Further January Developments: Possums and revised stoat lure

 

We are starting to experiement with the visual aspect of the lure by using commercially available dog toys.   In the case of the image to the left we are starting to experiment with combining a relatively cheap dog toy with a DOC 200.   We have further modified the dog toy by inserting the 3D Printed speaker baffle into the chest of the toy.  The result has already had activity with feral cats who have interacted with the toy/lure as it is being test deployed.

We have again modified the code of our stoat version of the sound lure with coding to reflect the ability of the battery to produce sound, up to every thirty seconds.    In direct sunlight this means that the lure is running continuously during the day and is switching to a second profile activating every minute during darkness.   The lure has been placed inside a DOC200 and is being additionally baited with salted rabbit.    The speaker being used in conjunction with the set up is a four watt/eight ohms speaker.   This has been placed at deployment site one which was next to the possum activated trap, with a distressed cotton tailed rabbit sound.  During the course of a week of monitoring at this location there was minimal activations, including rats who normally would either enter or interact with the trap appearing to arrive at the site and leave immediately.  While we are conducting further testing a decision was made to move the stoat lure to another location two hundred metres away as it appeared to be that that sound of the distressed rabbit may be discouraging animals from entering the area.

We know from a year of data collection at this location that we would expect during a week considerable rodent activity and likely brush tailed possum activity, so to see neither during the week was a surprise.     We have used a DOC200 at this location with salted rabbit and caught a variety of pests using a lure making bird/chick/rat sounds and also successfully caught brush tailed possums at the site using a Timms trap modified with the lure placed at the back of the device.   We have also had incidents such as shown in the photo left where a rat has been trapped in rat box and a second rat has appeared and climbed into the possum trap (but not activated it).

In removing the stoat trap and replacing it with the rat box we have seen results more in line with what we would expect to see.   Overnight we have had two visits from brush tailed possum, possibly the same animal, an hour apart where it has approached the area, investigated the location (briefly) and then left the area within two to three minutes.    Significantly it has done so twice within an hour and the trap is activated soley on the basis of the sound without additional baiting (such as fruit).

The two pictures that are shown are an hour apart and have the brush tailed possum entering the area from a near identical direction, spending a similar time at the location (two to three minutes) then leaving the area from the same direction.

We will continue to monitor this location over the next few days to determine if a possum returns to the location and what eventuates.