Intensified Non Sound Lure Behaviour

Recently we have been running extended trials with the sound lure targeting brush tailed possums with a new sound lure profile, and a decision was made to run at the same location without the sound lure for an extended period of time to chart the difference.    

There were several factors that occurred of note during this time.   Firstly there has been another successful capture at this location using the Timms trap, the second in three days, the first with and the second without the sound lure.    

The second is the heightened activity that we have seen where a trapped possum has remained in a trap for an extended period of time.  Typical of that occurring the activations on the camera and the interaction with the dead possum from other possums.  We are consistently seeing hundreds of activations at locations where typically we would expect twenty or thirty in an evening.   During this time we are seeing possums interacting with the dead possum, ripping fur off the dead animal and mating with it.      

This pattern repeated itself during this monitoring phase as over the five day of monitoring there was nearly a thousand activations.   Almost all of these occurred following the capture of the first possum where additional possums then came into the site and activated the camera by interacting with the possum.

In normal circumstances the trapped/dead possum would be removed in the following morning - however in this instance due to being absent from the location for five days it had to remain in the trap.    Three days of extreme heightened activity occurred with a variety of possums, including a mother and baby and a possum that had a distinct tinge of red or brown in the colour of its fut.

Also of note - the sound lure was not present and during the entire time there were no rat activations at the site - there has been numerous in the previous deployments including repeated large rat activations - these ceased for the duration of the five day only non sound lure deployment - there were no rat activity at all.

Finally New Zealand and our region has had a massive rainfall during the last three days of the deployment on the final day the water from the river, which is usually eight metres or so from the river to where the trap is located, had an unprecedented water level rise, as can be seen from the photograph on the left.   The affect that this has had on the activations will be investigated.