Tom leads the project’s predator control operations. He first started possum trapping when he was 11 and says being involved in a cutting edge project to rid such a huge area of predators is his “dream job”.

Tom has previously been a biodiversity ranger with DOC. and worked with the country’s rarest parakeet, orange-fronted parakeet/kākāriki karaka in Arthurs Pass for ten years. Before joining Te Manahuna Aoraki Project in 2018 he managed predator control for the Rakaia Braided River programme protecting similar birds to the ones he will be working with as part of this project.