We recently bought a DOC AI Cam from Cacophany / 2040. You can read about this camera here: https://www.2040.co.nz/collections/thermal-camera-for-predators/products/doc-ai-cam-thermal-camera-with-machine-vision
We ran the camera for a week at a time at seven different locations in Rangitane Reserve. We placed a ZIP Motolure in the field of view, this dispensed a couple of drops of mayo per day to attract pests, if present.
Here's a summary of the results - June 2024:
- Camera on dusk till dawn
- Station visits are over a seven day period
| Station Number | Rats Visits | Mice Visits | Possums Visits | Kiwi Visits | Rat minutes | Mice minutes | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Station 1 | 1 | 58 | - | 11 | 14 | 252 | ||||
| Station 2 | 8 | 8 | - | 1 | 31 | 17 | ||||
| Station 3 | - | 39 | - | 2 | - | 92 | ||||
| Station 4 | - | 5 | - | - | 0 | |||||
| Station 5 | - | 21 | - | 1 | - | 70 | ||||
| Station 6 | 33 | 7 | - | 1 | 254 | 33 | ||||
| Station 7 | 3 | 18 | - | - | 4 | 67 | ||||
| Totals | 45 | 156 | 0 | 16 | 303 | 553 | ||||
| Total Monitoring nights | 49 | |||||||||
| Overall averages | 0.9 | 3.2 | 0 | 0.3 | 303 | 553 | ||||
The files are uploaded to the Cacophany/2040 Servers and AI identifies the pest and number of vists, showing the interface below for each nights data. The figure in the red circle is the number of videos.
2022 Monitoring
| Rangitane Reserve pest monitoring | Feb 2018 | Dec 2022 | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wax tag possums (20 tags) | 3 (15%) | 0 | |||
| Wax tags rodents (20 tags) | 5 (25%) | 3 (15%) | |||
| Tracking cards and tunnels - rats | 0 | ||||
| Tracking cards and tunnels - mice | 0 | ||||
We began trapping Rangitane Reserve in February 2018, we've removed 1,335 pests since then.
Wax tag monitoring was carried out prior to commencing trapping in 2018, from 20 tags, 3 were chewed by possums (15%) and five from rats (25%).
In 2022 we set up a line of 10 tracking tunnels at 50m intervals for monitoring rodents. The pre inked cards were baited with peanut butter and inserted into the tunnel. These were left out for 24 hours. No rats or mice were detected. A line of 20 wax tags were left out for a week they returned no possum and 3 rats (15%).
