In this webinar CarbonCrop team member Charlie Cottrell-Jury is joined by Sam Gibson, aka SamTheTrapMan.
*Content warning: This video contains images of dead animals from pest control activities that some people may find disturbing*
If you are registered for the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), you have obligations around administration and forest management. Pest control is an important part of maintaining a healthy forest and will help you in meeting your obligations in the ETS for forest management. Don't worry about the other stuff, CarbonCrop takes care it for you.
What are these obligations?
While pest control, fencing are not requirements of the ETS they help with maintaining your forest and meeting your obligations, which are:
Maintain a minimum of 30% canopy cover
Remain a minimum of 30 metres in width
Forest must remain for at least 50 years
To achieve this many people are proactive in fencing off their forest, and implementing a pest control program to provide the best conditions for their forest to grow in and encourage biodiversity.
You can read more about your responsibilities under the ETS in our blog post here.
Forest type overview
Young Forest
Young forests are low productivity forests, meaning there is less food in the system. As there is less food, there are less rats, less stoats, but these forests are very palatable for possums, goats and deer.
Pine Forest
Pine forests have low fruit productivity so the numbers of rats and stoats will also be lower. The risk of a pine forest is often the understory will be grass, which is highly palatable for possums, goats and deer. Usually pine forests will harbour insectivorous species rather than fruit, nectar and seed feeding species.
Has a limited carrying capacity for biodiversity limiting the species that you’ll find in these forests.
Want to make your pest control the best?
Request a list of trap suppliers recommended by SamTheTrapMan to get your pest control up to scratch.
Pests and how to deal with them
Sam provides some highly practical advice on how to deal with the main predators in your forests, and the best traps available to sort them out. The focus from this webinar was smaller pests, if you are looking for information on dealing with deer, stay tuned. Sam will be joining us again to share his expert knowledge soon.
Stoats
Key Information
1 trap per 6-10 ha in pine, manuka or farmland
They have huge home ranges
Use linear landscape features for best results in trapping them
Best Traps:
DOC200
A24
Best Bait
Meat
Eggs
Erayz
Other ferrets
Ferrets
Key Information
Ferrets are often found in open landscapes, so are less of a threat in your forest
They have a medium home range
Swap every 4th trap in your stoat network from a DOC200 to a DOC 250
Best Traps
DOC250
Best Bait
Meat
Eggs
Erayz
ALP
Possums
Key Information
Possums are a huge pest for trees, with their diet consisting of leaves and fruit. If you have a young forest, or are trying to establish/regenerate a forest possums will be something to look out for.
They have a seasonal home range
1 trap per ha or every 100m on ridges and spurs
Identify palatable trees & possum runs to place traps
Best Traps
Sentinel
Trapinator
Timms Trap
Flipping Timmy
Best Bait
Apple
Blue Smooth
Rats
Key Information
Rats mainly eat mice, insects, fruit & seeds. They can damage your trees and reproduce fast so you need to stay on top of this pest
They have a small home range
2 traps per ha
1 trap per ha in pine, manuka etc.
Use 50x100m or 100x100m grid network
Best traps
A24
Snap trap
DOC 200
Bes Bait
Peanut Butter
White chocolate buttons
ALP
Wild / Feral Cat
Key Information
Their diet focuses on mice, rats, insects but can also include lizards and birds.
They tend to be more cautious and have a medium home range
1 trap per 40ha
Use linear landscape features eg. rivers, ridges, bushedge or existing tracks.
Use unique features such as outlier trees, stumps, sheds etc.
Best traps
Flipping Timmy
Steve Alan
Best Bait
Meat
Fish
Pest control is an important part of ensuring your ETS registered forest remains compliant. To learn more about pest control check out Sam The Trap Man on social media.
If you have existing forest in the ETS, let CarbonCrop deal with your paperwork so you can focus on what’s important.