Canterbury-made pest traps shipped to Scotland

At Action Plastics, we’re proud to manufacture innovative plastic products that solve real-world challenges. One of those products is the Nestgard lightweight predator trap box, developed by engineer Marcus King in partnership with Trap Tools and manufactured right here in Christchurch.

Designed to make predator control safer, faster and more efficient in some of New Zealand’s most challenging environments, the Nestgard trap box is already helping conservation projects both here in New Zealand and overseas.

The following article, originally published in The Press, highlights the development of the Nestgard trap box, its role in supporting conservation efforts, and how locally manufactured innovation from Christchurch is making a difference around the world.

Canterbury-made pest traps shipped to Scotland

A Christ­ch­urch engin­eer says a light­weight plastic pest trap box could dra­mat­ic­ally reduce the time and cost of pred­ator con­trol work in remote back­coun­try, with 500 already shipped to a major con­ser­va­tion project in Scot­land.

Mar­cus King developed the plastic trap box after years of haul­ing heavy wooden trap boxes through steep South Island ter­rain while help­ing pro­tect kākāriki karaka (orange-fron­ted para­keets) near Arthur’s Pass.

Tra­di­tional wooden trap boxes fit­ted with Depart­ment of Con­ser­va­tion (DOC) steel traps can weigh about 17kg, mean­ing King could usu­ally only carry two at a time.

The new plastic Nest­gard boxes weigh about 2.1kg each includ­ing a DOC 150 steel trap.

King recently tested the new boxes while lay­ing trap lines south of Lewis Pass with his wife Irene Pow.

The pair car­ried up to 10 traps each while trav­el­ling from Nina Hut over Dev­il­skin Saddle and down to the Doubt­ful River – a route involving about 700m of climb­ing on either side. The work was com­pleted in two long days.

King estim­ated the same job using lar­ger wooden trap boxes could have taken about 10 days and required heli­copter sup­port.

“Using my engin­eer­ing skills was pos­sibly the most valu­able thing I could do for con­ser­va­tion,” he said.

“I know all about build­ing these sort of things.”

King pre­vi­ously worked devel­op­ing products at Callaghan Innov­a­tion and its pre­de­cessor organ­isa­tions.

Fun­ded through phil­an­thropic sup­port, he first developed a lighter ply­wood pro­to­type before switch­ing to plastic to fur­ther reduce the weight.

The final design also includes sev­eral modi­fic­a­tions aimed at improv­ing trap­ping effi­ciency. The entrance is sized for rats and stoats, while adult hedge­hogs are too large to fit unless the open­ing is enlarged with a hack­saw.

As Trap Tools was final­ising the design, the Orkney Nat­ive Wild­life Project in Scot­land approached the com­pany seek­ing 500 trap boxes for its stoat erad­ic­a­tion pro­gramme.

Stoats are dev­ast­at­ing nat­ive bird pop­u­la­tions in Orkney, with the project aim­ing to make the islands stoat-free by 2030.

Some of the boxes shipped to Scot­land are bright yel­low after a DOC study found stoats were more likely to enter brightly col­oured trap boxes than duller ones. The col­our also makes traps easier to loc­ate in the land­scape.

About 200 of the trap boxes have so far been deployed in New Zea­l­and since going on sale near Christ­mas, King said.

The boxes cost about $50 each, plus about the same again for a DOC 150 trap, and are man­u­fac­tured in Christ­ch­urch.

Article written by Will Harvie

Image – Marcus King lays a NestGard plastic trap. Photo supplied by Trap Tools