May 2022

More than 100 kids from around Dunedin recently took part in a trap building workshop at Mitre 10 as part of the NZ International Science Festival. The young trappers hammered together wooden boxes to house traps for their gardens. Each child received either a Victor or T-Rex snap-trap to put in the box for trapping […]

City Sanctuary is providing free rat and possum traps for residents in Maori Hill.  Let us know a time that works for someone from the City Sanctuary team to visit your home and install a trap in your backyard during December. We’ll help you find the best place to put your trap, install it for […]

Members of the Aquinas sustainability club got in touch after seeing and hearing possums in the bush around their hall.  A well-fed possum in the bush surrounding Aquinas College captured on camera by student Oscar Thomas. The group put out chew cards to see what predators were around. These are filled with a non-toxic lure […]

Predator Free Dunedin’s City Sanctuary project is supporting 1 in 10 households in Maori Hill to protect native wildlife through backyard predator control. Drop in to the Maori Hill Community Centre on Wednesdays in September from 4pm – 6pm to register for a trap and to pick up a monitoring kit to see what predators […]

For example, mice will nibble one side while rats will chomp through the whole thing. If you have put a chew card out to see what predators are visiting your backyard, it’s time for some detective work! No bite marks? If nothing nibbled your card, just take it down and move it somewhere else. Remember, you’ll […]

If you live in the wider Lindsay Creek catchment (Opoho, North East Valley, Dalmore, Pine Hill, Liberton and Normanby) visit Open Valley Urban Ecosanctuary’s pop up trap library! Come along to the Valley Project Community Rooms every second Saturday (12th and 26th September) from 2pm to 4pm. The team will have monitoring devices (tracking tunnels, […]

28 February 2022 “We could hear them at night racketing around in the garden and they were having a go at some plants.” “Once when my grandkids were over from Australia they left some plums out on the table and the next morning the possums had taken them!” Roger says there has been an increase […]

Keeping pets safe around traps is important and something we consider at all times. Rat and stoat traps are kept inside a wooden box or tunnel. These have a small entrance that allow predators to get in but keep pets out. They also have a wire mesh barrier to stop cats reaching bait with their […]

The suburb of Maori Hill was defined using boundaries from the 2018 census. We have expanded this slightly to include any houses along State Highway 1 and along the Otago Golf Course.  This area includes 102 hectares and 1,116 households.  If you live slightly outside this area, please come along to a trap library session […]

We are supporting communities to do predator control in the following priority reserves: Botanic Garden Braeview Crescent Reserve Chingford Park Craigieburn Reserve Dalmore Reserve Prospect Bank Ross Creek Reserve Signal Hill Reserve Town Belt Woodhaugh Garden If you are part of a local community group that is keen to get involved at one of these […]

Community health and wellbeing, lifestyle and economy are all dependent on a healthy natural environment, and it is this underlying principle that drives the Halo Project’s objectives to enhance our natural environment. We aim to inspire and work with our communities to enhance, protect and connect with this landscape. We do this across four distinct […]

6 October 2021 Woodhaugh Gardens has a rich history as one of Dunedin’s oldest parks and is home to many treasured birds and plants. Located within the Town Belt and coursed by the Water of the Leith, the park dates back to the 1890s. The suburb of Woodhaugh played an important role in Dunedin’s industrial […]

Protecting native wildlife through backyard trapping will be a crucial part of achieving a Predator Free Dunedin.  City Sanctuary is supporting communities in priority suburbs across Dunedin to set up traps in their backyards. We’re actively supporting communities in Māori Hill, North Dunedin and Caversham to get residents trapping in their backyards. These pilot suburbs […]

Introduced predators like rats, possums and stoats are a major problem for New Zealand’s plants and animals. For millions of years, our native wildlife evolved without the threat of ground-based mammal predators. This means they are vulnerable to predation and unable to defend themselves. Since people and predators arrived on our shores, dozens of species […]