On the last count Shelly Park resident Karyn Gradon has trapped 56 ship rats, five Norway rats, 10 possums, nine hedgehogs and 23 mice.
Karyn was introduced to invasive weed control when she first moved to her new home in Shelly Park three years ago.
“We moved here in September 2017 and in January 2018, I started with invasive weed work with the neighbours,” says Karyn about her tryst with conservation work in the area that backs onto the Mangemangeroa Reserve.
Nine months later, Karyn had a visit from Allan Riley, chair of Friends of Mangemangeroa (FoM). Allan was accompanied by Murray Gleeson, former chair of Forest and Bird; Niklas Erickson, conservation advisor from Auckland Council; Lorelle Stranaghan of Pest Free Howick and James Lee from FoM.
The advocates of Predator Free New Zealand introduced her to the concept of pest detecting in the backyard and presented Karyn with her first possum trap.
“Erickson then drew up a rat bait line for me to cover the 5.6 hectare area but we decided in the end to use traps so we could record the numbers. The rat traps were provided by Pest Free Howick and ACC Biosecurity,” says Karyn, who grew up on a farm.
Impressed by the rat-trapper and the ecological restoration she is doing by helping native birds to return to the bush, Karyn had Rotarians Sylvie Wilkinson and Duncan Looney of Trap Library East Auckland visit the site to drop off possum traps.
“At the beginning of March 2020, I put out four stoat traps from ACC Biosecurity,” says Karyn.
And while some neighbours thought there were no rats or possums in the area, the number of pests trapped from October 30 to May 28 proved the contrary.
“Not many are aware that adult rats are baby-making machines and can create up to 120 babies,” says the vigilant pest detective.
Rodents also cause a lot of food-borne illnesses and are a serious health risk.
Karyn’s drive for conservation has not gone unnoticed.
Hearing about Karyn’s work to preserve precious wildlife for future generations, John Spiller, deputy chair of the Howick Local Board, met Karyn and her neighbour Martyn Neal.
“Martyn has lived here a lot longer than I have and has done a lot of work on getting rid of invasive weeds along with other neighbours who have a part-share in this land. There are 18 neighbours in total.”
Spiller was very appreciative of her efforts to restore local native life and encouraged Karyn to apply for a Howick Local Board Grant of $5000 to purchase native plants.
“We planted our first native plants in July 2019 and we will be planting another 1200 native plants this July using the grant. Plants are being supplied by the Te Whangai Trust,” says Karyn.
“Once you remove invasive weeds it is important to plant native trees.”
Meanwhile, Allan says Karyn is a self-motivated organiser and doer.
“Most of the physical work on that 5ha property was done by Karyn with occasional help from two or three of the neighbours. I got the council to have a look at what she was achieving with invasive plant control and they paid contractors to give the area a push with plant control and followed with material for her use on rats, stoats and possums.
“Pest Free Howick and Lorelle have been a big help with supply of traps.”
