Tahi Rua Toru Tech Competition - National Finalists

At the end of last week we received notification that we had received a wildcard entry into the Tahi Rua Toru (123 Tech) National Finals.  This is a significant achievement for our studnets who are a team of Year 5/Six Students who have been selected as national finalists in a Y5-8 Competition.   We are thrilled with this recognition of the students and the hard work that they have been making throughout the year on their project.   They have the opportunity to present via Zoom to a panel of experts on their project this week and results will be announced next week.

We have finalised our speakers for the unit and made futher developments at looking at powering of the units.    We also have an issue to address that has been evident from recent photographs that have been recorded on our trail cameras - that is we can clearly see that Brush Tailed Possums are targetting the units and interacting with them.    Clearly in the series of photos that are shown on the left the brush tailed possum can be seen ignoring the traps that are baited with peanut butter and fruit (apple) and instead interacts directly with the sound lure.  This is not an isolated incident - at the same location there is an almost identical series of interactions and images a week later from a second possum, that spends time at the location and interacts specificall with the lure.   

We are currently still contemplating out options but one certain possibility is placing the sound lure in conjunction with another form of trap, such as a live capture trap, which the possum would have to enter the cage to interact with the sound lure and trigger a footplate.     

In the latest series of images and data gathering from our location we have again a contrast between the sound lure location and the non- sould lure location.    During the past seven days we have had a single activation at the non sound lure site.  At the sound lure site there has been in comparison some significant activity - twenty one activations with six possums at the site.   

Furthermore two of the possums have clearly directly been in contact with the sound lure, pulling at the wires and knocking the solar panel off its placement location - which has raised a question as to how long the unit has been activating as a result.    

These results continue to be promising at this location - we have had variations of the unit in place since early September and there is a clear pattern developing.  

At the non sound lure location we now have a cumulative total of thirty pest identifcations and 121 acivations.  As a ratio to activations/deployment of 0.49 activations per day of pest animals and 0.50 over the timeframe (essentially we expect at this site to have an activation and a pest every second day on average [over sixty days at present].

At the sound lure location we have a sixty one pest identifications and 204 activations.  As a ratio to activations/deployment of 3.13 activations per day of pest animals have been visible 0.93 times a day.

However it needs to be noted that we have changed the deployment several times since we started - including putting a sound lure externally on the trap box to increase the volume.  When that is considered the activations/deployment increases to 3.56 activations per day and 1.35 times a day. 

We continue to remind oursleves that while these figures are extremely pleasing they are extremely early in our research and data collection.

Possum Activation: Possum Flying

 

This activation involves a little explanation.   From a recent set of data collected on a local farm with the Sound Lure came this image.

It is a brush tailed possum literally flying through the air.   It has received a fright, quite possibly from the Sound Lure itself causing it to fall from the tree.  At this point the camera has activated catching the image of a possum.

Happy Birthday Sound Lure Prototype!

Today marks a special milestone, if a little unusual.  We have a unit celebrating its birthday.   Normally such things would a little issue, but this is relatively significant.  

Our remaining test unit (pictured) has now been operating for a calendar year.   It has done so with the original solar panel (pictured) and the original speaker (which were purchased from Ali-Express for $12.00 NZ and $2.00 respectively.   The unit itself, contained within the IP rated box, connected via bolts has remained working throughout this time and continues to work.    The speaker is showing some sign of wear and tear but it is cardboard based and it has been exposed to the elements, including being deployed in New Zealand for the Winter.     These conditions have included heavy rainfall and the unit has continued to operate either placed inside exisitng trap devices (such as a DOC 200 or DOC 250) or inside a rat tunnel box.  It has also at times been placed directly on top of various traps and locations which has exposed it directly to the elements.

We also have deployed a similar unit to the South Island where it was able to operate in temperatures below freezing (as indicated by the temperature reading from the trail cameras operating in conjunction with it.   We also have had two early versions of the unit at the New Plymouth Airport.   These have been in place since June and are still continuing to operate as expected, despite featuring the original solar panelling (which we have effectively doubled in size since we started).   The final piece of the puzzle being the speakers, which we have just accessed today. 

In summation we believe based on the deployments that have already occurred that we have a unit that is able to operated in external conditions which is reliable, can operate independently and can do so for at least a calendar year (although of course in this case, this is a signpost rather than an end game).

