Our plan to place seventy traps along the Greenstone Road, from Kinloch to Elfin Bay, has begun. The traps are currently being built and will be placed in the next few weeks.

We recently applied to the WWF for some funds and we heard this week that we have been successful. These funds will help us support our feral cat trapping activities. Thank you WWF.

Our feral cat project started last week. After a successful two month trial on the Matukituki, traps were placed at the northern end of the Rees valley. The data from the Matukituki trial, show that the satellite linked technology and methodology work well and are highly efficient. More news will follow next year.

Sadly the bird count this year was cancelled due to the heavy rain and flooded rivers. Safety will always come first. The good news was that we had many volunteers willing to help us. This is the second year running we have cancelled due to rain. Next year we will probably do the count in October. We do wonder if the river birds can survive such high river levels.

We will be doing a bird count on the rivers in the first half of November. The exact dates will depend on the weather and the river flows - last year we had to cancel due to this. The count will be completed over two to three days, weather permitting. We have several people who are volunteering their time - please be in touch if you wish to take part.

We were successful in our funding application to the DOC Community Fund, winning just over $19,000.00 to build and place traps along the Greenstone Road from Kinloch to Elfin Bay. This trap line will target hedgehogs, rats and stoats. We plan to have the traps placed within the next 2-3 months.

Feral cats are predators that need different trapping techniques compared to trapping of rats, stoats and possum. We are exploring new methods to do this in our area using satellite technology and a link to mobile phones. A trial is currently under way in the Matukituki valley and preliminary results are very encouraging. Watch this space.

We continue to manage this line of 34 traps. Last month 33 of them were found with rats in them. This is the biggest haul since we took over the management of the traps.

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We have just received some great news. Our application to the Otago Community Trust for funding to support our feral cat project has been successful. It has awarded us $6000.00. We must use the money within the next 12 months.

We have applied to the DOC Community Fund 2019 for funding to help start a new project. We want to put a new trap line alongside the Greenstone Road that runs from Kinloch to Elfin Bay on the northwest side of Lake Wakatipu. Our primary predator target is the hedgehog and secondary target rats and stoats. We expect to hear the result of our application in August.

Last year the Department of Conservation awarded us $50,000.00 to support our trapping project on the Dart and Rees rivers. As we spent the money we submitted interim and final reports to DOC. We are delighted to say that we came in on budget and that DOC have signed off on the whole project.