Unit Deployments in Other Locations.

We have reached a significant point in this project.   This week there will be a major annoucement at a regional event about the Possum specific focus part of this project.   This will form a seperate post on this site detailing this project and will be released on Tuesday evening.

This week we will also deploying a series of units at New Plymouth Airport with a view to assisting their exisitng pest trapping programme targetting rats and mustlelids.    These units will be monitored to produce data showing the units working in a different environment. 

We wish to acknowledge the support of Fonterra in supplying these units to be deployed.   This deployment is invaluable as it will allow us to monitor the effectiveness of the lure in an independent location.    The Airport has considerable ground around the runway area.   This land is a mixture of scrub and pasture.   There have been a mixture of target animals operating in this area. 

The sound lure profile developed is specifc to this location.  It consists of five tracks.   Two of these are distressed rabbit profile, one in a chick sound and two rat noises.    These are programmed to operate on a five minute cycle during the day and at night once it is dusk it switches to a one minute interval of sound.   There is no base sound profile for the daytime.  The units will be placed with existing rat trap boxes (similar to deployment site one shown on this site) with the locations in full sunlight.

The second annoucement is that we have supplied base units to the first school out of Taranaki, located in the South Island.   Our first unit was sent to Chevoit Area School last week.   It has always been the intention of this project to have as many people and locations as possible involved in the distribution of the technology, the use of the sound lure as a project to increase its effectiveness.

We continue to look for opportunities to support other existing projects or individuals who would like to experiement or use the technology.   We will be eventually providing full construction details here on the blog but in the meantime are willing to work out arrangements for other locations as people are interested.

There is gathering evidence to suggest that the sound lure is having an effect on attracting rodents (specifically rats at this stage) to the target area.   This being the case (and the sound profile is going to be modified and adapted moving forwatd) we would welcome interest potentially from anyone who would have a use for this technology, including from those of you who might be wanting to apply its use overseas.