Sound Lure Sounds: Revising the targets and basic sound.

After reviewing the documented activity from the sound lures activity at location number one a decision has been made to significantly alter the sound profile that is being used.   Having met and talked to various organisations and individuals in the past few weeks, a decision has been made to trial a different sound.

The original deployment sound consisted of a 'Stoat Chatter' sound during the day, followed by a night profile that consisted of 'Stoat Chatter', two versions of a 'Possum Call' and two versions of 'Chick sound'.    These sounds have been the ones used on the five initial units that were deployed from November 2019 to January 2020.

The new sound has been sent to us from a link from Kane from Lake Rotokare Reserve and is entitled 'distressed bobtail rabbit'.   This is a professionally recorded sound from youtube which appears to be a hunters call.  The idea behind utilizing this sound is to attract animals towards it, that would prey on a wounded or distressed rabbit (ie a Stoat).

Currently the lure that we are tracking each day is at a location close to a significant middle sized river.   This river is currently in the middle of summer and is lower than usual for this time of year, there is a small amout of water activity from the current.  As it is located in a area of riparian planting there is siginificant bird chatter in the area, the distressed animal noise is now in contrast to this.  The intention is to monitor the activity around the trap, the previous sounds have clearly attracted possums, rats and cats to the immediate vicinity of the trap during night.   The first night of the change there was no recorded activity at the site.