Volunteer

Lend a hand to protect native wildlife in Dunedin.

It will take the whole community to make our city a safe sanctuary. We have a growing team of nature-loving volunteers who give their time to help protect Dunedin’s native wildlife.

Volunteers help in urban reserves clearing traps, repairing equipment, packaging chew cards, preparing bait, delivering letterbox packs – we couldn’t do it without them.

We’re always looking for more people to check traps or use their skills to help the project.

Checking traps in parks and reserves

There are hundreds of possum and rat traps set in Dunedin’s urban parks and reserves. We’re looking for volunteers to help regularly check these traps and keep them freshly baited.

Here’s what’s involved:

• Trap lines take between 2 -4 hours to complete

• You will walk your marked line and at each trap dispose of carcasses, clean and rebait the device, and carry out basic maintenance

• Record data at each trap using a mobile app

• You’ll be part of a small team of volunteers who take turns to check the trap line every week

• A reasonable level of fitness is required because some locations are steep and slippery

Trap lines are spread out across Signal Hill, Ross Creek Reserve, the Botanic and Woodhaugh Gardens, the Town Belt, Fraser’s Gully, Chingford Park, and other areas.

City Sanctuary provides comprehensive training, a line induction, and all the tools and bait you need.

Other ways you can help

If you have other skills you’d like to offer, we’re always looking for people to help. These are some of the things we need assistance with:

• Bird counts

• Predator monitoring

• Helping others with backyard trapping

• Communications and engagement (flyer drops, photography, social media, writing stories)

• Helping at events

• Maintenance and repairs of hardware

• Providing technical support (e.g. data entry)