McKenzie Country: Sound Lure Results August 2020

We've recently had our first results from our first external deployment of the Sound Lure, which has taken place in the McKenzie Country, in the South Island of New Zealand.   

This unit has been deployed as part of a trap line with a DOC 250 trap, and the sound lure placed inside of the trap.    

The lure has been monitored with a camera to record what animals have interacted with the lure.   

We would like to thank Peter Doyle from the University of Otago who has been responsible for this deployment.

The target animal for this deployment was rats or mustelids, with a sound profile that we have been experimenting with to target these animals.  We have used the daily profile with a single sound every five minutes, switching to a night time profile playing every minute.  The sounds were a mix of stoat noise, chick and distressed rabbit.   

During the three week deployment there were interactions with hares (as shown in the photographs) a feral cats and numerous interactions with mice.    There were a total of 190 activations of the camera focussed on the sound lure trap.   

There have been no activations by either of the key target species that we were targetting with the sound lure during the time that it was deployed.   We are continually working with partners around New Zealand to test the lures, test the effectiveness and look at ways to improve the effectiveness of the lure.

Our current score that we can attribute to the lure remains the stoat that was caught within forty eight hours of the first New Plymouth Airport deployment.   We have recently added to our trap deployments nationally by having units in the West Coast of the South Island, Mt Taranaki on the DOC Stoat network as well as our Airport Deployment.   

Our first intent is to ensure that the technology is able to last in the environment and follow this up be experimenting with sounds and bait.

We are pleased that the unit has managed to spend three week in an environment that has tested it to the limits of its capabilities and while we are a little dissapointed not to have had activations from our target animals we are continue to move forward with the project and refine its deployment.

Sound Lure: Further Deployment Developments

This photograph shows the deployment location of one of the project sound lures which is in the McKenzie Country in the South Island of New Zealand.

This is part of a larger trap line and is operating with the 'Stoat' sound lure profile, it has been placed inside a DOC 250.

Thank you to Peter from the University of Otago for the opportunity to test the unit at this location.

We are looking forward to seeing the results from this unit and others that are currently being set up on the West Coast of the South Island targetting Stoats.

Deploying the sound lure units throughout the country will allow us to produce invaluable data about the use of the units and their effectiveness.

Following an overhaul of our camera recording equipment at the Deployment One Location, close to Kapuni we have noticed a significant increase in activity around the sound lure.   The image on the left from two days ago shows a large rat in the vicinty of the trap, to the left of the tree.   There was not a specific activation of the trap.   Recorded 15/08/2020.

The second image (below) is from the following evening.   Again there is clear evidence of a brush tailed possum, slightly obscured to the right in the tree immediately next to the sound lure.    The unit deployment consists of a chew card on the tree, an additional wire cage where rabbit meat has been placed in the past,

a rat box immediately next to the tree housing a sound lure (with solar panel visible on top of the unit) and finally to the right of the sound lure is a secondary trap with mice traps.    This has been placed to remove mice from the area to allow the rat trap to remain in place.

At this stage we are just using peanut butter on the main trap as a basic bait.  The intention has always been once the basic electrics have been mastered to include a varietty of traps and baits as well as refining the basic sound profile to target specifc pest animals.   

Sound Lure: Revised Version

 As part of the electronics part of this project targetting Stoats we have been testing and constantly revising the units and making adjustments.   This work is exclusively being carried out by Andrew Hornblow from Opunake who is one of the partners working on the project.   

Recent adjustments for the units include a track being played when the power is connected to the circuit and a blinking LED light as part of the set up.   Both these features allow immediate confirmation that the unit is working and operating.    This video is an example of the unit working:

As we have mentioned previously on this blog these units are now appearing in a variety of locations including New Plymouth Airport, the McKenzie Country South Island, Wataroa - the West Coast of the South Island.    The latest units are being deployed in South Taranaki being used by the Department of Conservation and Project Mounga.   These are specifically targetting Stoats with a sound profile that reflects this. 

Sound Lures Around New Zealand: Thank You to Fonterra

 Last year in preparation for the 123 Tech Challenge that students from Auroa Primary School entered into, winning the Taranaki/Whanganui Competition (a Y7/8 competition when the team was made up of three Y6 students and one Y5 students!) the team went to Fonterra in Kapuni and made a presentation to the workers at the facility.

Fonterra gifted the students the funds to purchase ten units which were used for testing purposes and these ten units have formed the foundation of the stoat aspect of the project which is receiving national attention.

• Three of these units are in constant use at New Plymouth Airport, running testing on weather tightness, solar power and basic baiting.   These units have been deployed for just over a month and have resulted in the capture of a Stoat and numerous mice.
• One unit has been deployed to the McKenzine Country, the South Island in a trap line inside a DOC 250.
• Two units are currently enroute to the West Coast, to be deployed as part of a Stoat operation that is about to take place in Whataroa, South Island
• Two units are about to be given to the Department of Conservation for deployment as part of the efforts on the Mountain in Taranaki with the local stoat network.
• Two units are going to Lake Rotokare Trust to support thier local efforts to control Mustelids.

The students from Room One have been responsible for putting together the sound profile for these units, putting the units together and will soon begin to manufacture a new group of units.    We would again like to thank Fonterra for the support with this project. 

We would also like to once again acknowledge the invaluable support of Venture Taranaki, Curious Minds Taranaki and Andrew Hornblow from Opunake.

This is a creative, innovative project for our students to be involved in combining reseach, design, coding and allow them to apply these skills towards a local problem that will upskill them for the future.

NZ Herald Article on the Crams Farm/Oeo Road Farmers Group

 As part of our project we have engaged with a variety of local groups.   One of these groups are a group of farmers located on Oeo Road who are working on pest reduction and elimination in the area.   This group was featured in the NZ Herald on 4th August and there is mention of the Sound Lure Project.   

You can click on the link to the article here.

Project Update: July 2020

Thank you again to Venture Taranaki for the funding support

While we have not made any releases since the announcement of the Curious Minds Funding for the Project in 2020 we now are approaching an exciting stage in the project.

We've continued to expand the placement of units throughout the country for the pest project and have units in several locations in the South Island, including now the Mackenzie Country and soon to the West Coast of the South Island.

We also have just had (pictured) the resources arrived for the Curious Minds Possum Trapping Project.   This will allow the students from Auroa Primary School to produce the Possum Units which are part of our 2020 Curious Minds Application/Project.   We will be pushing out approximately fifty units to the wider community for recording of data and information gathering. 

Very soon we will start our farm deployment locally with our first test site.

We also are running units locally, including the original unit which was first put outside in November, it is approaching a years external (outside) service with no indication of any technical difficulties as a result of the weather.

Finally we are continuing with our New Plymouth Aiport deployment.   We have now had three units been deployed successfully for a month.   While these were responsible for catching a stoat within 48 hours of deployment and numerous mice since then we are going to look at refining the trap set up and baiting of the stations.

We will continue to post updats to this blog as they occur and expect there to be significant developments in this area shortly.