Country Life: Trap inventor marks nearly 50 years of pest control
by Sally Round · RNZSteve Allan's traps are so easy to use, even older people protecting their roses can become gun possum trappers, he says.
He has nearly half a century under his belt as a trapper and inventor of traps.
The traps kill on impact and their simplicity is echoed in their name - SA2, 3 and 4 after his initials.
From a small home factory in Northland's Takahue Valley, Allan and his small team turn out thousands of them a year. He estimated he had eradicated up to 100,000 pests over the years, thousands with his own traps.
"We're a little bit of an old man's club here, so... when we're working, we're working and we're pumping the stuff out," he told Country Life.
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"I started off in the mid-'70s as a schoolboy catching fur. It was an exciting way to make money and trapping was something that came to me quite naturally."
Allan started making traps in the early 1990s to trap feral cats too.
"Back then there wasn't a lot of tools available. I had to start making my own gear."
He's been fine-tuning them ever since.
"It's been a process of give it a go and learn from it and try and do it better next time. That's a big secret to our success."
They are well-regarded as a user-friendly trap for the community, accredited as humane, and work on possums and feral cats alike.
His work earned him an environmental innovation award from the Northland Regional Council in 2019.
The region has many different projects and groups working to protect the environment and kiwi population.
"In Northland we catch between, this is the figure I like to use because it's more graphic, between three and four tons of feral cats a year."
His traps have gone as far as the Falkland Islands and Finland, where mink and marten are trapped.
People in Northland were switched on to ensure the traps weren't used near domesticated cats' habitat and many were used on farmland, Allan said.
"My gear can allow a trapper to be coming home before lunchtime with over 100 possums on their good nights, that's the difference."
"They turn a lot of people, especially little old ladies who want to protect the roses or their gardens into gun possum trappers."
Find out more about Steve's traps here.
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