Our project has grown to over 400 households since starting 7 years ago, but we now have less than 50 households actively trapping. Please, what has helped other PF projects get households trapping again, and/or keep them trapping?
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@sumnerpaul, what sort of reporting does your project use to share its results with households? Many people like to see/track their ākill statsā, either from the project homepage or in a visual like a map, graph, or hexmap, and at Trapper level you canāt see many of the TrapNZ reports that Admins can see.
If you havenāt already got a hexmap for your project, you can make one by following the instructions here: Creating a static hex ā¦ | Trap.NZ Help & User guides. The benefit of hexmaps is that you can put them on your website and the data will update automatically from TrapNZ. It also aggregates locations so exact trap locations arenāt shown, which is important for privacy when traps are on private properties. One potential downside for some backyard trapping groups is that the list of target species includes ācatā, which can be a divisive issue.
Heat-maps can be effective as well - you can make these here: Trap records | Trap.NZ It will depend a bit on your project as to whether these look good or not, and whether the maps show too much detail about who has traps and who doesnāt, but you can spend some time experimenting with settings - for instance, displaying one year at a time vs All Time.
Monthly totals are available as either a graph or table. One feature that the table includes is a success percentage, which is a great stat if your trappers usually record every no-catch check and relure but isnāt so helpful if they only record catches because then the stat inaccurately shows as 100% success.
Of course, I know not everyone likes maps and graphs as much as I do, but I think most trappers like to see how their little bit of the project fits into the bigger picture.
One other thought - if your project has been going a while and catch rates are getting a bit low, your trappers might actually be getting disheartened by their success. From experience, it gets really boring checking traps that donāt catch anything for months at a time! If thatās the case, maybe some of your volunteers might like to expand their areas to include a neighbourās garden, or take up a line in a nearby reserve, or do some monitoring work (tracking tunnels, bird counts, weta hotelsā¦) - basically, anything where they can see a direct and positive result rather than the indirect āabsence of evidence is not evidence of absenceā vibe you get from empty traps.
You may already be doing some or all of this, but those are the things that Iāve found most helpful personally.
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Thanks Christina, we will wait and see what other comments come in, so weāll consider all your points. For starters, I think we have been poor re feedback - we used to do a monthly email, but itās now less frequent. We offered opportunities for checking traplines in nearby bush. Those opportunities attract the keen regulars, so I am wondering how we up the game of the less committed trappers. I appreciate you taking time out to comment. Thanks. Paul
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Thanks for raising the topic Paul! I think itās something that a lot of groups will relate to, and Iām looking forward to seeing how the discussion develops.
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What a great suggestion -Creating a Static Hex map - And thank you for an excellent way to keep my group up to date! I have sent one out with a Hex Map link - brilliant idea. Like @sumnerpaul, I want to limit trapper fatigue. I figure keeping communication going is the best way to encourage people to make trapping part of their daily routines. TrapNZ is a brilliant resource but does need persistence to master all the reporting parameters.
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