Waiheke Island is closing in on a goal that once seemed impossible, the removal of every last stoat from a populated island of more than 9,000 people, and a new documentary is about to put that seven year effort in front of a national audience.
The film, Stoats Last Stand, follows the community-led project Te Korowai o Waiheke as it hunts down the final animals in what has become one of the most closely watched conservation campaigns in the country. It premieres on 3 July at 6pm at the Capitol Theatre as part of the Doc Edge Festival 2026.
The film was made by Aaron Cluka, a filmmaker who came to New Zealand from the United States and found himself drawn to the islanders who spend their weekends checking traps in the bush behind their homes. He told RNZ that part of the story is breaking down the idea that a small, weasel-like animal could not do much harm. “They’re very, very, very vicious animals, especially for our birds here,” he said.
That warning sits at the heart of the project. Stoats are relentless hunters of native birds, eggs and chicks, and a single animal can move quickly through nesting areas and undo years of careful recovery work. Waiheke sits close enough to the mainland that stoats have been able to reach it, which makes the island both a tempting target for the predators and a rare chance to push them back out for good.
Te Korowai o Waiheke is a community-led project funded under the national Predator Free 2050 programme, which aims to rid New Zealand of stoats, rats and possums by the middle of the century. Waiheke was chosen as one of the first projects backed by Predator Free 2050 Limited, and its ambition is striking. The team wants the island to become the world’s first predator-free urban island, a place where thousands of people live, work and holiday alongside a landscape free of the introduced hunters that have driven so many native species toward the edge.
The island-wide stoat eradication began in early 2020. Since then the team has built a network of around 1,750 traps and caught more than 250 stoats, according to Te Korowai o Waiheke. After five years of steady work, the project says it is now in the final push, the hardest part of any eradication, when only a handful of clever survivors remain and each one is harder to find than the last.
Cluka believes that moment is close. “This year, it looks like they are really down to the last couple of stoats,” he told RNZ. Getting to that point has meant treating the search almost like a game of hide and seek played across an entire island, with every backyard, gully and patch of bush a possible hiding place.
The documentary puts faces to that effort. It features Mike Smith, a retired warden from Lake Mackenzie Hut who has trapped on the Routeburn Track, alongside volunteers including a woman named Judy whom Cluka describes as inspiring, and Tilda Sorenson, who works with a dog named Parker to sniff out where stoats have been. Detector dogs like Parker are one of the most useful tools in the final stage of an eradication, able to pick up a scent that no camera or trap can.
The trapping itself still relies on the basics. The DOC200, a sturdy kill trap set inside a wooden box, remains what the team calls the bread and butter of the work. But the project has also reached for newer methods as the numbers have thinned, including thermal imaging to spot animals at night, traps fitted with artificial intelligence to recognise and target stoats, and even the building of artificial dens to lure the last survivors into the open.
What makes Waiheke stand out is how much of the work is done by ordinary residents rather than paid contractors. Traps sit in private gardens and along fence lines across the island, checked by people who have folded the task into their weekly routine. That community ownership is part of what the documentary captures, and part of why conservationists around the country are paying attention. If a place with this many homes and people can be cleared of stoats, the lessons could shape how other towns and islands approach the same challenge.
The stakes go well beyond a single species. Waiheke is home to little blue penguins, the smallest penguins in the world, along with bellbirds, kΔkΔriki and other native birds that stand to gain if the island can stay free of mustelids. Removing stoats does not finish the job on its own, the project is also running a pilot to work out how to remove rats island-wide, but it is the breakthrough that supporters have worked toward for years.
For Cluka, an outsider who arrived with fresh eyes, the appeal was as much about the people as the predators. The film lands at a moment when the project is tantalisingly close to its goal, and when one or two animals still loose in the bush could decide whether seven years of effort ends in success. The premiere on 3 July will give a wider audience the chance to follow that final chase, and to see what it looks like when a community decides to take back its own backyard.
Have you taken part in a trapping or pest control group where you live, or seen native birds return as predators are pushed back? Share your experience in the comments below.
This article was written by AI, briefed to report the facts, hopefully without some of the bias people bring to the job π
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