Brush Tailed Possum - Refining Sound Lures

We have recently been further experimenting with the final deployment set up.  We continue to test the solar panels which have now been left out in semi-shade conditions long term - this is showing that the unit is remaining fully charged and operating as expected, despite the fact that it is not in full sun, which was the case with the smaller panels.    

Our revised sound profile and speaker combination have meant that the focus for now is very much on the Brush Tailed Possum.   We have returned again to the first deployment site to test out these new combinations and again are seeing extremely encouraging result.  We are continuing to run long term deployments on two other locations and are about to expand to a third.    At deployment site one with the unit in place we are seeing significant nightly brush tailed possum activity - this is something that we have not seen previously at this location.

At present we have had three consecutive nights of possums interacting with the speaker or at the location where the speaker is operating, this is in contrast to the previous twelve months of activity where we have seen possums at a rate of once a fortnight.   

We are again seeing evidence of the possums interacting directly with the unit and the speakers themselves.   They are currently able to do this because this version of the deployment has the unit seperate from the trap, altough we have already modified our set up to take this into account.   

We have also deployed a live capture cage at this location, combining it with the sound lure and intend to monitor how effective this will be.

It is currently the school holidays in New Zealand so the students involved in this project are currently on their summer break.   We will return to regular posting and development during January.