('COUNTRY CALENDAR' THEME) - The best of New Zealand's rural heartland... (DRILL WHIRRS) - Catching the uncatchable ` that's become my speciality. Good girl. - John is a very good... killer. - The trapper... - There you go. - Look at that ` North Island brown kiwi. - ...and the teacher. - We've got these amazing facilities where they get hands-on. - 42. - I reckon a bit heavier. ('COUNTRY CALENDAR' THEME RESOLVES) Captions by Tom Clarke. Captions were made with the support of NZ On Air. www.able.co.nz Copyright Able 2024 (SOFT ACOUSTIC MUSIC) - I've hunted predators in this site a lot, and so I've learned over the years that this is a key travel route for ferrets. You've got a food-producing area here. You've got covered with rabbits or young hares, and frogs, mice, rats, will be on the edge of this wetland area. - Predator-control specialist John Bissell is setting traps for ferrets and feral cats on this Wairarapa sheep farm. It's springtime, and the animals will be leaving their dens looking for new territory. - If we look, we've got a big gulley coming from behind me, and then it veers off and goes up here, and right here is the intersection of those two points, and I want the landscape and the land forms to do the bulk of the work for me when it comes to channelling those animals into my traps. Real estate agents, uh, say it, and so do trappers ` location, location, location. - John is contracted to trap here to protect birdlife at the neighbouring Pukaha Mt Bruce Wildlife Reserve. - It's a very special place. It's kind of like an island surrounded by a sea of nasties. And small sites like Pukaha, they're in a constant state of re-invasion by predators who travel a long, long way from outside. But in a place like this, I've got eight traps in here in key locations. What I've done is I've tried to create as much interest at the site as possible. So I have` you've got fresh earth in front of the trap sets. Predators will naturally investigate fresh earth because that says it might be a rat hole or a rabbit burrow. That will draw them to the entrance. I've then hung my bait, which is a whole hare's head, up in the trap. Um, part of the reason for that is that it creates a degree of movement, which brings that bait to life. Also, it's up off the ground, so when the animal's looking at it, it's not looking at its feet. So it's not looking at where the danger is, which is the trap plate. I've covered the base of the trap with grass, which is what the animal's used to walking on. It's my little helper. Especially at this time of year when it's ferret mating season, I like to add a territorial social, um, scent as well, which is what this ferret's for, and it makes a huge difference. We couldn't have Pukaha if we didn't have the support of the surrounding landowners in this project. Without them, we couldn't be doing this sort of stuff. - This farm where John's trapping today belongs to Mark Buick. - Good morning. - Morning, John. - How are ya? - Good, man. - How's your round going this morning? - Pretty quiet. But I guess no news is good news. Quiet is a good thing. - I just thought I'd let you know when I moved those sheep out of this paddock up here yesterday, there was a black tomcat. - Oh, beauty. OK. - The value in it for me as a farmer, they're getting rid of all the cats, and, like, the cats are spreading diseases which, um... which will affect our sheep. Um, that's one of the biggest drawcards. But then I guess, the main thing is helping out Pukaha. We're environmentalists, the same as everybody else. We just love seeing the birdlife that's around. There wasn't a lot when I was a youngster, but now you wouldn't believe it. Like, first thing in the morning, there's birdlife everywhere. It's just really neat to see. - The traps here will be checked every morning over the next few days. John lives on the outskirts of Masterton with his wife, Liz Evans, who teaches science and agriculture at nearby Rathkeale College. - You off? - See ya, love. - Have a good day at the office. - Bye. - See ya. Bike safe. - Yeah. - His business, Backblocks Environmental Management, takes him all over the country, helping projects and people working in conservation. (ENGINE STARTS) - I can't remember a time when I wasn't absolutely obsessed by hunting and by nature, and wild places drew me like a magnet and the wildlife within them. I saw a need out there... and an opportunity to support people and groups in a very personal way, in a very honest way, because people are working tirelessly and very, very har, and they don't want to lose momentum. - Today John's visiting a private bush block in northern Hawke's Bay. - This is Maungataniwha, and it's a project that I've worked with for a number of years. It's a really significant New Zealand conservation story, in that it's a big source of eggs and chicks for the eastern brown kiwi population in the North Island, and Save the Kiwi and the owners and managers of Maungataniwha work really closely together. Yeah, most of your cats get are towards the production forestry, where the rabbit and hare numbers are high. 