Hi my name is Ryon and i will be talking about trapping. The sorts of animals I catch are possums, rats, hedgehogs, wild cats and stoats. The reason I trap is because we are trying to stop the pests from eating all the native plants and animals. Possums are a pest in New Zealand, possums also destroy our native forests by eating the leaves of them.
Rats are big pest in nz eating birds, seeds, snails, lizards, fruit, weta, eggs and flowers and Norway rats prey on ground nesting birds their eggs and their chicks like dotterels and shore plover they also eat the same food as some animals so it makes it harder for the plants to grow. Wild cats are a pest because they eat some of our native birds and their eggs.
Stoats have a big effect on bird species like wrybills, dotterels, black fronted terns and kiwi Birds that nest in holes in tree trunks such as mohua kaka and yellow crowned kakariki are easy prey for stoats. The types of traps i use are doc 200s, steve allen's, bait stations and these foot traps. Now I will talk about how the traps work. When an animal stands on the doc 200 plate it triggers these metal poles to slam down on the stoat or rat. With the steve allen trap the possum walks up this piece of wood and there is a piece of food on this nail in the trap so when the possum grabs the food it pulls this metal wire and crushes its neck. When a rat goes into the bait station there is this blue poison.
