Pop Up Trap Library

The Department of Conservation and the Whakatipu Wildlife Trust have been running the Queenstown Trap Library nearly 2 years. It operates out of the Whakatipu-Wai-Māori/Queenstown DOC Visitor Centre at 50 Stanley Street, where Queenstown locals can borrow traps for free to target particular pesky predators or to give backyard trapping a go. In that time, the Queenstown community have caught 106 predators in trap library traps.

This year for Conservation Week, we are asking Aotearoa to take action for nature. To celebrate, we are holding a pop-up trap library at Mitre 10 Queenstown on Saturday the 19th August between 11am-2pm. We invite the local community to come along, learn about the goal of Predator Free 2050 and try backyard trapping free for a month.

There will be DOC Rangers and Whakatipu Wildlife trust representatives on hand that can help with any questions, which trap is best for your situation, and give you full instructions on how to use the traps. The Whakatipu Wildlife Trust is running a fund-raising BBQ alongside the pop-up library at Mitre 10. Buy a sausage and support the local community trapping groups. Thanks to Bidfood and Pak n Save for providing the BBQ food.

We have a range of traps as follows:
Trapinators and Flipping Timmy’s for Possums
DOC 200’s, A24 and Poditrap for Mustelids (stoats, weasels and ferrets)
DOC 150’s and lumberjacks for rodents.

The biggest threat to our plants and wildlife is from introduced predators like rats, stoats and possums. Getting rid of predators is an important first step. You can help by setting traps on your property or joining your local predator free network to help NZ achieve its Predator Free 2050 goal.

• New Zealand’s wildlife is in crisis with more than 4,000 of our species threatened or at risk. This Conservation Week we’re showing you how you can take action to help turn this around.

• The species at risk include the widely known and those less celebrated but equally worthy, including fungi, snails, insects, lizards and fish.

• These species are part of what makes New Zealand unique. When we lose a species, we lose part of ourselves.

• We have thousands of species found nowhere else which are part of our identity. But many are threatened by invasive predators, habitat loss, or climate change.

• Taking action now will help protect these species and ecosystems for future generations.

Thanks to Mitre 10 Queenstown and the Whakatipu Wildlife Trust for their support.

This event is part of Conservation Week 2023 - www.conservationweek.org.nz