The Methven Community Board is giving $10,000 to the Methven Lions Club to help establish a trapping library that is part of the club’s Birdsong Initiative.

People will be able to borrow traps to deal with pests in their backyards.

The birdsong project aims to bring back the birdsong to Methven and the foothills, and could include planting reserve land at the back of the Garden of Harmony with natives to attract more birds.

The community board wants to sit down with Council to establish the status of the reserve land and licensed users, so the planting plan could be progressed.

Chairman Kelvin Holmes said there was huge buy-in from the community for the Birdsong Initiative, evidenced by the number of people who turned up to a meeting about the future of the reserve, a separate trapping workshop and the large number of responses to a Lions survey.

“The Lions had over 350 people reply to an online survey and 96 per cent of those people said ‘go for it’.”

Lions club members presented their birdsong project to the community board last year and said bird numbers and birdsong had decreased, due to less natural habitat and to predation.

Establishing a trapping library was the project’s first step and would help householders to trap pests and predators in their own backyards. Pests include rats, possums, hedgehogs, feral cats, stoats, weasels and ferrets.

The total cost of the trapping library is $46,850, and the community board’s $10,000 contribution from its Discretionary Grant Fund will help purchase or build a range of traps.

Lions club members would teach people how to use them and record the results.

Community board members were told that trapping technology had evolved and some traps were able to detect if a micro-chipped domestic cat was inside, and not activate. Feral cats are the main target.

The community board also gave $5252 to the Methven Bowling Club to help pay for the installation of a shade structure.