Bellbird is the pest animal trapping group for Upstream – Friends of Central Park.
The purpose of the group is to remove pest animals from Central Park so that it becomes a safe haven in the bird corridor across Wellington, spreading from Zealandia, across Polhill Gully and Tanera Gully through to Central Park.
We use traps baited with Pics Peanut Butter (thanks to Pics!) that kill instantly when the trap is activated – no poison is used.
We started trapping in December 2016 with two trap runs, one along the stream and another around the Renouf Tennis Centre. We have now added another run bringing the number of traps to 36 and covering a wider range of terrain including the flaxes planted (not ‘panted!) at the intersection of Brooklyn Road and Ohiro Road.
We have caught over 170 rats, 4 weasels and over 450 mice and given the rate at which pest animals reproduce, we have prevented hundreds more!
We have applied a new Bellbird logo to every trap box and safety vests with the same Bellbird logo have been distributed to group members.
Many thanks to Ying for her great design work, to Richard for spraying the logo onto the traps and to Bruce for contributing towards the vests cost – all much appreciated!