Further Unit Experimentation and Possum Preparation

 

Recent test deployments inside outside buildings (barns) have again produced evidence of the potential for the sound lure to operate to draw animals towards a trap area.   In the example shown to the left a student from school has placed a live capture trap in a barn, with the sound lure to the left of the trap.

The brush tailed possum enters the trap, interacts with the food inside the trap, and then leaves the trap to inspect the sound lure, before again entering the trap and this time activating it.    We discussed with the student the potential of preventing this from happening by placing the sound lure adjacent to the rear of the unit, so the possum when interacting with the unit would need to spring the trap to gain access to the speaker which appears to be the target of the possums when it is presented to them.

In the second instance of recent note we have began running tests with the robotic arm.   Our first series of tests have been using the arm by itself and disconnecting the sound element.   The arm is set to operate for randomly lengths of time, when placed inside a DOC 200 it can fit althought it is tight.

Essentially it will operate in tandem with the noise and currently is operating as a feather.   The noise will set off and at the same time the motor will turn.    In the last week this has been deployed at Deployment SIte One.   There has been evidence of some interest from brush tailed possums as shown in the photo although the animals have not tried to interact diretly with the trap, they appear to be observing it from a distance but not as yet engaging with it.   We are shortly going to replace the circuit so that it will create the noise as well as the movement to note any changes or additional interactions.

Sound Lure and Live Capture Trap - Success

 This is a further update on the series of posts from the last few days.   As noted we have begun using the live capture trap in conjunction with the sound lure, to test the effectiveness of the solar panel charging but also to see if the brush tailed possum would be discouraged from entering the live capture trap with the sound lure present. 

Evidence that we have been collecting dating back several months now is showing that the brush tailed possum is attracted to the area where the lure is placed or located and this is in significantly higher numbers than areas where the sound lure is not deployed.   Using of the Timms possum traps was showing little activation however we recently modified the trap to include the speaker into the base of the trap, this was on the evidence that we have found showing that the brush tailed possum on all three locations was interacting directly with the speaker (including holding it and attempting to eat it as it was activating).   We also wanted to combine using the sound lure and a live capture trap to see if the two would work in combination.

Three nights ago in our first deployment as shown on this blog we had a brush tailed possum enter the trap, remove the fruit bait and return to the trap later in the evening.   The second night of deployment there was no possum activity.   During the second day a swallow entering the trap, triggering the trap (and resulting in a thousand or so photographs during the day).   When this was discovered in the afternoon the bird was able to be released.     The two photographs on the left show the deployment, including a DOC 200 which is to the immediate left of the live capture trap.   This has been baited consistently with salted rabbit meat since September at this location, which has resulted in the capture of two rats.   There are stoats operating in the general area however despite over a year of having traps deployed there has been no stoats captured.

The third night of the deployement saw the live capture trap successfully trapping a male possum.   It appears on the camera at 12:03am and enters the trap at 12:09am (again as we've mentioned the trap is on a one minute timer so during this process the lure sounded six times).    The trap then springs closed as it was set correctly.   

This trap has been used in the general area for the past six years.   There was an initial burst of seventeen possums caught in the area during the first twelve months and then two further possums caught directly in the house area in 2020.     This has been at the house area which is located some 500m away from the river area of deployment site one.    There has been possum activity in the general house area as noted by droppings etc and clear possum activity where the camera has been located, however none of these possums have entered the trap.

Significantly there was a second possum activation which occurred at 4:23am a second brush tailed possum passes through the area containing the trap, where the first possum is contained.   This possum does not linger in the area, however it is interesting to note its appearance.

We are going to take a short term break from our data collection and will be returning to work in the new year.

 

Sound Lure and Live Capture Trap

As mentioned yesterday combing using the sound lure and a live capture trap, this has already produced results overnight.  Monitoring the trap over the last few days we have been aware of increased brush tailed possum activity since the sound lure profile has been switched to a possum sound.

As we been using the Timms Possum traps up until this point a decision was made to deploy a live capture trap in conjunction with the sound lure in an area where possums are clearly operating to see if the lure would encourage the possum to enter the trap.   While this is only the first night this combination was tried, this has proven to be the case.   A brush tailed possum approached the trap depolyment area and remained around the location for an extended period of time, and appeared to return later to the site.

During this time (a ten minute time frame) the possum approaches the trap location, enters the trap and removes the apple that was placed inside the trap.   In normal situations the trap would be trigged by the possum standing on the foot plate, which would then cause the cage to close, trapping the animal inside.

Due to human error the trap mechanism was set incorrectly, which allowed the possum to exit the trap carrying the food that was used to bait it, and then eat the bait.   With the trap set correctly, we anticipate that the possum that attempts to repeat the procedure will then be trapped.     

Key to this deployment is the issue - of the sound lure attracting the possum but not repelling the possum, as can be deduced from the ten minute timeframe where the possum entered a standard trap and remained in the area (with the one minute delay on the sound lure this would have therefore activated ten times while the possum was in the area).