Strawberry jam lures in possums

Neville has been one of our backyard trappers in The Glen since August last year. So far he has trapped 18 possums and lots of rats, mice and hedgehogs.

Neville with some of his possums.

What motivated you to start trapping?

Where we live there is a lot of vegetation with a large number of native trees and as result we get plenty of kereru, tūī, korimako/bellbirds, pīwakawaka and tauhou/silvereyes. We also get plenty of possums – they’d be on our deck, in the trees making the dog go nuts.

On walks around Jubilee Park at the back of Zingari Richmond Football Club I would see City Sanctuary traps. I knew of the Otago Peninsula Biodiversity Group on the peninsula and came across a link for City Sanctuary.

Kate’s been a great help in setting up the traps, giving good advice and encouragement.

What would you say to encourage others to get involved?

They’re not really that cute…

One of the possums trapped on Neville’s property.

Do you have any trapping tips to share with others?

From the info Kate’s given me about their winter feeding habits and making the trap really attractive, I smear a liberal amount of strawberry jam on the trunks of the trees as well as blaze. I also found that using as fresh possum dough as possible seemed to work better plus blazing and luring before sunset rather than late at night had better results

I used to set the traps late at night - now I do as soon as I've got home from work and I've had really good results lately with 6 possums trapped over a 17 day period.

What species would you like to see flourishing in your area again?

For the past couple of years we have heard ruru/morepork in the bush at nights off and on which is really good. I have seen a karearea flying over Zingari Richmond Football Club recently and in the wider Dunedin area the return of the kākā is encouraging.

Turn up your sound to hear a recording of the ruru/morepork near Neville’s place.