Xero founder Rod Drury is the latest philanthropist to assist a local environmental consortium in efforts to save native wildlife.

The entrepreneur has contributed $50,000 for the Southern Lakes Sanctuary to further invest in groundbreaking pest-control technology to help boost native wildlife in Queenstown and Wānaka. The investment is timed with the Department of Conservation’s annual Conservation Week/Te Wiki Tiaki Ao Turoa this week (August 14-20).

Southern Lakes Sanctuary project director Paul Kavanagh says more of the organisation’s pest traps will be fitted with cutting-edge TrapNodes, thanks to Drury’s contribution. The mechanisms are mounted to self-resetting AT220 predator traps, and feature a night-time AI camera and a communications system to alert the Southern Lakes Sanctuary team of predator interactions.

“This advanced technology enables us to protect more of our native taonga, our wildlife,” he says. “The TrapNodes make the pest-control process much more efficient, as we are relying less on human resources and manual labour. Traditional traps require a person to go and reset and maintain each trap, which is costly in both time and resources.

“We are incredibly grateful to Rod for supporting the Southern Lakes Sanctuary – without the generosity of private investors, our native wildlife will continue to rapidly decline.”

Among other locations, Southern Lakes Sanctuary has 23 AT220 traps operational at Bush Creek in Arrowtown, and these traps have removed 1072 pests since they were deployed under a year ago. During the same period, a random sample of 23 traditional traps caught 24 pests.

Drury says this work will expand with the exciting new technology being introduced.

“The results the Southern Lakes Sanctuary team have achieved in Bush Creek are impressive,” he says. “It made sense to provide support to connect this initiative with the great trails and planting initiatives we’re already supporting on Coronet Peak with the Queenstown Mountain Bike Club, Mana Tāhuna Charitable Trust, Treespace and Te Tapu o Tāne.

“Coronet Face is becoming a brilliant case study of what can happen when we work together with a shared environmental and recreational vision.”

With the new TrapNodes fitted to the AT220 traps, they are set to become even more efficient in removing pests such as possums and rats.

The TrapNodes – developed by tech company FTP Solutions – can be set to detect target and non-target species, as well as collect live data, such as when the traps have been activated or need repairs. The information is sent directly to the Southern Lakes Sanctuary via email or text.

FTP Solutions agriculture manager Jonathan Clark says the Southern Lakes Sanctuary is the first conservation group in NZ to use the predator-control technology.

“It is fantastic to see the AT220 traps and TrapNodes generating some great results for Southern Lakes Sanctuary,” he says. “We completed some of the early research and development of this technology in Wānaka, inside the Southern Lakes Sanctuary’s project area. Our approach was to increase productivity, and by leveraging this technology, predator-free projects gain the ability to take a unit of labour and deliver 10 or 100 times more work. It’s a game changer for predator control and conservation in NZ.”

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