February Summary: LED Lights/Sound

The continuation of our monitoring at deployment site one has moved in February.    For the first part of the month, following our success in January, we decided to make some adjustments.   For the first half of the month we placed the trap in place, with the camera in position for the first week and removed the LED light and the sound lure.     This was partly due to weather conditions and partly to see what affect this would have on the activations.    

Initially the activations during February were down when compared to January.   The trap was activated on the 15th however there was not a possum when the trap was checked - it had been pulled out of the ground via the pins and the bait had been taken.   There was very little camera activations - we saw the 'dark male possum' frequently during the two weeks, continuing the behaviour that we have witnessed from it over the past few months it would appear on the site and act extremely cautiously - as it has been since last year when it was first sighted.   

The last time that a possum had been captured was January 16th and following that there was a noticeable decrease in the number of activations as detailed on this page.

On the 15th February the activation of the trap indicated that there were possums in the area and they were interacting with the trap.   This led to redeploying the sound lure with the LED light at the location (on the 19th), minus the camera as the weather was still dominated by rain and we are limiting our deployment (having a huge amount of footage of the possums/sound lure interaction the highlights of this are on this page).   

Two days after the redeployment of the sound lure/LED lights the night of 21st the trap was activated and a female possum was trapped, as shown in the photo.   This is the first capture at this location since mid January - interestingly this possum would be described as dark, very similar in colour to the male that is known to be in the area, however this possum was a small female.  Evidence at the site is that there at least one other possum as the bait that was in the trap had been significantly eaten following the capture.