Five Consecutive Night: Fourth Possum Capture

This is currently an extremely active series of captures at deployment site one using a Timms Possum Trap modified with the sound lure at the back, and the speaker connected directly to the back of the possum trap.   Concerns that the noise might be too loud and acting as some form of deterrent can, we believe be put to rest as at this location we have had the fourth possum capture in the past five nights.

It has been five nights since the modified trap was placed in the location, replacing previous lures that were used to monitor the level of possum activity in the area.

The five tracks currently in use and all generic possum sounds, played at one minute intervals by the solar powered sound lure which has been operating with its technical components outside for two years.   We have now caught three males and a female at this location since Friday.

There is also been clear evidence with this capture of additional possum activity following the capture as another animal has been present to pull fur from the deceased animal.  

Again we have seen evidence of this repeatedly during the monitoring of the sites where we have had captures of an animal and then additional animals have arrived at the site to attack the dead animal, which we have seen both in possums and rats.

The sound lure has continued to operate after the capture of the animal and continue to generate a sound profile with the potential to bring other animals into the area.   There is the possibility of combining the trap with a self setting device to look at seeing if multiple animals could potentially be trapped.

Fourth Consecutive Night: Third Possum Capture

This is the fourth consecutive night of a strike on the Timms that is operating in conjunction with the sound lure.   Over the last four nights we have caught now two males, a female and had a third strike where the animal escaped.

This site shows the unit which was pulled from the ground during the capture, the sound lure is under the plastic container which is on the top of the stoat box (which has still not had a strike in a month).

There was no evidence of interference with the possum after it was caught and the bait from the trapping was still visible inside the trap.   All other details about the capture such as the programme (coding) and unit details are correct and similar to other posts in this series from this week.    Weather has remained fine during this period.   This is currently the most successful run at this location over the past two years, although we have successfully used a range of traps at this location.

Second/Third Consecutive Night: Timms Success

 

For the third consecutive night we have had success at the location where we have been again focussing on the sound lure combined with a Timms trap.

Update: Monday 8th November (Day Three).  There was a further activation overnight, which was clearly a possum strike on the Timms trap, in this instance the trap was activated, the bucket had moved with the pins pulled up and the bait removed - this has been seen before when a possum activates the trap and then subsequently escapes.

Night Two Summary

In the photo you can see the sound lure immediately behind the Timms trap, were it is linked to trap.  Next to the Timms is the stoat box which is still baited with salted rabbit to target stoats.

A smaller female has been caught, interestingly the bait in the Timms trap was not present suggesting that another animal or this animal had removed it, but then continued to interact in the trap resulting in its removal.

Incredibly frustratingly we cannot answer the question with absolute certainty as the event was being monitored by a trail camera that despite prior testing did not operate (record) as had been anticipated.   This is our final operational HD Video camera and until we repair our current stock or replace it (which is challenging as we have spent our funding and currently winding the project up).   Our project funding closed and we are currently trying to maintain the project on cameras that were initially purchased two years ago.

However if we reflect on our goal from the past two weeks and answering the question of a deterrent we can state the following.

Brush tailed possums were clearly active in the area when the sound lure was operating from inside the DOC 200.  There was interest shown in the unit when it operated but the possums did not show signs of stress or a change in behaviour when the unit operated (such as stopping feeding or showing signs of aggression),   This behaviour was repeated over several nights, including what appeared to be the same animals return to the site repeatedly.   We can surmise the unit did not repel animals during this time.  There was limited food placed around the trap to see if the animals would feel safe enough to feed when the unit was operating.

Brush tailed possums were clearly active in the area where the sound lure was operating from inside the rat box.  We saw evidence of repeated visits to the site from a range of animals including animals clearly remaining on the site for an extended period of time.   There was evidence of some aggressive stance from the male possums who were seen, and some evidence of behaviour leaving the site from a female and a baby.  It is possible that this was the arrival of another animal (as the timing on the camera would suggest) or the unit operating.   If animals did leave the site they appeared to reappear later in the night, and then spend extended time at the location.     We saw evidence of interest shown in the lure and also the general trap area including the possums opening the box the sound lure was hidden in.

Changing the unit set up to switch to a removal phase involved taking the unit and placing the speaker at the rear of a Timms possum trap allowed us to trap a series of possums.   

