A24 for stoats where there are Weka?

#1

I have a question on behalf of a friend with a bach in the Marlborough Sounds. He says they have seen a number of stoats around (never saw them before) and whereas there were lots of weka they only saw one on this trip. Fantails also seem to have disappeared. I am keen to get them started with trapping (they only get to visit a few times a year) and to at least install an A24 with GN “Meat lovers” lure so that something may happen in between visits.

So, does anyone operate in an area that has weka? And what do you do to catch stoats and not endanger weka?

GN suggest installing at 1.3m off the ground if you have weka present. I am very keen to do the right thing here and give my friend the best chance of success without endangering non-targets, so would appreciate any advice. I haven’t had much success personally with the A24 but I have an arsenal of other traps. I understand that in an area where there are no other traps then the A24 can be good for dropping numbers of pests. TIA, Tony

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#2

You can build a wire mesh guard around the trap that could exclude weka but admit smaller animals. This example is from Chalky Island. Unfortunately robins were still accessing the traps on Chalky, but it would probably work for weka.

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#3

Thanks, that’s very helpful and appreciated … cheers, Tony

#4

I don’t have an answer for you but we have tried using A24 at Aoraki-Mt Cook for stoats and, as we have kea, had to have a guard fitted. Where we used them (or tried) the A24 proved not worth the effort and caught nothing and returned to our Doc150’s. We used a Guard that came for the A24. However I see in your area that there is more success. https://www.janszoon.org/assets/documents/docs_Project-Janszoon-Annual-Report-2019.pdf#:~:text=A,through%20the%20successful%20re-introductions%20of

#5

Thanks for that! All very helpful and especially the area in Abel Tasman that seems to have done well with the A24s. Like you, I myself have not had encouraging results with the A24 and (redundant) A12 I bought back in 2018/19. But I have read reports where the A24 networks seem to get good results if there are no other traps in the area or if trapping has not been done before. The site at the bach we want to trap at has no other traps and the traps can only be serviced every couple of months, so an automatic trap will have to do the job for now. Cheers, Tony

#6

Wouldn’t rats pile up in the mesh cage and block other rats from coming in.

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#7

They seem to decompose within a few weeks. But if there are high rat densities then the guard could be made bigger to allow more room.

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#8

Hi one thing you could try is to mount them on a tree higher up and have a running board for the Rats to walk up, if you have the board right up under the A24 it should make it near impossible for a weka to perch on the board and get it’s head up and under the trap. also should deter possums
you only need 100 -125 mm from the board to underside of trap for the ship rat to be comfortable and easily reach up inside, your dead rats should fall down out of the way. but Weka will probably come and clean up the rats anyway
you would have to check to see if there are any updates from DOC but previously for Weka it was running board at 55 deg, and trap one metre off the ground.
If you were to rip 150 mm wide fence pails down the centre gives 75 mm heaps for a rat but even more difficult for a Weka

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#9

We installed around 100 A24s on an island in the sounds but are currently removing them as we found no evidence of them working for stoats. With weka, you need to mount them 1.2-1.3m above the ground with a steep ramp. Even then we found weka could still get hit if there was any other branch or fork nearby in the tree. As an alternate, we tried mounting above a wire cage - approx 300x300x150 with 50mm squares. Again no evidence of working for stoats. But weka are very persistent and will keep trying for months to get the lure. We had a number of cameras aimed at the A24s.
The A24s worked somewhat for rats - the rats are very reluctant to enter, but eventually some did. The only traps that seem to work for stoats are DOC150s and 200s - but you must use weka length traps.

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#10

Thanks Steve - very useful, all adding to my information. I think I did say, I had very limited success with my A24 but had read good reports for offshore islands and suchlike where no other traps were on offer to the pests. My own trail cam on our property showed rats perching on the top and very comfortable all over it but no intention of going inside! i quickly replaced with Victor trap and dealt with the problem. I have often wondered if the smooth A24 marketing effort used trained laborartory rats! cheers, Tony

#11

Hi Tony. I trap around Picton and Ngākuta Bay with two organisations, Picton Dawn Chorus and Pest Free Ngākuta Bay. We use a variety of traps and have DOC200s deployed for stoats. These are housed in long wooden boxes to keep weka safe- we have various that our team make including ‘run through’ styles… Picton Dawn CHorus has a shop in Wellington street, Picton, that I think sells the complete box with Doc200 trap inside if your friends would like to purchase some which also contributes funds to our volunteer trapping efforts. We’ve also been deploying AT220 traps which are doing an incredible job on rats and possums.Then there are the feral cats to consider…

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#12

Thanks, everything is useful! Its frustrating for me that I can’t be at the property myself organising some trapping, but I will gradually try and get something in place. It’s good to know about your shop. Cheers, Tony