'Simon Hall, the owner, and Pete Shaw, the manager, 'asked me to come in and look at their whenua and what they were doing around the predator control.' - Mike Walker runs the predator-control efforts here at Maungataniwha, and he's showing John around some of the network today. - So these are some of your new ones, mate. - Yep, yep, yep. You made these, eh? - Yeah, these have come from us. - Nice, nice. - This is part of your, um` your bush block upgrade. - Yeah. So this is for a short line that runs up the back of here to the top of the ridge. - I like your boxes, mate. They're really well-made. You know, that sort of quality makes a difference out on the trap line for the rest of the life of the trap, and you get one chance to get it right. So nice work, mate. I love the way that you got your entrances nice and smooth right from the get-go. Just that one thing alone makes a difference, eh. - Yeah, it seems to show in the trapping. - What have we got here? - Um, this is one of the audio lures we've been trialling... just to, uh, try and get a bit of an idea of what we've got hanging around. I've been using the Philproofs just as the weather` - Just to keep them dry? - Yep. Keep them dry. - There it is. - Yeah. So that's the lure there. - Yep. (DISTRESSED SQUEAKING PLAYS) It's sort of mimicking a distressed rat. - How often is the call playing for? - About 30 seconds every five minutes. - Nice. That's gold. I really like the pitch of that call, and I like the volume. From the stuff I've been doing with calls coming in, it's really hard to find that balance where you're attracting them in from a decent distance, but as they get closer, you're not frightening them away. And you've got a really nice balance there, mate. How many photos have you got on there, eh? Let's see. - Uh, let's have a look. - Maungataniwha's 6000ha of native forests and 6000ha of what was pine forest, and it's all now managed for conservation purposes. - Pete Shaw has been general manager here at the Maungataniwha project for more than 20 years. - We've got a really successful kiwi-restoration project. It's produced over 600 chicks for release back into the wild since it started. (ENGINE STARTS) (ANTENNA BEEPS) We've got a lot of different things going on, but the gist of it is to restore the mauri, or the life force, of the land here. So, the block is owned by Simon Hall. He's a businessman in Auckland. He owns Tasti Products Ltd, and this is Simon's passion. John's great because he tunes up. He's got so much enthusiasm and so much knowledge, and he's dealing with the part of conservation in New Zealand that a lot of people don't think is sexy enough. It's about killing stuff, you know. But if you don't kill things, you can't do conservation on mainland New Zealand. So John is` is a very good... killer. And when you need a bit of good advice or a comment on a new method that's coming out, John's our go-to person. - (LAUGHS) Look at that. - There you go. - North Island brown kiwi. - It's a good-size bird. - It is. - Look at that. It's the excitement when you see something. LAUGHS: Yeah, mate, the anticipation every time you click the next one. Yeah. (CHUCKLES) There's a cat. - Feral cat. - WOMAN: Is that down by the Dakotas as well? - Yeah, same place. - Yeah, same place as the kiwi. - It's interesting. - Yeah. - I think the noise has pulled it in. - Yeah. Oh, guaranteed. - Look at that. (DISTRESSED SQUEAKING PLAYS) You can actually hear the lure going in the background. - Yes, you can. When you watch them interacting like that on video, you realise how much you've got to have your A-game to be successful with them, because they're just so savvy. - But catching those savvy predators is what John's all about. - It's right in the middle of the game trail. - I'll let you know when we catch a big one. (BIRDS CHIRP) (SHEEP BLEAT) (EASY-GOING MUSIC) - John Bissell and Liz Evans live on a rural lifestyle block just outside Masterton in Wairarapa. - You open the gates, and I'll go round them up. - Yeah, mate. This paddock's flushed up quite nicely, eh? I love this. She's a big holding. It's 7 acres. Liz and I are what you'd call active relaxers, so we don't sit still much, so it's pretty neat. We're both from farming families. My twin sister lives about 3 K down the road. And my brother, who's a vet, he and his wife and kids live, um, about 5 K behind us. So we all swore blind we were never gonna live in Masterton, we were never gonna come home. And all of us have turned up home and we've brought our kids