People Helping Nature Podcast · Conservation Amplified

People Are The Silver Bullet To Predator Free (with Dan Henry)

·47 min·3 clips

Miramar recorded a 71% increase in native birds, a 500% increase in piwakawaka, and a 150% increase in tui.

1. People Helping Nature Podcast centers on Predator Free Miramar and Dan Henry’s claim that people are the “absolute silver bullet” for predator free work. 2. Ana and Callum from Conservation Amplified host Dan Henry, founder of Predator Free Miramar, which he launched with Dan Cook in winter 2017. 3. The episode asks what predator free work is for if the real mechanism is not a device but community buy-in, pressure, and funding. 4. Dan Henry says Miramar was already possum free after a 2005 regional council operation on the 1,000-hectare peninsula. 5. He describes Miramar as Te Motu Kairangi, a peninsula with about 20 kilometers of coastline and about 7,500 households. 6. The group started as a backyard trapping effort to give away snap traps and remove rats and mice from homes. 7. A soft launch led to about 80 traps at the community hall and then a rapid spread through word of mouth. 8. Dan Henry says the project later reached about 800 or 900 traps in the first year and caught many rats. 9. He explains that Predator Free Wellington already had citywide ambitions, but their rollout needed about 3,000 permissions across the landscape. 10. Miramar’s group later shifted from backyard coverage into a volunteer field team working around the coast and in bush reserves. 11. Dan Henry says the project worked because it stayed simple, avoided big committees, and treated the work as something fun rather than a chore. 12. He says the Facebook group mattered because members posted as themselves, which created transparency rather than anonymity. 13. He gives the example of Daryl in Strathmore Park, who got a trap for rats in the ceiling and reported killing 21 rats. 14. Dan Henry says Daryl then passed traps to neighbors and helped reach areas that Predator Free Wellington staff in hiviz vests could not easily access. 15. He describes trap shyness and says the team did not focus on it early because the first goal was to kill as many rats as possible. 16. He says the last rats required multiple tools, including different bait stations, trap types, chew cards, motion cameras, and lure pumps using mayonnaise. 17. The tone is practical, conversational, and grounded in specific examples from Miramar. 18. The format is a host-led interview with Dan Henry giving long, detailed answers and Ana and Callum pushing on community, metrics, and succession. 19. People interested in urban conservation and volunteer-led pest control will get the most from it. 20. People wanting a short, purely technical trapping guide may skip it.

As heard by us

A neighborhood-first conservation story that stays practical and civic.

People Helping Nature treats predator-free work as civic organizing as much as conservation. Dan Henry keeps the focus on people: once enough communities care, pressure builds, politicians pay attention, and funding follows.

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Why you'd press play

You want conservation that starts with neighbors, not just gear and guesswork.

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