Today we went and checked out the rat/stoat trap we have set in the Rerenga Awa. We are trying to catch rats and stoats because they are eating the native berries, seeds and insects down in our native reserve. How do we know they are down there? We set tracking tunnels last year and found rat and mice footprints in them.
It's been a while since we've been down because when we scheduled it in, it was raining, then we got side tracked with our science experiments. We were puzzled to find that something had made a nest in the trap. Mrs Naden and Mrs McCormack got some bark and fossicked under all the fluff and feathers...
But it wasn't fluff and feathers...it was...a decomposed rat! We thought the stench had been the rotten egg we had put in as bait!
If you look closely, the thing that looks like a stick on the bottom left hand of the photo is actually its tail, and you can see its two claws! Luckily there was some wild mint growing, so we picked it and smelt it so the revolting smell would clear from our nostrils.
We have read that dog biscuits is good bait so we are trying that instead of a rotten egg. We also set our other rat trap but the peanut butter has gone missing from Mrs Naden's table. We got some cheese from the staffroom fridge (sorry teachers - you will be one piece less at morning tea time tomorrow!) and have set that one by the fence line because we think the rats like scurrying up and down it. We will keep you posted on how we go. We now know that we need to keep checking the traps every two weeks and not get side tracked. (although seeing a decomposed rat was pretty awesome!)
