Mustelids not showing on project page overview

Issues and bugs
#1

I am a member of 3 projects for Pest Free Upper Hutt, Administration Manager for 2 and Advanced Trapper for the third. Until recently Mustelids were reported on the opening pages’s overview of the project. Mouse and rabbit catches appeared as part of ‘other’. Tonight I noticed that mouse and rabbit catches appear but mustelids are shown as part of ‘other’ for projects "Upper Hutt Katherine Mansfield Valley’ and ‘Upper Hutt Whitemans Valley’. On the 3rd project ‘Upper Hutt Blue Mountains Valley’ mustelids appear as expected. Can anyone suggest what has happened? thanks, Tony

#2

Kia ora,

Thanks for getting in touch. We recently updated how the project stats box on the project map works - before it was showing arbitrarily chosen species for every project in Trap.NZ. Now it shows the “top five” species caught for each individual project. This change was included in our most recent changelogs:

The projects that no longer include Mustelids in this box, are projects that are better at catching other species rather than Mustelids, so are showing those other species instead.

Hope that makes sense!

Ngā mihi,
Sarah
(she/her)

#3

Thanks for your reply Sarah, to be honest I am dumbfounded by the rationale behind the change to the software! 1) I am reassured by the fact it was not a malfunction of the software but a planned update 2) I think someone has lost the plot 3) the “arbitrarily chosen species” across NZ happen to be the species we are most focussed on. Mustelids are absolutely top of the list but will never be numerically higher than rats, mice or rabbits. It’s ridiculous to say " projects that are better at catching other species rather than Mustelids, so are showing those other species instead." 4) So my suggestion would be that we must keep those top target species of rats, mustelids and possums and probably mice and hedgehogs too and then if we want to show any other species that have high catch rates then they should be additional to the “core” species.5) It is very important to me as a coordinator to stress to my trappers how critical it is to keep their stoat trapping going all year round, and for them to easily see what catches there are every month and be warned that mustelids have been seen / caught around their project areas. 6) To remove mustelids from the project page catch stats undermines the work we are trying to do out in the rural communities. Cheers, Tony (What does everyone else think?)

1 Like
#4

I agree with Tony. I also raised this and was told “nothing could be done” Sorry but not really acceptable.
Clyff

2 Likes
#5

Hi Sarah, How about you make the display area larger and then adopt my suggestion? ie “we must keep those top target species of rats, mustelids and possums and probably mice and hedgehogs too and then if we want to show any other species that have high catch rates then they should be additional to the “core” species”. cheers, Tony

#6

Hi all - thanks for your feedback on this. Some very valid points raised and we are reviewing how this should work with a view to making the additional species shown selectable on a project basis as @Tony_Chad suggests.

#7

Hi Dan, it looks as though you have made a change so the high profile pests such as rats, possums and mustelids are once again displayed. Thank you.