Billy Barton and a "bundle of fun”.

SUE WARDS

Welshman Steve ‘Billy’ Barton’s decision to escape the rat race in the UK led to him joining a different rat race entirely, as a predator control specialist in Wanaka - the lead man in predator control team Billy and the Bunny Catchers.

But trying to get a handle on all Billy’s activities is almost as hard as getting a handful of his three ferrets.

"I’ve got my finger in a lot of pies,” Billy said. "This is what my life’s like.”

His main role is trapping, shooting, and using dogs and ferrets, working as Phoenix SPB Ltd (tagline Billy and the Bunny Catchers). In this role he’s responsible for around 500 local predator traps from Roys Peninsula to Queensberry, working for DOC and a range of private clients to control rabbits, hares, stoats and feral cats.

"In its own way it’s conservation,” he said. "You get rid of the rabbits and predators and the wildlife thrives.”

Billy is helped by his ferrets (Goldenballs and two unnamed females) and a team of dogs. It took Billy and partner Mary Hunt about ten minutes to work out how many dogs they collectively own. After trying unsuccessfully to add them up by breed and age, Mary finally takes paper and pen and comes up with 16 dogs. The dogs are run in a team of up to nine, and having a few extra means the dogs don't get tired too often. "It's a hard life with all the hunting they do, covering up to 30kms some days,” Billy said.

Another of Billy’s businesses is Phoenix Breeding Kennels. He breeds and sells White Shepherds and is working on a line of Welsh Springer Spaniel hunting dogs, aiming to return the breed to their original hunting roots.

He’s also the only person in New Zealand working with White German Shepherds for hunting: he said the dogs are biddable, with a good nose.

Billy’s also interested in genetic testing of different breeds, and has strong feelings about the damage done to various breeds from Kennel Clubs breeding for ‘desirable’ features.

Billy and Mary’s pack includes a Whippet, Labradoodle, Spaniels, a rescued Border Terrier, white German Shepherds and four striking German Shepherd Greyhound crosses (which Billy calls "germ-hounds”) - including 13-year-old Zappa, which he brought to New Zealand from the UK when he emigrated in 2008.

"I came to New Zealand as a welder with an intention to get into pest control because I liked it,” Billy said. Since then he’s worked as an engineer in Dunedin, spent 12 months eradicating rabbits on Macquarie Island in 2013, and honed his trapping skills in a variety of settings. Billy started part time pest control in Wanaka three years ago, and moved here permanently last June. (He came to housesit for Mary and never left, she said.)

Billy was well-known in UK hunting circles for training dogs for rabbiting. He started ferreting 30 years ago: his first ferret, Fred, was trained to a whistle. Now Billy catches wild kit (young ferrets) and trains them. (The ferrets have to be kept under MPI regulations.)

He describes them as "little bundles of fun”. Training them not to bite is a priority. So far he’s been bitten "probably about 100 times”, mostly by wild ferrets when trapping new ones to be tamed and trained.

With a transmitter on each ferret’s collar he can identify them 16 feet away. Once the ferrets have done their job, usually down rabbit holes, they’ll often head back to their box, Billy said. "They know where their food comes from.”

Billy’s knowledge of ferrets led to "another idea”. He had tried to import mink gland oil from America but couldn’t, so decided to try using ferret gland oil, or "stink juice”, to see if it would attract stoats and ferrets into traps. He sent a load of dead ferrets to his ex-partner at the University of Otago; she removed the stink glands and put them in oil.

Billy tried the oil and found it worked - as does ferret bedding - to attract predators. Wanaka Otago Regional Councillor Ella Lawton helped him discover another use for the stuff. "She had a problem with rabbits under her deck and I said, ‘do you fancy trying something?’” The rabbits disappeared once the "stink juice” was installed.

Now Billy’s supplying the oil and bedding to a variety of groups, including Orokonui Ecosanctuary, DOC and the Wellington Regional Council.

"I do a bit of an exchange. They send me a bottle of whiskey every now and then. I’ll never be rich,” he said.

After meeting Billy it’s not surprising to learn his favourite musician is the innovative Frank Zappa. (Most of his dogs’ names pay homage to Zappa’s music.) Billy seems to share Zappa’s eclectic, experimental approach to life. He segues from telling the Wanaka App about "bagging ferret crap and sending it off”, to describing plans for his latest business, clinical hypnotherapy, in which he has a diploma.

"I was an anxiety sufferer,” he said. Anxiety, depression and insomnia were the side-effects of medication he took years ago. He suffered for about five years before finding hypnotherapy.

"I always had a curiosity about it,” he said. "I like the therapy because it’s helping people.”

Meanwhile Billy’s helping people in other ways. Conservation Week starts tomorrow (Monday October 16), and this year’s theme is ‘Love your backyard’. DOC Wanaka has been collaborating with local conservationist Kris Vollebregt to start up a backyard trapping programme targeting rats, stoats and ferrets in urban Wanaka. Billy has also contributed his expertise to the scheme, and is happy to advise people on their own backyard trapping.

"Wanaka is our backyard,” Billy said. "Backyard trapping is as simple as putting a trap in your backyard - just watch your fingers.” (And be careful where you put the traps: Billy has a wealth of knowledge on that, and also suggests people check out http://predatorfreenz.org/the-predators/ for information.)

"You’re never far from a rat,” Billy said. "You’d be surprised at the amount of stoats and ferrets out there. The idea is to enhance the wildlife in your back garden by getting rid of the predators.”

If you need some help with that, who’re you going to call? A Frank Zappa-loving, Billy Connolly look-a-like, ferreting hypnotherapist. There’s only one in Wanaka: Billy Barton.

PHOTO: Wanaka App