 | This article contains content that is written like an advertisement .(December 2017) |
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| Company type | Private, benefit corporation |
|---|---|
| Industry | Pest control |
| Founded | 2005 |
| Founders | Robbie van Dam, Craig Bond |
| Headquarters | |
| Products | Pest traps |
| Website | goodnature |
Goodnature is a New Zealand company founded in 2005 by Robbie van Dam and Craig Bond. The company specialises in the production of traps designed for the control of animal pests such as stoats, rats, mice and possums. [1]
Goodnature was founded by friends Robbie van Dam and Craig Bond who met while studying industrial design at Victoria University. Van Dam had a job at the Department of Conservation (DOC) in the Biodiversity Unit building gadgets for pest control when he noticed the methods for killing pest species such as rats, stoats and possums were either inefficient or inhumane. [2] [3] DOC funded the development of some of their early concepts to create the traps manufactured by Goodnature today. [4]
Goodnature released the first beta self-resetting trap for rats and stoats during New Zealand Conservation Week in September 2009. [5] The initial technology could self-reset 12 times using compressed CO2. Field testing led to the development of a trap for brushtail possums, [2] and another for rats and stoats. The company also built a lure development facility to test animal attractants as lures. [6]
The traps were put into long-term, large-scale evaluation by DOC from 2010 to 2016. [7] [8] Goodnature's traps are endorsed by the Ministry of Primary Industries (MPI) for their efficiency in killing pests, [1] and by DOC's Science and Technical team which recommends their use for conservation projects to protect New Zealand native plant and bird species. [9]
Goodnature produces and sells two pest control devices; one for brushtail possums, and another trap for rats and stoats; it also produces toxin-free lures to target these pests. [6] [10]
The self-resetting traps are powered by compressed gas and use a target-specific lure to attract animals. The traps work by striking the skull of the animal with a steel-cored, glass-reinforced, polymer piston (described as a captive bolt), killing it almost instantly. This piston is driven by compressed CO2 when the animal triggers the trap. Once the animal has been struck, the piston returns, dropping the animal to the ground and resetting the trap. [1] The traps have achieved the Class A standard for humaneness as set out in the MPI's National Animal Welfare Advisory Committee's guidelines. [8] This is the only possum trap ever to have met this standard. [11] The A24 also meets the United Kingdom's Spring Traps Approval Order. [12]
In 2016, Goodnature's A24 rat and stoat trap and automatic lure pump won Best Effect at the Design Institute of New Zealand for improving DOC's capability in New Zealand forests. [13] It also received the supreme Purple Pin which is given to work that raises the bar of New Zealand design. [14] Both Goodnature's A24 and A12 traps have won the Non-Consumer, Sustainable Product Design and Best Effect awards at the design institute's Best Awards since 2011. [15]
Goodnature's traps have been used in New Zealand in projects by DOC, city and regional councils, community groups, and households. [14]
DOC has used Goodnature traps on Native Island, Southland, [16] at Harts Hill in Fiordland National Park, [17] at Boundary Stream, Hawkes Bay, Te Urewera Mainland Island, [16] and at Abel Tasman National Park [18] In June 2017, 1200 stoat traps were installed on 11,400 hectares of the Haast Kiwi Sanctuary to protect tokoeka kiwi, as part of the department's Battle For Our Birds programme. [19] In the same programme, DOC also increased the number of stoat traps in Arthur's Pass National Park and Lake Sumner Forest Park in an effort to save one of New Zealand's rarest parakeets (orange-fronted parakeet) from extinction. [20] In January 2017, the kiwi sanctuary at Rimutaka Forest Park was doubled in size to 7000 hectares to aid the regeneration of New Zealand's North Island brown kiwi. A total of 1200 Goodnature traps were laid down to reduce the number of stoats at the park that prey on kiwi. [21]
The traps were a key tool behind a rodent control program at Maria Langa Cay, Puerto Rico in 2014 chosen to avoid the use of rodenticide on the island, which is a nesting site for the endangered hawksbill sea turtle and home to the brown pelican. [22] [23]
The traps are also used in conservation projects throughout Hawaii including in Kalaupapa National Historical Park in Oahu, [24] in the Waianae and Ko'olau mountain ranges of Oahu, and on the island of Lanai. [25]
The company has also developed targeted devices for the introduced mongoose in Hawaii, the introduced American mink in Finland and Sweden, and the introduced grey squirrel in the United Kingdom. [26] [27] [28] [29] The company's traps are now used in more than 25 countries including: the United States, Canada, England, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Scotland, Ireland, France, Spain, Italy, Portugal and Australia. [30] [31]
Kiwi are flightless birds endemic to New Zealand of the order Apterygiformes. The five extant species fall into the family Apterygidae and genus Apteryx. Approximately the size of a domestic chicken, kiwi are the smallest ratites.
Resolution Island or Tau Moana (Māori) is the largest island in the Fiordland region of southwest New Zealand, covering a total of 208 km2 (80 sq mi). It is the country's seventh largest island, and the second largest uninhabited island. Resolution Island is separated from the mainland of the South Island by Tamatea / Dusky Sound, Te Puaitaha / Breaksea Sound, and Acheron Passage. The island is part of the Fiordland National Park.
Malherbe's parakeet is a small parrot endemic to New Zealand, where it is known as the orange-fronted parakeet or orange-fronted kākāriki. In the rest of the world it is called Malherbe's parakeet, as when it was recognised as a species, the name "orange-fronted parakeet" was already used for Eupsittula canicularis, a Central American species. Restricted to a few valleys in the South Island and four offshore islands, its population declined to around 200 in the 1990s, and it is considered critically endangered by the IUCN.
