I have a auto trap and love it, when i install it in a certain area i always get at least 5 possums a week, would have been more but a huge possum got its jaw stuck on the support wire and was just hanging out for a day or two.
My question is, do you leave the trap in the sweer spot untill there are no more possums being caught and for how long do you wair?
I have been having dissagrements with my boss as he had demanded i put it by the housewater pump to protect it from damaged ( the sockets for the pumo got smashed up and it cost a lot to fix)
I protested as i was still catching possums in the sweet spot but did as asked. Its been two weeks and nothing has been caught. I want to move it back and hes just being difficult. Its barely 1km away from where it is now. Last time i put it in the sweet spot i got 12 possums over a couple of weeks.
Doesnt it make sense to leave it where its doing the best job?
@trudds, I’d agree with you that if you’ve found a possum highway then you should keep trapping there - one of the key messages on a recent trapping course I attended was to put your traps where the animals are.
If you’ve got a few possible trap spots that you’re considering and want to compare them, you could make some chewcards and see where the most active spots are - all you need is some corflute (<$10 at the hardware store) and some smooth peanut butter, plus the nails to mount the cards. Putting out a line of monitoring cards regularly will also help you to see overall trends in your trapping area, and should let you know if you’ve got any trap-shy animals around that aren’t interacting with your trap. You might also start to pick up specific pathways where possums are migrating in from outside your control area, and be able to target those spots with traps.
Perhaps your boss might want to buy a second trap to install by the pump? If there isn’t usually much activity there, a less expensive non-auto trap might provide enough protection against random possums passing by and chewing on expensive electrics, especially if the trap is near enough to a house to be checked frequently if possum activity suddenly picks up. Then you can move your auto-trap around to target the areas where you’ve detected a lot of possum activity, which gets the most benefit out of the auto-reset feature.
Thats great advise thank you. We are on a drystock farm and the company gave us the trap to have near the water catchment area. I do check atleast every 2nd day and in the new spot i dont get any possums. I really like the chew cards suggeation and it would help convince the boss that smcerating areas a more active than others. Thanks heaps