TRC - Environmental Award: Video

Early Promising Results: Curious Minds Possum Project

We have completed some early results in two locations on our Curious Minds Possum Project.   The results to start with, appear to be very positive.   This is with the new sound profile that is being used - our sound lures are remaining during the day and activating at night when the solar panel detects a lowering of the light level.

When this occurs the computer controlling the device starts to operate with the unit emitting a variety of possum sounds which are played at one minute interval.   We have Browning Trail Cameras located to record the interactions with animals at both the locations with and without the sound lures.   This is providing invaluable data as to what is happening at these locations, as instead of the traps providing 'capture' or kill data we can assess the importance or value of the sound lures (or otherwise).    

At our first farm deployment in September.    While the non-sound lure site has remained constant and included 17 pest animals during the course of a month.   On the sound lure site the rat version of the soundlure saw numerous levels of rat activity (and five removals).  There were numerous possum activations, although these tended to be singular and in passing.    Moving the sound lure onto the top of the box resulted in eight Possum activiations during a week.   Following this we removed the sound lure from the locations but kept the cameras in place to monitor activty - this resulted in significant reduced possum activity.   Instead of seeing eight possums in a week in the following two weeks four possums were sited.  Basic mathematics expected us to see four possums and it was half that - there was also a significant relative number of change in activations.   While this is a pleasing indication it should be acknowledge that this is a small sample size and we need to continue to deploy at this location and monitor the results of what we are going to be able to record.

At the second location on another local farm which has just started results have already been significant between the sound lure and non sound lure location.   At the non sound lure site during a two week period there were thirty eight activations from seven possum activations.   At the sound lure site on the same farm there have been thirty three possums recorded during a four day time frame and a hundred activations.   Again these results need to be viewed in the context of the length of time that the data is being gathered this is a small sample of a long term project to track these results.   We will continue to publish and update these results as they are collected.

TRC Taranaki Regional Council Environmental Award 2020

Last night at a special awards ceremony we were very proud and excited to be presented with an award from the Taranaki Regional Council for Educational Innovation for our sound lure project.   We were able to take a small group of students to this event to collect the award and we are extremely greatful for the nomination from Project Mounga and the TRC for the award.

A link to to details of the award is located here.

We also wanted to acknowledge the sponsors for this award, Contact Energy as we will be using the funds from this award to create more sound lures for deployment.

Solving the Mystery of Missing Eggs

As part of our ongoing project working on sound lures we are also looking at opportunities to use the technology involved in the project to engage with the students of our community and our community.  In this instance on a local farm where we have started the final possum trial and deployment the farmer had another issue, the dissapearance of duck eggs belonging to some farm animals.    While we were reconfiguring the possum sound lure we took the opportunity to use the cameras for tracking at the sound lure locations to solve the 'mystery' of the missing eggs.    We also went through a process of identifying with the students what could be going on, what animals could be involved etc.   

The ducks themselves were not attacked by the animals that were responsible for breaking of the eggs.  Whatever it was, was leaving the ducks alone and targetting their eggs.   The farmer placed some additional chicken eggs in the location where the ducks eggs 

The images from the camera were able to identify two possible explanations.   The first is shown in the night pictures from the area.  A hedgehog can clearly be seen operating in the area.   There is the possibility that it was responsible for the initial damage to the eggs followed by the hawk feasting on them.

The second stunning set of images catches the hawk that can be seen breaking the eggs including picking the eggs up in its beak and walking around.   If this was the case it maybe that the hedgehog was incidental to the hawk which committed its act without any encouragement from the hedgehog.

Clearly the date and timestamp of the trail camera shows that this occurred during the morning which the farmer was unaware of.   In this instance we have not recorded any hawk activity in the prior year of experimenting with the sound lures - and in this instance the sound lures were not involved in the process.  

However it was a fantastic opportunity to involve students in the learning process.   To further our discussion about predators (for instance we had almost decided to discount stoats on the basis that whatever was taking the eggs was not attacking the ducks themselves which is something that we could expect to see if a stoat was responsible.   

We would once again like to thank the local farmers who are assisting with our process and allowing our students to have such fantastic learning experiences.