Moa Conservation Trust is contributing to the conservation efforts of DOC and others to ensure the preservation of our native birdlife, one possum at a time.

Since June 2014 Moa Conservation Trust has installed, and regularly clears, 2 trap lines in the Rimutaka Forest Park resulting in the trapping of more than 350 possums to-date.

The Wellington Community Trust grant has enabled members and friends of Moa Conservation Trust to implement Stage 3 of a trapping programme by covering 50% of the purchase cost of a further 130 traps.

Staff from Moa Conservation Lodge at Tutere Lodge in Rimutaka Forest Park

In January, friends of the trust spent a few days installing the new traps along the McKerrow Track, with some of the group over-nighting at the Tutere Hut. The traps all had to be carried in, and with each trap weighing 400gms, that in in itself was no mean feat. Armed with battery-charged drills the team installed 110 of the 130 new traps during their 2-day marathon. Stage 3 is now well and truly underway.

Moa Conservation Trust was formed in 2014 by a group of friends who recognise and appreciate the value of New Zealand’s natural environment and the risk its indigenous birdlife and flora is exposed to as a consequence of introduced predators. Moa Conservation Trust is contributing to the conservation efforts of the Department of Conservation, and other groups throughout New Zealand, to ensure the preservation of its native birdlife, one possum at a time.