It’s up to our locals to make a difference and adopt a large-scale predator free initiative, starting in their own backyards. We hope to encourage and bring our community together with the common goal of protecting, restoring and safeguarding Waitākere’s unique species for our families and future.

Our Groups main focus is increased awareness and to encourage trapping on private land. We place a high importance on our locals to get involved and put in the mahi and begin trapping themselves. More active trappers provided with the right tools to protect the native wildlife in such a massive area.

Predator Free Waitākere/Swanson is managed completely by locals volunteering within the community giving their personal time, knowledge, sweat and tears into this project, all brought together by a range of motivations to achieve a common goal.

whether it be to;

Bring more natives to their backyard and enjoy a personal bird sanctuary

Reducing personal garden and home destruction, veges dug out and eaten, cables and walls damaged by pests moving in to your home (saving on repair costs)

Give back to the community or put yourself out there as a way to meet new people in the area

Keeping your family safe from diseases and contaminated food spread by rodents

Looking out for your pets, putting a stop to egg and feed stealers in your chook pen, flea infestations

Learn together and bond with your children and family

Whatever the reason to get involved it is with Community and Collaborative effort we can reduce the introduced and invasive species and help make Predator Free by 2050, a very reachable goal with many hands

Increased awareness and encouragement trapping on private land and the most effective way to do this is to provide quality traps, at cost, to our community. Having our trapper of the month contest is of an indescribable value to this goal as it encourages our local trappers to record their captures via the app Trap.nz

With our trapper of the month contest we are able to provide an incentive for our community to begin trapping in their own back yard and then continue to do so. The Chance at winning, beating the neighbours score, all incentives to keep our locals working towards a Predator Free 2025 with our sponsors help we can keep people trapping long enough to see results of their efforts in their own backyards and then keep up the work.  Our trapper of the month contest also encourages our local trappers to record their captures via the app Trap.nz and this information in turn is used nationwide in capturing data for the understanding and furthering predator eradication for New Zealand. It also helps us as a smaller community see where the efforts are needed and what species we need to target.

We rely on our sponsors as well as various organizations with the same vision to help us in subsidising traps and trap building materials and ongoing trapping efforts

A record of pests and predators caught in our local area is important. It helps local government and DOC determine where to allocate resources to managing pests and prevents population numbers getting out of control.

For our local group Predator Free Waitakere Township/Swanson it helps us get funding and sponsorship if we have data on the trapping results in our area.

You can use the Trap.NZ App to record the positions and types of traps you have via GPS. We get a record of which baits are effective as well as what you are catching each day. The App is easy to use and will make your trapping smarter and more effective.

And there are prizes! Make sure you join our project and start logging those traps today!