Just finished compiling our results for last year, and once again we’ve got some impressive totals thanks to everyone’s’ hard work.
The 2013 summary is:
Possums 2176, Rats 74, Ferrets 0, Stoats 15, Weasels 0, Feral cats 2, Rabbits 5, Pigs 3, Hedgehogs 9
Our time spent doing this: 1420 hours (x $15/hour = $21,300 worth of labour)
Of course we also did a possum and rat knockdown over late winter, so will have taken out a lot more possums and rats than this in reality. Steve Henderson at NRC helped me to monitor the knockdown, and our official result was a reduction in possums from a 28% BMI (Bite Mark Index) to just 11%. This means we started with a moderate number of possums in the forest, and reduced them to a low level. The target to be strived for is a BMI between 10 – 15% so we well achieved this.
Total results since we began in 2009:
Possums 7966, Rats 484, Ferrets 2, Stoats 41, Weasels 1, Feral cats 17, Rabbits 91, Pigs 11, Hedgehogs 30.
As if all the birds singing away to us in our forests weren’t proof enough, then we only need to look to these results to know that together, we are making a huge difference.
Whareora Landcare Group 