We have all been trying to remove bird predators to the lowest possible levels – to some extent, in some areas we have succeeded.
Do we have evidence such as video or pictures that show the extent of the damage that various animals cause We have been using video cameras on various tracks around the Park that where we are trying to control bird predators and it is disappointing to find various animals that are too clever to engage with our traps. The last few possums are still walking past our traps, occasionally stopping to lick out the sweet treats that we leave on the inside walls of various traps – cunning enough to avoid tripping the traps. It took me two months to catch a possum that licked the walls of a possum master clean without hanging himself – but they always make a mistake at some stage. Rats are also very clever after they see their mate killed in a trap. Cats avoid traps and walk on past,
My particular interest currently, is the damage that possums do to a Kereru nest – is there any information about how Kereru nests are damaged by possums or rats?
It would be great to be able to share video clips of various bird predators going about their business – but I find it quite difficult to post more that pictures.
Cool topic @mindie! I haven’t seen a lot of kereru nests, but since they seem to be ‘camouflaged’ by their resemblance to a handful of twigs that coincidentally fell into the same tree fork, I imagine that any animal interaction (whether intentionally predatory or not) could do a lot of damage.
Hi Mindie
If you want to post a video probably the easiest way is to post it somewhere else first, like “you tube”, I don’t think you have a website. Then just post the link along with an explaination.
On your traps, I’m sure you will have already tried all sorts, and your situation of animals avoiding traps is fairly common. A few things would be to move them so that they appear different. Close them down for a while, Cam would say still use lure but have the trap unset. Try totally different lures.
There are bits and pieces on line about Possums/ship rats at kereru nest. I’m not really sure what you mean by damage to nest, predated eggs with shell remnants remaining or the nest damaged,
some of the good research was in the 90’s and not online, and I don’t know where it can be found. A friend of mine did ship rat Kereru research in Whirinaki 30 years ago as kereru numbers did not increase as much as expected with pest control, they used tracking tunnels in trees and the problem was aboreal ship rats
Hello Mindie. If you are not using AT220 auto traps I highly recommend these for possums and rats. They seem to kill a decent number of mice also. I have seen footage of a mustelid being caught in one so at least sometimes while going for a rat stuck in the trap it can nail them also. Ngā mihi nui kind regards Jan.
Hi Guys
Thanks for your thoughts – much appreciated. We have around 200 trap sites in a 100 acre reserve – most are checked every week. A hard to access area on one side has seven AT220s – they are not the silver bullet and at two years of age are causing a few problems. Two bunged up lure tube failures yesterday so an epic fail for the girls. Also one had shocked itself into pieces, so the pump needs replacing – another trip to remove it back home. We have just found a replacement kit on the Auto Trap web site for about $63 plus gst. – not bad to get all new parts.
One AT220 on a clean boundary track in the bush has a regular possum that climbs a natural ponga ramp – takes a look close to the danger zone, cleans up any extra lures on and around the ramp and departs. He has a variety of other traps down the track – possum master and timms – but is too cunning to engage.
On another boundary – I have a possum master, a sentinel and two flippimg timmys within 100m – a regular possum with a ride on joey tales a look inside the possum master, licks a variety of lure and sweet treats but stays safe even though she has her head inside.
Cameras are amazing tools – but can tell a depressing story about how cunning possums and rats can be – a change from meat lovers to peanut butter last week at a few sites tripped up a couple of rats – while a few others climbed all over the tree with the possum master. Also, a couple of Doc250 traps nearby – but rats wont go into them.
I had a couple of big Norway rats in my garden a few weeks back – they tunnelled under our plastic compost bin – Doc250, victor pro in a box, snap-e in an open coreflute tunnel and a snap-e in the compost bin – video camera watching – finally got one in the bin and one in the box victor pro – but they wont go near the Doc250.
I know that Cam says – shift things around – but not a simple matter when there is a camera involved.
Slightly off topic – but my frustration with AT220s continues to grow – we checked another trap yesterday and found that after a month of operation there were just three activations and no lure in the cup. Operating the pump produced a few bubbles at the cup – further inspection found the lure tube was cracked just outside the pump – and I didn’t have a spare tube with me. Four tubes have now been found to have broken near the first right angle joint.
We recovered the trap today with the broken pump base. The screws had come loose and torn the base to pieces.
My attempt to post a video above was a failure – but if you click on the words “strong text” – you will see the careful possum.
My frustration with the AT220s is different. I look after four of them, close to my house, and regularly check the lure is pumping properly. But recently I’ve caught three birds (silvereyes). Monitoring a trap with a camera revealed that a flock of silvereyes would regularly descend on the AT220 and remove all the lure from the tray in short order. Of course they tend not to get caught as the traps are designed not to fire during daylight hours. But some of the silvereyes in my part of New Zealand must be early to rise and late to bed.
I now inspect the tray, before checking the pump, and it’s nearly always completely empty. Which probably explains why my traps have a rather poor catch record.