Over two (now three) consecutive nights two possums were caught, a male on Friday night and a female on Saturday.   The male showed evidence of being clawed after being caught (which would be by another male as seen before) as fur was present around the trap.   The female was caught although the bait was missing from the Timms.   The third night saw the trap clearly activated, pulled from the ground and the bait removed, however the animal (which is almost certainly a possum) was able to escape from the trap.

This is showing us that the use of the Timms to increase the sound (as it echoes inside the bucket) making the noise louder is not deterring the animals from the site.   This is two consecutive captures a a third nearly clearly occurred over three consecutive nights.

It is very frustrating from our point of view that technical issues with the trail camera has prevented us from recording the interactions on the final phase of the trapping - while we would not have posted the footage here on this public blog for obvious reasons we would have had some more conclusive evidence to ask our short term focus question.   This would reinforce what the evidence from the last two years has strongly suggested to us about the viability of the unit and the potential affect that it has had.

I finally feel again compelled to remind everyone that this entire research and operation is being run on a part time basis by (primarily) two people operating in their 'spare' time.    This is not being conducted as a full time scientific investigation and I would suggest that these results are open to interpretation.

Timms Trap and Sound Lure Success

 

As noted previously we have started to experiment specifically with HD video and the sound lure to determine what specifically brush tailed possums might be reacting to with the sounds from the sound lure.

It has been suggested that the sound lure, while designed to attract pest animals to the site of traditional traps could be instead acting as a deterrent to cause animals to avoid the location.  For the previous week and a half we have been deploying a HD Camera to help us answer this question and using a basic analysis of the video to note the response of the animals when the unit activates.   During this time we have seen clear evidence of multiple visits to the site during the evening by a number of brush tailed possum.   There has been a mother and a baby and at least two distinct males returning to the site.   The unit has played repeatedly during this time and there have been up to eight activations in a night.   

Previously we have not focussed on attempting to trap any possums at this location - we have simply been trying to determine if we can answer the question and test or note their reaction to the sound being activated (as noted it is on a one minute delay).   The sound lure was previously located inside of the DOC200 (see picture) however we for the first time switched it to placing it inside a Timms possum trap.   We used an electric drill to make an opening in the back of the Timms, which the speaker was directly attached to unit - this had the effect of acting to amplify the sound considerably.

Rather frustratingly the trap work perfectly.   The frustrating part of this was that the camera that was monitoring the unit did not.  We made a capture at the location of a significant male (buck) possum.

There was additional evidence of a further possum attack - which we have repeatedly seen, where a dead possum has been attacked by a second possum as there was ripped fur around the capture, again this frustratingly was not recorded as the camera was not able to record it.   

Once again I feel compelled to point out that this is a single location where we are merely testing our equipment to get it to the point that we can be confident that it is operating as we intended.   We would like to make the technology and the experience that we have had available for wider use and the data and information likewise.

Back to the original question that we are currently focussed on answering.   We have had multiple activations at our site over an increasing period of time.  We have had some limited evidence of possums leaving the site when the unit activates, however in every case we can then see them return and we are having multiple visits during the course of an evening.  

Obviously we have to look at our capture rate with the Timms trap, but one would suggest the fact that a capture was made, and at least one additional possum was present (as evidenced by the fur from the first possum) and again this would suggest that the lure is not acting as a deterrent.

Moving forward we will continue to monitor the site and look at adjust the camera footage recording so that it operates successfully.  We are not going to simply upload hours of footage that we already have showing the lure/possum interactions as we have already done with some parts, however that is available on request.

Possum Activity and Interactions (Updated) June 2021

 

We are continue to monitor activity on a variety of local farm locations involving brush tailed possums, sound lures and interactions.

It is continuing to reinforce what we have been seeing recently over time and at a variety of locations - that the sound lures are proving effective at drawing possums to an area where we have been able to deploy Timms possums traps, which are now working effectively, with a number of successful catpures.

We are seeing that the springing of a trap is not proving to be a hinderance to additional possum activirty, if anything we are seeing heightened activity when there is a deceased animal in the trap, with numerous possum interactions with the dead animal.   

