plan stage 1

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The Plan Stage 1. Establishing the bait station grid.

Baiting Buildings.

At least one bait station had to be positioned in each building on the island. All inhabitated buildings received a lockable bait station so that visitors and children could not access the poison bait.

Each bait station was numbered

In uninhabited, disused and derelict properties indoor bait stations were used.

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Stage 1. Establishing the bait station grid.

The bait stations are 75cm lengths of 100mm diameter corrugated, non-perforated PVC piping, with a lid cut out of the central part. The tubes are held in position by 75cm lengths of 2.5mm diameter fence wire. 1000 bait stations + wires were transported up from Lundy. Four hundred were made by the NTS Lothian volunteer group, but the vast majority were made by inmates at Edinburgh prison, who also cut, bent and stacked all the wire. We are very grateful to the prison authorities for assisting us in this manner.

The bait stations were transported to Mallaig in 1x1x1m dumpy bags and then shipped out to Canna. They were then distributed in depots around the island by tractor and trailer, our Honda 350 ATV and trailer and finally by the team physically dragging them across the island.

A bait station

The first stage involved putting out the bait station grid. A bait station was positioned every 50m, apart from on the exposed high plateau where they were located every 100m. 50m lengths of rope were used to mark out the grid and place canes, where each bait stations would be placed. The bait stations were then fixed in position. This involves inserting two wires through the tube about 5cms from each entrance. This is to prevent animals larger than a rat entering the tube. Two further wires are then fixed over the tube to hold it firmly into the ground. The work progressed rapidly with further stations being placed out in the fields around the bay so that in all 180 were installed in the first day.

Using ropes to set out the bait station grid

In all, 4388 bait stations were placed out covering the entire island. Some of the more inaccessible cliff ledges were reached by abseiling. The location of each bait station was recorded by GPS and transferred onto maps by Kelvin Floyd of WMIL. The map below shows the final grid.

Stage 2. As the grid was being established some of the team moved on to stage 2 .... more...

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