When six-year-old Eliza Dance went on a guided night walk and learned how to tell the difference between weasels and stoats – she never imagined what it would lead to the following morning.
Eliza and her parents, Becks and Blair of Coromandel, spent some time holidaying at Waikawau Bay Campground in mid January.
“We try and get up there as much as we can. It’s such a beautiful place to go camping and it’s only an hour away from us,” Becks said.
Eliza’s interest in protecting wildlife started last year when she got to paint a rat trap box as part of a school summer holiday programme at the campground which was hosted by Moehau Environment Group.
“Eliza’s one she painted last year, we just kept at our place in town in Coromandel.”
The young trapper, who is a student at Coromandel Area School, was often awake before her parents, and charged across the lawn in her pajamas each morning at around 6am to check her trap.
“But it’s been a while since she’s caught anything in town, which we kind of took as a good sign.”
Following the educational night walk last month, the young wildlife protector said she put the trap box out at the campground and the next morning she discovered something unusual.
When Eliza saw a tail hanging out of the trap box, her first thought was “that’s not a rat’s tail”.
Eliza identified the perpetrator as a weasel, who was lured in by Pic’s peanut butter.
“So the weasels have wiggly lines on their tummy, and the stoats have straight lines,” Eliza said.
“And the stoats have black tips on the tail, and the weasels’ tails are quite skinny.
Becks said he didn’t think weasels usually went for peanut butter.
“But Eliza and her dad spent a bit of time figuring out where the best place to put the trap was because we were staying up for another few nights, so we thought we might as well set it,” she said.
“When we were camping up at Waikawau last year, there were baby kingfishers nesting in the tree that was right by the weasel catch.
“So [we’re] really glad that we took a weasel out up there because there’s so many cool baby birds and stuff nesting up there as well.”
When the family got back to Coromandel, Eliza set the trap in their backyard and caught a rat, and also set up a trap at her granny’s house where she caught two more rats.
“The rats we get in town, we just feed back to the eels because we’re quite close to a creek,” Becks said.
While the young trapper was also an avid lover of bush walks, making art and looking up at the stars and moon through a telescope, it was clear she was passionate about taking care of the wildlife around her.
Eliza’s advice for other people was to “go out and get a trap and protect our birds”.
By DAVIDDA HIKATANGATA
