Be a Citizen Scientist
Being a Citizen Scientist with PFK means that everyday people, just like you, can help collect important monitoring information about our native biodiversity or pests. This in turn helps us better protect and enhance our local native plants and animals using proven, scientific methods. You don't need to be an expert. Just some time and enthusiasm. Read on to find out more.
Counting Pests with the Chew Card Campaign
What on earth is a chew card?! It’s a card that is covered with a non-toxic paste (like coloured peanut butter) that is then placed in our nature reserves. Over time these cards are bitten or chewed by rats, mice, possums, hedgehogs, stoats and even other creatures like dogs and cats as they are attracted to the paste. The bites in the chew cards leave behind distinctive marks that we can identify - and then counting the number of cards bitten by the different animals gives us an idea of how many there are.
Chew Card Results
Read about the results of the survey each year from 2017 to 2024 by viewing the presentation below (may take time to load in areas with slower internet coverage)
Volunteer to help lay out next year's chew cards!
The PFK Chew Card Campaign is our annual survey which places these chew cards along survey lines in 44 reserves in Kaipātiki. The results from the campaign allow an in-depth look at where pest control is needed the most, or where a variety of traps is needed. It helps us track the valuable and appreciated efforts reserve volunteers and backyard trappers are contributing.
Pest Free Kaipātiki has run the Citizen Science chew card campaign each year since 2017 and have found a clear correlation between where volunteers and/or halo backyard trappers are active - we have far fewer pest chews in a very short period of time which is great for out native biodiversity.
Unfortunately there are plenty of other ‘hot spots’ for pests where parks have little to no protection - and need your help. We encourage you to look up your closest park and latest chew card results and ask yourself if you would be able to volunteer an hour or two per year to help protect it through trapping or baiting.
We ideally run the Chew Card Campaign around July/August each year, so to get involved keep an eye out for communications in our newsletter or facebook closer to the time.
You can read more about the survey in our 2025 fact sheet and use this short form to sign up! We will get in touch via phone or email with more information in June to find something that suits your availability and interests.
Learning about Biodiversity
Keen to learn what different native plants are or what bug you just found? It's easy to do this with iNaturalist and you can contribute towards our collective knowledge too!
Record any living species you find using iNaturalist - it’s quick, easy and fun! You can record absolutely anything as long as it's alive (or once was)! Plants, birds, insects, spiders, fish, fungi, lichen, and more. The life you find can be the whole organism or just part of it - alive or dead. It may be photographed or you may only be able to record the sounds it makes.
There is a 'What did you see?' button you can click and some amazing software will help identify the organism for you. It's very accurate especially if you take a good photo.
Have your location data on while out snapping photos and making observations in the iNaturalist app. It will help the software pinpoint better what species it is that way.
Where Should I Look?
Look in your backyard, your local reserve, while walking along a road, your place of work or study, anywhere you can find living things. Aim to record wild things (not a pet or a plant from a garden centre). The best places will be more natural places, or places with vegetation, such as your backyard, an area of bush, or a reserve - but always stay on tracks in reserves, and stay away from Kauri trees. Look around you, look under things, look behind things. Particular insects, spiders and other invertebrates could be found almost anywhere, as can many plants.
How Can I Be Part of the Wider Ecological Monitoring?
If you want to get involved with the Ecological Monitoring campaign, simply follow the Pest Free Kaipatiki - Ecological Monitoring iNaturalist project. From there, any life you take a picture of will be uploaded to our project and can be included in our monitoring data.
What is iNaturalist?
iNaturalist is a website and app that anyone can use to record observations of living things. With the app, you can snap a photo of something, upload it, ask the very clever auto-recognition feature to suggest what it is, then select what you think it may be. The observation is added and people around the world will see your photo and confirm or suggest the identification. Once three people back up the observation, it’s loaded into the system for the sake of science!
It is a great way to learn about the living things around us and learn how to recognise them. All observations you photograph will stay linked to your profile, so you can always look back on what you’ve found.
For a guide to iNaturalist, please click here.
