Pests Busted

Orchard worker Don Sullivan and a team of 30 trappers have been awarded the Forest & Bird annual Pestbuster prize for their work in nabbing 530 pests over the last year in four forested areas near Nelson. The team’s tally for the year was 234 possums, 204 rats, 69 mice, 14 hedgehogs, 6 stoats and 3 weasels using 325 traps. Sullivan has also spent time and money building 750 traps, some of which he has given to other pest control groups. Sullivan realised the need for pest control when he noticed a decline in birdlife while tramping. As the areas in which he works have been more intensively trapped, he has seen a rise in numbers of bellbirds, tomtits, fantails, kakariki and weka. A kaka was heard recently in Upper Marsden Valley for the first time in 20 years. “We are trying to get the birdlife back so the children can see them,” he says. “Rats and possums are the main problem.”