Backyard sanctuaries

Aiding native wildlife on your patch

By Timmi Aplin-Barrett

Picture this; you look out your window just in time to see a Kererū swoop by to land on one of your trees. You step outside to hear the buzz of bees, flap of wings and chattering of insects.

There are little green geckos darting about under rocks and wētā making their homes on the bark of trees. A native wildlife sanctuary isn’t just for those who live out in the country – you can create a haven right in your own backyard in the city.

“As native wildlife is returning to our cities, it’s important for people to create more habitats and safe environments for species to live,” says CE of Predator Free New Zealand Trust, Jessi Morgan. She says there’s lot of things people can do to encourage native wildlife. She says people need to think about what plants they have in their garden. Different plants flower and seed at different times of the year so you need to ensure you’ve got variety for birds and insects to feed on.

“Think about the flowering and how it goes through the annual cycle so you have a range of things flowering at all times for bees and other insects,” Jessi says.

There are also heaps of products you can use to help encourage species to stay, too.

“You can buy things like bird feeders, wētā hotels, bee hotels and more,” she explains.

Keeping your garden messy under your plants is very helpful for lizards, especially places where there are some rocks for shade. Think about making sure there’s little places to hide and access water.

However, you need to be very mindful of predators. Once you attract all these wonderful native visitors, you need to ensure they’re not being picked off by the neighbour’s cat or local rats. Jessi says controlling most predators is pretty easy to do. “Put traps where predators are already going to make things easier on yourself. Animals such as rats like to track along house lines and fences so put traps along there.”

There are local predator groups you can join to get help with trapping and your local garden centre will likely have some advice for getting started.

Common predators include rats, possums, cats and hedgehogs.

Jessi says that rats are extremely common and sometimes, you don’t know they’re there until they cause damage to wires or chew a hole in something.

Although hedgehogs are incredibly cute, they’re also a really damaging predator. “They eat eggs from birds that nest on the ground as well as lizards and wētā,” Jessi says.

It’s not just rogue predators causing problems – local cats contribute to the issue too.

“It’s a problem with other people’s cats coming in, chasing the birds and eating the lizards. It’s a conversation we need to have nationally about what responsible cat ownership looks like,” she says.

So, pop down to your local garden centre to get some plants and trapping advice.

The more people start working on native wildlife sanctuaries in their backyard, the more native wildlife will begin to return which is only good news for New Zealand and the environment.

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