rat-specific toxin that leaves birds, pets, and livestock unharmed. Scientists worldwide have been exploring how to make it palatable to rats. We spoke with Dr Lee Shapiro about a new norbormide formulation and method, which he believes will be “an essential new tool in the predator free toolkit.”

With their black eye mask, ferrets might remind you of the Hamburglar. But instead of targeting hamburgers, they are adept hunters with a wide range of native birds and lizards on their menu. They are the least researched introduced predator, so what do we actually know about them?

Sneaking in the raupō is an elusive bird— the Matuku-hūrepo (Australasian bittern). They stalk eels in the shallows, and their eerie call rings out over wetlands at dawn and dusk.

When you control introduced predators, native wildlife thrives.

"It's really disheartening to know that despite all the work that goes into rat and mustelid control, domestic cats are still out there at night, predating on our native birds."