Wētā are seriously cool invertebrates and I’ve got a whole lot of Wellington tree wētā thriving in my backyard. There are three main reasons for this:

1. There are lots of native plants and trees for them to live and munch on, and I’ve removed many weeds

2. Introduced predator numbers are kept low by having backyard traps ready for action 24/7

3. Wētā hotels have provided a safe home for them

Types of wētā

Wētā are amazing. They’ve outlived the dinosaurs, there are over 100 species and they are all only found in Aotearoa New Zealand. These 100+ species can be defined into 5 groups:

• Tree wētā

• Cave wētā

• Giant wētā

• Tusked wētā

• Ground wētā

Removing weeds and planting natives

I live in the suburbs of the Kāpiti Coast, and am lucky enough to have an established grove of kānuka trees in my backyard. Conveniently, this happens to be a fave tree for the nocturnal Wellington tree wētā, and is creating a great place for them to establish a population.

When we first moved into this home, this mini kānuka forest (about 25 trees) was completely surrounded by mature agapanthus plants (which, by the way, are the literal worst). The kānuka were essentially being choked by them, and there was no natural leaf litter on the ground, and no native seedlings able to establish at the base of the kānuka. It took two full days of wielding a grubber to hack out close to two tonnes of agapanthus, freeing the kānuka from their creepily tangled root system.

While digging out all that agapanthus, I encountered just three spiders and a dead hedgehog that had gotten stuck amongst the roots. A very grim death, but one more pest out of action. I was astonished that despite how green and lush the agapanthus look from a distance, they were actually concealing a barren wasteland utterly lacking in biodiversity. 16+ hours in the garden yielding just three spiders shocked me, and I realised the sad state of affairs for invertebrates in this patch of garden.

Backyard trapping

I’ve been a backyard trapper for yonks, and had knocked back a fair few rats, hedgehogs and mice with my Goodnature A24s and wooden tunnel traps. With the removal of the agapanthus, I was hopeful that it would make things even easier for invertebrates like wētā to move in (if they weren’t there already).

I bought my three wētā hotels from a lovely nature reserve in Waikanae, called Ngā Manu. They’re made by a local Menzshed group, and were just $20 each. Conservation in the backyard doesn’t have to be expensive, and these hotels will last ages as they are well-built.

Curious to see if I’d have any luck with my wētā hotels, I tied them with wire to three different kānuka trees. I’ve kept the trapping up too, as there are always more pests (so far I’ve caught 15 introduced predators in about a year).

The one predator I can’t eliminate is cats, for obvious reasons! My place is surrounded by cats, which predate on wētā because they’re fairly easy targets, so the hotels offer the wētā a safe place to hide and chill out during the day before coming out at night to feed.

Wētā hotels

What is a wētā hotel? It’s basically a snazzy little wooden home for them, that provides them with a safe space to hide and rest during the day. Since they’re nocturnal, they need a good hiding place during the day to protect themselves from birds and introduced predators like cats, rats, mice, hedgehogs and possums.

There are several guides on how to make them yourself - see the links below! You can make them as fancy as you like, or a basic piece of narrow bamboo can also do the trick. Mine have two rooms each, so they’re not huge but they still are proving popular!

After about three months of patiently waiting, I had my first wētā move in! I was so stoked. I felt like a proud mum. It was a young female Wellington tree wētā and she was a stunner! Over the past nine months, this number has slowly grown. My three wētā hotels are now home to around 10 tree wētā (the number fluctuates every time I check the hotels), several cave wētā and a few native cockroaches too. Some of the rooms in my hotels now have two or three females and one male, which is excellent as it means there will hopefully be baby wētā running around soon.

It’s typical of tree wētā to establish groups like this. One male will have his ‘harem’ of ladies who mate with him, and they all hang out in one of the rooms together. It looks extremely cramped but they seem happy! The most dominant males with the biggest jaws tend to win the rights to have a harem, and smaller males have to be sneaky or opportunistic outside of the hotels if they want their chance to mate. Honestly, wētā live surprisingly political and dramatic lives!

It’s always exciting to open the wētā hotels and see how many are there, what the sex ratio is, what other critters have moved in, and just generally how it’s going in there. I restrict my visits to about once a fortnight so that I’m not constantly disrupting them, despite the temptation to constantly check on them.

Wēta aren’t as visible or as conventionally ‘cute’ like our native birds and lizards, but they’re just as precious and need our help. A wētā hotel is a simple way of helping them out, and can bring a lot of satisfaction once they start moving in!

Sources:

Build your own wētā motel: https://www.doc.govt.nz/parks-and-recreation/places-to-go/toyota-kiwi-guardians/take-action/build-a-weta-motel/

https://www.doc.govt.nz/nature/native-animals/invertebrates/weta/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hemideina_crassidens

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tree_w%C4%93t%C4%81

https://www.visitzealandia.com/About/The-Wildlife/Reptiles-Frogs-Invertebrates/Tree-Weta

http://wetageta.massey.ac.nz/Text%20files/tree%20weta%20ecology.html