Long-term automated monitoring of the distribution of small carnivores

Abstract

A new automated monitoring device for small carnivores, the Scentinel®, is a ‘smart’ tracking tunnel. It records time, date, weight and a digital photograph of every animal visiting it, and stores the data to be downloaded on command. This paper describes a field trial aiming, first, to verify the Scentinel’s species identifications against those given by footprint tracking papers, and then to compare the efficacy of routine monitoring with the Scentinel against standard tunnel tracking methods. In February–April 2005 we identified to species 98% of 1559 visiting animals, mainly hedgehogs (Erinaceus europaeus), ferrets (Mustela furo), cats (Felis catus) and rats (Rattus rattus and R. norvegicus) in 1718 Scentinel-nights. In May–June 2005 we set up three monitoring lines 1 km apart, each with 10 tracking tunnels and two Scentinels. We recorded 656 visits by ship rats (Rattus rattus), 88% of them on only one of the three lines, in 198 Scentinel-nights (over 5 weeks). The 30 footprint tracking tunnels set intermittently (360 trap-nights) recorded high (70–100%) tracking rates on all lines. The presence of a stoat (Mustela erminea) was detected by both methods, but earlier by Scentinels than by tracking tunnels. These results confirm that it is possible to use automated devices to record detailed monitoring data on small carnivores in remote areas over long periods, unaffected by interference or bait loss from common non-target species.

Dying to be clean: pen trials of novel cat and fox control devices

“…Read (2010) also demonstrated the potential to deliver poison to feral cats through compulsive grooming, which circum vents their frequent aversion to consuming baits and other challenges of bait delivery of toxins including palatability and bait degradation issues. Avoiding a food-based deliv ery also improves target specificity by reducing significant non-target uptake (Algar et al 2007;Moseby et al 2011), a key requirement of acceptable pest animal control tech niques (Sanders and Maloney 2002;King et al 2007). A novel automated device that sprays poison onto the coat of an animal of a specific size or shape, hereby coined "grooming trap," will restrict exposure of most non-target species to toxins.…”

Continuous monitoring of predator control operations at landscape scale

“…The weighbridge is designed to ignore non‐target animals under a specified weight; to prevent false alerts caused by wind, rain or debris; and to enable the Scentinel to respond differently to species of different size, and then automatically reset itself. We undertook extensive trials to verify the species identifications and weight data (King et al . 2007), and to test alternative bait formulations on wild animals (King et al .…”

“…A new automated monitor for small mammals, the Scentinel (Technology Transfer Ltd, Wellington, New Zealand, http://www.scentinel.co.nz) (King et al . 2007) has been designed to address the problem of monitoring landscape‐scale predator‐control programs.…”

“…Hence, an array of Scentinels can be used to conduct an informative and labour‐saving equivalent of a standard survey using conventional traps or tracking tunnels (King & Edgar 1977). Labour costs are typically a very large proportion of the total budget of conventional field operations, so the greater capital cost of setting up an array of remote monitors can be retrieved very rapidly (King et al . 2007).…”

“…Because the Ferret is common on farmland, which is much easier to access than an equivalent area of native forest, it is a useful model species on which to test the potential for more efficient and informative large‐scale monitoring by the Scentinel. We took the opportunity to conduct such a test alongside a routine Ferret control operation already scheduled for the trapping season of autumn 2005 (King et al . 2007).…”