up here, and it's been really cool. - It's a great spot to be. We just love it here. I think we'd struggle to live in town now. We've got a Wiltshire ram which we've put over all of our ewes. We're just gonna see how they go. But if we can have stock that are a little bit easy care, that's great. I mean, they're not here to make us a fortune; they're here to keep the freezer full and provide a lifestyle. - It just makes sense for a small block to have sheep that shed their own wool. Those ewe hoggets are starting to bag up a bit so they should be ready to lamb. It's just nice having animals around. - There's usually a pair of binoculars sitting on the table in the lounge there. - Lamb-a-vision. - Sheep-a-vision, lamb-a-vision, yep. - Especially in lambing time, you know, we just watch them intently. - Yeah. You can do the lambing beat from the lounge pretty much. (SCHOOL BELL RINGS) - And just 15 minutes drive away. lambs are also the focus of the ag classes today at Rathkeale College. The school is on the banks of the Ruamahanga River, and Liz is head of science here, working alongside ag teachers Jesse Bird and Dallas Pahere. (SHEEP BLEAT) (SCANNER BEEPS) - You think it's the biggest one? - This one's a big one. - 42. - All right. I reckon a bit heavier. Fantastic. Well done. Put the lambs back in here, and we'll get the drench crew in next. We've got what used to be a golf course at the school. When I first arrived, maybe 20 years ago, it wasn't really running as a` as a farm properly. We started with some people who donated some sheep to us, and it sort of snowballed from there, really. We've got these amazing facilities where they get hands-on with our animals, but it's more about why we do it, not necessarily how we do it. The cool thing is the kids come in with a lot of their own skills from their own farms, so they will teach us some stuff as well, which is really cool. - Right, Sophie and Alice, do you wanna come and watch Quinn do these, um, wraps so we can, uh, get those snaps? Yeah, nice, just get it nice and tight, then just go around one way, and then... - We'll have students here who come from big hill country farms. We've got students from lifestyle blocks, we've got orchardists, we've got viticulturists. So all of that's a real melting pot in a classroom. (CALLING TO ANIMALS) - Profits from the farm operation go towards a year 13 student scholarship, and Jesse Bird believes that helps the class learn. - We try and generate profit. Obviously, with the little, small 8ha block, it does get challenging at times, but it's a really good resource to discuss actually with the students what the current schedule price is, how long until finishing, feed costs. They are all real-time conversations we have with the students, which keeps them sharp as to what's happening in industry at the moment. (SCANNER BEEPS) Is anyone keeping track of the current schedule price? - I know they're worth a lot at the moment, though. - Yeah. No, they are worth a lot, and at it's 17. Yeah, no, well done. - 17 a kilo. - Yeah. So you guys can do some maths and work out what, uh, they're gonna go for if they're 280 on the hook. - First of all, I want you guys to fill out your surveys, so ask each other... - Agriculture is the subject of what happens on a farm. and then with Dallas Pahere, she teaches agribusiness, which is how do you add value to that sort of primary industry? - So what we're looking at is alternative proteins such as crickets, uh, locusts, uh, ants. - Students will take that if they're looking at going into BCom. So we often have kids who are doing agriculture and agribusiness. So Dallas, she just brings that other perspective in for the students about there's' life after primary industries just being involved with the farm. - Mmm. It's not too bad. - Would you recommend to a friend to eat alternative proteins? - Probably not, eh. All my friends are meat eaters. - Meanwhile, Liz's husband, John, is also on a farm half an hour south. - That's a nice set, Mark ` nice ramp up to it, pretty stable. I like the entrance of the ramp to the site to be nice and clear, but these are great. Looking at the skulls and everything, it's doing it's job. - Yeah, we've had heaps of success with these. I mean, we haven't got any stoats. We've got cats... - Yep. - ...heaps of rats, heaps of possums and a couple of cats. So it's pretty satisfying. - About here actually, Mark. - Yep, yep. All right. - Pop it here. - Mark Guscott farms near Carterton. He's part of the Ponatahi Ecozone ` a catchment group and community of farmers working together to improve their local environment, and John contributes his expertise and experience to the group. - Feral cats are a real problem, like, probably a bit more than what we all think. They live in hay barns and they wee in hay, and that