A Helping Hand (Easy version)

Night trap capture of ferrets cats and harriers in black stilt habitat, Canterbury

Tui had a much easier life before humans came to New Zealand. Predators such as rats, cats, stoats and possums are the greatest threats to tui. These animals eat tui. They also compete with tui for food. It was humans who brought these predators to New Zealand.

Humans have also destroyed the forests where tui used to live. Tui had to move to other places to survive. Now there are very few tui in Canterbury. This is because the forest is gone and there are more competitors and predators.

Possum bait station, Pureora Forest.

Humans have made life very hard for tui and other native birds. This means that we also need to protect our birds from these new threats. If we don't help our native birds, many of them will disappear forever. These birds cannot survive now without our help.

The main way that we can help tui and other native birds is by controlling predators. Scientists have many clever ways to kill these predators.

Rat emerging from rat tunnel with poison bait, Breaksea Island.

Mostly they use traps or poisons. The poisons are placed inside bait stations, which are put on tree trunks to keep ground birds like weka and kiwi out. Traps to kill stoats and rats are put inside tunnels. The tunnels keep out other animals. Also, stoats and rats like going down holes and into dark places.

Stoat trap box containing a Fenn trap baited with an egg, Maud Island.

Someday scientists may have better ways to get rid of all introduced predators from New Zealand forever. One way could be to stop them from having babies. At the moment, though, our only choice is to keep controlling predators where ever we can.