Predator Free 2050: $7.5m funding boost for Wellington programme

Efforts to make Wellington predator free are getting a funding boost, which the government says will create 42 jobs.

Government company Predator Free 2050 will provide an extra $7.6 million in funding to the Wellington programme.

Minister of Conservation Eugenie Sage said the project would repeat the methods used on Miramar Peninsula over the past year to remove rats, stoats, and weasels.

“This investment will supercharge the incredible amount of work by volunteer groups who have been out in force around the city encouraging backyard trapping and returning birdsong to the city.

“Wellingtonians have shown strong support for the Predator Free Wellington project, with 92 percent of surveyed residents saying they are behind the effort, 70 percent of them already involved in backyard trapping.”

The investment would help set up traps and bait stations in a way that increased the likelihood that target pests in the area would be caught, she said.

The next stage of control will be done across 19 suburbs from Kilbirnie, to Island Bay and down to the CBD.

Sage said teams of community liaison and field staff would be recruited, trained and managed for the project.

Over five years, additional phases of control work will be done from Wellington Port via Zealandia to Te Kopahou, from Kaiwharawhara to Mākara, then north to the city boundary at Porirua.