It all started with a principal at Glentunnel School with a vision and a handful of traps on a 10‑acre school site.

Only five years later, on May 3, the Malvern Predator Free initiative caught its 1000th predator, a significant milestone to show that localised action can have a devastating impact.

Principal Ed Trotter arrived in 2021 after his first principal role at Miramar Central School in Wellington where he experienced first-hand how effective community action can be when you galvanise a local community around a common goal.

The Miramar Predator Free project managed to rid the peninsula of 5500 rats and predators and rejuvenate the native birdlife and flora, so when Trotter arrived at Glentunnel School, he brought that knowledge into the local classroom to inspire the next generation.

“Kids are the best ambassadors,” Trotter says.  “They go home and they talk about it. And they are always honest and question parents why they are not doing more?”

Trotter says the big storm of 2021 was the perfect starting point for the new initiative.

“Our bike track got smashed with 170kmh winds, so when we started rebuilding the track we took the opportunity to put in traps around the outside. The traps were doing very well from the start, so our volunteers really got into it.”

Trotter says it is important that the traps are easy to use. If people can do it without it becoming a mission, they’ll stick with it.”

The initial focus was the school’s grounds — “about 10 acres” — a manageable patch where students could learn the routines: setting, checking, recording, resetting.

What started as a school-based trapline has grown into a predator-control effort that now spans the wider district, with dozens of volunteers maintaining a network of traps and reporting catches. The group tracks its progress obsessively and this month caught its 1000th predator since its inception in July 2025.

Trotter emphasises that it has been a real team effort and the help of the wider community has been invaluable to expand a small-scale school project into district-wide assault on predators across 145,000 hectares in Malvern, with different people with different skillsets coming together for a common goal.

Supported by grants from the Selwyn District Council Predator Free project and other funders and supporters the Malvern Predator Free initiative now managed a trap-library of 250 traps.

Trotter says that the Year 5/6 students constructed over 150 DOC 200, DOC 150 and rat tunnels with the help of the parents, especially Hamish Wright and the Upper Waikirikiri Catchment Collective (UWCC).

“This was a great learning experience and a wonderful contribution to the community,” says the principal who adds that the wood for the traps was supplied by Darfield ITM and the trap mechanisms paid for through grants from Westpac Bank and Central Plains Water Limited.

Today, the network spreads across public walkways and private land with permission of farmers and neighbours.

That growth brings a different kind of challenge: not just setting the first trap, but keeping the whole system running week after week. “It’s the follow-through that matters,” Trotter says. “A trap you don’t check is just a box in the bush.”

The catch list reads like a rogues’ gallery of introduced predators and pests.

“Rats are the big one,” says Trotter, who adds that numbers can surge after heavy seed years.

“You can see it in the data — it spikes. When rats boom, so do the predators that follow them. Then you’re suddenly seeing more of the others as well.”

The group’s pitch to landowners is carefully framed: effective, simple, and  humane.

“People are much more willing to have a go when it feels practical and responsible,” says Trotter.

He explains that there are inevitably, sensitive topics, like cats. Feral cats are very different to domestic cats, in their behaviour and are located well away from residential areas.

“It’s the hardest conversation. People love their pets,”  says Trotter, who adds that good signage and regular dialogue are vital to keep the community onside.

“You want everyone to feel safe, and you want the wildlife to have a chance. Both things can be true, but you have to talk about it.”

Trotter says that tracking data is essential to understand the impact the evidence-based programme is making and to keep people motivated. “People like seeing that it’s working. So it’s nice when you can point to the numbers. And if we see  a line goes quiet, we try to find out why.”

The group continues to grow and the pitch to new recruits is simple. “We try to make it ‘adopt a trap’. One box, one routine, that’s it. You don’t need heroes, you need lots of regular people doing small things consistently,” says Trotter who adds that the lack of barriers for new recruits has been part of the success.

“Success is when the kids notice it first. When they say, ‘There are more birds here than last year’,” says Trotter referring to the more native birds in the trees around the school, fewer gnawed seedlings and fewer night sounds that don’t belong.

For now, the focus is on consistency — checking lines, keeping volunteers engaged, and nudging the tally forward.

“ We support our trappers through termly meetings at the Glentunnel Community Centre, a fresh supply of bait, lure and further traps,” says Trotter.

“We constantly need to set ourselves new goals. And now with the 1000th predator goal ticked off, the sky is the limit. It proves what a community can do when it just keeps showing up.”