Sodium fluoroacetate, also known as compound 1080, is an organofluorine chemical compound with the formula FCH2CO2Na. This colourless salt has a taste similar to that of table salt (sodium chloride) and is used as a rodenticide.
A number of introduced species, some of which have become invasive species, have been added to New Zealand's native flora and fauna. Both deliberate and accidental introductions have been made from the time of the first human settlement, with several waves of Polynesian people at some time before the year 1300, followed by Europeans after 1769.
Zealandia, formerly known as the Karori Wildlife Sanctuary, is a protected natural area in Wellington, New Zealand, the first urban completely fenced ecosanctuary, where the biodiversity of 225 ha of forest is being restored. The sanctuary was previously part of the water catchment area for Wellington, between Wrights Hill and the Brooklyn wind turbine on Polhill.
Secretary Island is an island in southwestern New Zealand, lying entirely within Fiordland National Park. Roughly triangular in shape, it lies between Doubtful Sound / Patea in the south and Te Awa-o-Tū / Thompson Sound in the north, with its west coast facing the Tasman Sea. To the east of the island, Pendulo Reach connects Te Awa-o-Tū / Thompson Sound with Doubtful Sound / Patea. Steeply sloped, the entirely bush-clad island rises to a chain of several peaks higher than 1000 metres. The highest of these is the 1,196-metre (3,924 ft) Mount Grono, the highest peak in the main New Zealand chain not located in the North or South Island. The island also contains three lakes. The largest, Secretary Lake, over 600 metres (2,000 ft) long, is located beneath Mount Grono at an altitude of 550 metres (1,800 ft).
Orokonui Ecosanctuary, called Te Korowai o Mihiwaka in Māori, is an ecological island wildlife reserve developed by the Otago Natural History Trust in the Orokonui Valley between Waitati and Pūrākaunui, New Zealand, 20 kilometres (12 mi) to the north of central Dunedin.
Pūkaha National Wildlife Centre is a captive breeding facility and visitor centre located in a protected forest area on State Highway 2 in New Zealand's Tararua district. It was formerly called Mount Bruce National Wildlife Centre, then Pūkaha / Mount Bruce National Wildlife Centre.
The birds of New Zealand evolved into an avifauna that included many endemic species found in no other country. As an island archipelago, New Zealand accumulated bird diversity, and when Captain James Cook arrived in the 1770s he noted that the bird song was deafening.
1080, the brand name given to the synthetic form of sodium fluoroacetate, is used in New Zealand in efforts to control populations of possums, rats, stoat and rabbits, which are invasive species in the New Zealand environment. Although the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment deemed the use of 1080 in New Zealand "effective and safe" in a 2011 re-evaluation and the substance is widely considered to be the most effective tool currently available for controlling possums over large areas, it remains a contentious issue, with the majority of the debate occurring between conservationists and livestock farmers on one side and hunters and animal-rights activists on the other.
The common brushtail possum was introduced from Australia to New Zealand, where it has become invasive and a major agricultural and conservation pest.
The stoat was introduced into New Zealand to control introduced rabbits and hares, but is now a major threat to the native bird population. The natural range of the stoat is limited to parts of the Northern Hemisphere. Immediately before human settlement, New Zealand did not have any land-based mammals apart from bats, but Polynesian and European settlers introduced a wide variety of animals. Rarely, in Southland, the fur of stoats has been reported to turn white, being the fur known as ermine, which adorns royal robes.
Tararua Forest Park, often called the Tararuas is a protected area in the Wellington region of New Zealand. Its area is 1,150 square kilometres (440 sq mi), and its highest point, a peak called Mitre, is at 1571 m above sea level. It was established in 1954, as New Zealand's first Forest Park, and is managed by the Department of Conservation (DOC) under the Conservation Act. Tararua Forest Park includes more than three-quarters of the Tararua Range, and its boundaries extend north from New Zealand State Highway 2.
The Brook Waimārama Sanctuary is a nearly 700 hectare mainland "ecological island" sanctuary located 6 km south of Nelson, New Zealand. The sanctuary is the largest fenced sanctuary in New Zealand's South Island and the second largest in the country; it is the only sanctuary to feature mature New Zealand beech forest.
Victoria Forest Park, is situated on the West Coast of the South Island of New Zealand. At 2,069 square kilometres (799 sq mi) it is New Zealand's largest forest park. The park is administered by the Department of Conservation (DOC).
The North Island kōkako is an endangered forest bird which is endemic to the North Island of New Zealand. It is grey in colour, with a small black mask. It has blue wattles. Because of its wattle, the bird is sometimes locally called the blue-wattled crow, although it is not a corvid.
Predator Free 2050 is a plan put forth by the New Zealand government with the goal of eradicating all of its mammalian introduced predators by 2050.
Great Island is an island in the southwest of New Zealand, and is part of Fiordland National Park. It lies in Taiari / Chalky Inlet, north of Chalky Island and contains two small lakes, Lake Dobson and Lake Esau.
Wainuiomata Water Collection Area is a reserve located near Wainuiomata, Lower Hutt in the Wellington Region at the southern end of New Zealand's North Island. It is administered by Wellington Regional Council, for exclusive use by Wellington Water as a water catchment reserve. The park covers the catchments of the Wainuiomata River and the Ōrongorongo River. It adjoins Remutaka Forest Park and Wainuiomata Regional Park.