Conversion of a Sound Lure to target Rooks

We have recently had a number of events take place that have caused us to focus our engergies in slightly different directions.   We have had visits from film crews from Al Jazeera, participated in the Australian Feral Futures Virtual Students Conference and we had a presentation at Puke Ariki Museum in New Plymouth.

Today we had a visit from Sam, who is the TRC Rook officer.    The Rook, which is considered a significant pest bird has not yet made its way in large numbers to South Taranaki although it has been recently sighted in Hollard Gardens, a significant local location.

The sound lure has been converted into a Rook lure with the idea that the lure can be used to encourage a rook into a trap.    The set up for the unit is essentially the sam set up that has been used for daytime (stoat) profiles.   The only difference in this case would be coding the unit to go silent during the evening as the rook sound lure is not required to be operating.   

We have always thought that there is mulitple purposes for the sound lure as despite having a focus on stoats initially, possums have been shown to be interested and in addition to this feral cats and rats have also made frequent appearances on tracking cameras.

We will be monitoring these results and update them as the trial progresses.

There is additional information on Rooks, relevant to New Zealand on the Pest Detective website located here, this is also where the photograph for this blog post was taken from.

Rainbow LED Initial Deployment

 

The next variation that we have been trying with the unit is a rainbow LED.   This essentially is the sound lure unit with an additional output - a rainbow LED which works in conjunction (at the same time) as the sound.

This is a replacement for the 'feather' motor that was also operating at the same time, as both aspects of the unit additions run from the same location.  Recent trials with the 'feather' motor have seen interest from feral cats visiting the unit repeatedly and also to the extent that it pulled the feather from the inside of rat box caging - as detailed on this blog.

The first night of the LED saw some interesting interactions.   Firstly the LED was placed inside the rat box this had the affect of creating having the entire box light up when the LED operated with is shower of colour.    Furthermore there was repeated visit from large rats to the site.   In each case the rats can be seen showing interest in the rat box with the LED and ignoring or showing no interest in the DOC 200 which is baited with rabbit (it should be also noted that the rat box with the LED is baited with a T-Rex with peanut butter, this was not activated during the evening.   While this is very much the initial deployment with the set up the potential here seems very encouraging.   

As we have done with our test deployment at this site we will continue to monitor the deployment of the unit and notice the interactions that are occurring.  We are intending to operate the unit with the LED and the light at present it is the LED only that is operating.

Feral Cat Interacting with Feather

Further to identify the issue of the feral cat interacting wtih the feather sound lure (which has a small motor running in conjunction with the sound lure).

While this has been set up to base itself on attracting possums to the area with a small four watt speaker operating a variety of possum noises.   

Instead what has happened is that a feral cat has been dominating the deployment site for several weeks.   

This cat has been regularly appearing at the sound lure site.   Recently the feather that is working with the lure was placed so it was outside the netting for the rat box.

The result was that we had four intercations during a single evening between the cat and the trap.   The cat ignored the DOC200 containing rabbit meat and instead focussed its attention on the sound lure, and motor.

The cat also went to the extent of removing the feather from the inside of the trap as shown in the photograph.   It visited the site repeatedly during the night, four times in total and was photographed in excess of thirty times.

We have had expressed interest in the past from individuals who are focussed on looking at controlling feral cats and as a result we believe that this current set up would show considerable potential.