We believe that there is clear evidence that the lure, picture left, is drawing animals towards the areas of the lure, they are not frightened by the lure when in its vicinity (as evidence by the lure operating while they are present) and additional animals are being brought into the area once the first animal has been caught.   We have also recently seen the arrival of the New Zealand Hawk which has been feeding on possums that have been caught in the traps.   While this is not a focus for our investigation of sound lures it is proving some striking imagery.

Hawks in New Zealand are not considered a pest bird and while they are not a focus of our investigation we have seen then several times as part of our work - and them feeding potentially on trapped possums is safer for the animals than feeding on roadkill.

We have stated recently that we are going to be producing our final set of data for this project and essentially winding it down - we will be publishing our full results as we continue both this investigation and the stoat work that we have been looking at.

Brush Tailed Possum: Phase Two Start

These images and the resulting capture have occurred in the first days of our new phase of testing.  As part of this process at one of the data gathering locations the sound lure has been placed next to a Timms trap, inside a barn, where there has been possum activity noted with the possums entering the barn.   In this instance there was initial activity prior to these activations from a possum which entered the barn and investigated the set up, which occurred at 9:40pm-10:00pm, during this time the sound lure was activating repeatedly and the possum remained in the vicinity of the lure.    Another series of activations occurred at 1:47am.   This time the interactions between a brush tailed possum and the unit was more detailed and obvious, in the above picture the possum can be clearly seen sniffing the speaker, before inspecting the unit itself in the picture below.   

The unit continues to activate and the possum then circles around the set up, before interacting with and activating the Timms possum trap, in a text book capture.

The other incident that is relevant is that other creatures are already showing indications that the auido track playing is proving of interest to them.   While the current audio tracks in use are focussed on brush tailed possums in terms of output there have been instances here in the barn location of cats showing an interest in what is happening and investigating the sound.  This is also occurring as feral cats have been scenting the rat box and investigating the set up location (this audio has been featuring rat and rat related noises).

Left: The cat can be clearly seen entering the frame on the left of the picture in a stance that shows interest.

Further Modifications to Existing Brush Tailed Possum Traps

We are continuing to process our initial data which is now starting to show consistency.  On the first farm deploymeent site, which has been running for ninety days we are seeing extended possum interaction at the sound lure location, including possums interacting directly with the sound lure speaker itself.  We have traditional bait traps at this location, the possums are appearing to arrive at the site and show interest in the sound lure, while not interacting with the trap that is present.  At the non-sound lure location we are seeing an occassional possum in the area but not extended actvity.   It should also be noted again

In the next week or so we will be changing our set-up (sound lure) at this location considerably.   In the second farm deployment which has been running even more considerably in favour of the sound lure location (which as been as high as ten to twelve times more activations and eight times the number of possums) in a recent three day period we saw no activations in the non sound lure locatiom, however at the sound lure location we saw twelve possums, a rat and a feral cat - all of which showed interest or interacted with the sound lure.  As shown in the photo one possum went to the extent of knocking the solar panel/computer off the box and picked up the speaker in its teeth and appeared to bite it.

There is clear, sustained evidence that the sound lure is attracting possums and they are interacting directly with the source of the sound, which is in this case the speaker.

We believe that by modifying an existing mechanical trap it will act as a cone to increase the sound and also cause the Possum to interact directly with the trap and the speaker which can only be accessed by the possum triggering the mechanism that sets the trap from the front.  This is potentially a significant development in our research.   We do need to address the connections between the solar panels and the IP rated box which contains the speaker as we are seeing possums interacting with this part of the unit but we have been looking into and using some options which we are confident of resolving at this stage.

Updated Details of Possum Trap

Left: A Timms Possum Trap, modified with the speaker shown in the center position at the back.  The solar panel and unit can be placed behind the unit, the bar which is relased by the spring is placed before the speaker, so the possum must interact with the bar to be able to gain access to the speaker.

We have had evidence of Possums interacting around the trap but not entering the trap (however the same possums can clearly be clearly seen interacting directly with the speaker).    This change in our set up should do the following - the sound coming from the unit should be considerable raised by the shape of the trap, as it creates a significant echo.   

There is significant poor weather this week.   Once this weather is cleared we will be deploying the adapated Timms trap at all of our primary locations as we believe that we should see significant results with the modified set up.