John Bissell is sharing his strategies on how we can be predator-free by 2050.

Words: Nadene Hall

If John Bissell could choose between 20 traps in good positions and 200 in bad spots, he’d choose the 20 every time. The long-time conservationist owns Backblocks Environmental Management. He travels all over NZ doing predator control work and has written a series of blogs on good trapping strategies.

John’s tips include:

1. A trap that captures an animal when it simply walks onto a plate to investigate a bait is often much more effective than a trap where the animal has to bite the bait and give it a good tug or stick its head inside something.

2. Sometimes, a trap site needs two different styles of trap – there will always be animals within a population that won’t enter certain sorts of traps.

3. Trap on the edge of cover, where prey is common and predators hunt the most – for example, by a creek where a fence and scrub edge intersect.

4. Tracks, bridges, and culverts are also hotspots. Place traps on track or road edges, especially on the approach to bridges – apex predators are great travellers, smart enough to use bridges, and love a bit of roadkill.

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