can cause toxoplasmosis in your sheep, and that leaves the lower lambing percentage, lower lamb survival, all that sort of thing. So there's actually a real production cost there, potentially. It's not good. - Nice big baits too, eh, mate. - Yeah. - That's the key. The connections I'm seeing not just in farming communities but urban communities too, through predator-free initiatives, is incredible. And as much as a biodiversity win, there is huge social connection happening as well, and people and communities are reconnecting with each other. Job done. (RELAXING ACOUSTIC MUSIC) (IDYLLIC MUSIC) - At home in rural Masterton, predator hunter John Bissell's work is not always out in the bush. He's a firm believer in working smarter, not harder, and making the most of the tools and technology available. - This is a predator-control operation that we're doing on a farm where they don't have any trapping infrastructure, per se. I would call this a fairly typical camera site in what I'm seeing in a lot of rural New Zealand, and it's staggering how many feral cats, for example, are in this environment. Here's what I'd call a large mature cat. That one there, we have a different cat. That's two different cats on one site, and here's a young one, a juvenile, that's coming through. So what this tells me is that at this site, I've got three individual feral cats to remove. - On the other side of Masterton at Rathkeale College, John's wife, Liz Evans, has a class also doing some detective work in bush on the school grounds... - Very cool. - Oh, got a possum. - Oh, well done. - Oh, it's a big one as well.. - Oh, yeah. - ...and Liz has John at school today helping a year 11 science class. - What lead you to set a trap here versus any other tree around here? - Well, we started off here with a chew card a couple of nights ago, and we saw a possum, um, just walking around. - Awesome. - You can see there's a couple of scratch marks on the trees. - Oh, now you're making me proud. Awesome. Yep. - And so we decided we'd set one up, and the first night, we got one. - Fantastic. - LIZ: It's cool creating this predator-control unit in the science area so all the boys doing science get out and learn how to trap ` well, monitor, really ` observe, monitor, think. And they love being out in the bush. Getting them out of the bush is probably half of the problem. So you can have a class of 25, and you can set them off, and it's a high-trust model because you expect them to all come back in at the end ` and we haven't lost anyone yet. - on the farmland behind Pukaha Mt Bruce bird sanctuary, John's returned to check his trap network. - This is a young feral cat. It's not a pet cat. It's totally feral and generations wild. And trying to compare a feral cat with a pet cat is like trying to compare a hyena with a labrador. I don't like to draw a distinction between species that I target based on how cute they are, because to me, every animal is deserving of absolute respect, whether it's a rat or a feral cat. When I see an animal like this, I don't see a pet cat. I see 2000 skinks, 50 tui, 40 piwakawaka, a colony of native bats, because that's the impact that these animals, even as an individual, can have on a conservation project, let alone their progeny. And it's a tough call, but we need to be honest about it. The other thing I think that a lot of pet cat owners don't realise is the impact that feral cats have on their pets. It's huge. I spoke to somebody in one of my catchment groups last week. They've had two pet cats killed in the last month by feral cats. - The number of feral cats in New Zealand is estimated at upwards of 2.5 million, having a devastating impact on our native wildlife. (BANG!) (EASY-GOING MUSIC) John's predator-control work might appear to have little connection to his wife Liz's work teaching at Rathkeale College, but the couple believes the roles have lots in common. - So much of everything that Liz and I do is not just about farming an environment; it is about people as well, and it's about our community, smaller and bigger. And what I'm seeing more and more is the people connect more as they learn to protect, and that in itself makes a huge difference. OK, that's on the rat seating. - And students these days are really keen to be conservators. They wanna make money, let's not beat around the bush, but they understand that there's a cost to being, um, New Zealanders and landowners and land managers more than anything. - Mm. Guardians, mm. - Yeah. - Next time ` she's built a life around wool. - CALLS: Come on. I've always loved wool. It's such a great fibre. - Coloured sheep are her passion, providing a lifestyle and an income. - I've sold to Japan, Europe, Canada and the UK. New Zealand wool has a great reputation. - That's next time on Hyundai Country Calendar.