Kia ora,

 It continues to be a busy time for The Cacophony Project and 2040. We've helped Shakespear Park find a stoat and Otago Regional Council find a wallaby, continued to develop our trap, spoken at various events around the country, and produced more material showcasing our technology.

Trap testing and development

Catching lots of predators

The team at The Cacophony Project continue to test and develop the trap. With 10 traps they're now catching lots of possums, hedgehogs and feral cats. Read more about this in our latest update, including:

• a video compilation of catches
• the new operating manual for the trap

Please contact us if you are interested in renting a trap.

Detecting stoats and wallabies

Thermal camera does the job

Check out the summary of how our thermal camera was able to find an elusive stoat at Shakespear Park. This story was also covered  by Stuff. The challenge now is to try to catch it and identify and catch any others in the park. This is also a great example of renting a camera before committing to buy. 

Our thermal camera also captured the first footage of a wallaby crossing the Aviemore dam. This could be an important defence in helping to control the spread of wallabies around Aotearoa. 

The team at The Cacophony Project continue improving the thermal camera. Upcoming releases that we are testing include:

• improved tracking to reduce the number of false positives
• integration with TrapNZ
• Real time email alerts when a certain predator is detected
• Improved visit analysis
• Alerts when the camera battery needs replacing

Telling our story

We have been updating various groups around the country about the latest and greatest from the Cacophony Project, including:

• The Auckland City Council  - this was a webinar that will be published shortly
• Aotea/Great Barrier Island Pestival. Read our write up of this event.
• The Cashmere Rotary Club
• The Next Foundation

We are also scheduled to talk to a couple of schools in Ōtautahi in the coming weeks. Please contact us if you would like us to come and talk to your group

Viewing predators fast and easy

Thermal camera portal demonstration.

We have released the video below showing what it is like to retrieve videos from our thermal camera and review them. With everything being online it makes data management a breeze. The automatic tagging and visit analysis makes more efficient use of your valuable time. This video should give you a feel for how easy this is.