By Olivia (age 9)
“I live in Paihia, Northland with my brother Alexander and my Mum and Dad. We love spending time outdoors in nature, going for bush walks, having adventures and learning about the world around us.”
On Sunday during Matariki Weekend, I gathered my family together to do a beach clean. We used buckets for collecting the rubbish that we found on the beach. We found lolly wrappers, tin cans, clothing, plastic pegs, plastic bottles and lots of tiny pieces of plastic. If all of this ended up in the ocean, it would harm sea creatures or could even kill them.
In our garden, we have lots of fruit and native trees. We have noticed that rats, mice and possum have been damaging them. We have helped our Dad to place and set traps in our garden. We check them each day. We have caught 20 mice, 6 rats and 2 possum so far this year. Over the last 3 years we have caught 3 wild cats. Our pest control work is helping protect birds, reptiles and the bush in our local environment.