Tauranga man helps invent predator alert

Scott Sambell outside the predator proof fence at Glenfern Sanctuary, after an alert informed him a rodent had been caught. Photo/Supplied

A Tauranga man has helped develop a wifi-driven predator alert which will save conservationists precious time and resources.

Scott Sambell helped develop a predator alert system which uses a particular frequency (868MHz) on a platform called LoRaWAN, or Long Range Wide Area Network, to check if a predator trap was opened or closed.

"That may seem like a fairly trivial thing to someone unfamiliar with our industry, but for someone like myself who has allocated ten of thousands of dollars to checking if traps are open or closed, this is what is commonly referred to as a game changer," he told the Bay of Plenty Times from Great Barrier Island.

"I am only responsible for about 765 traps and if you were to extrapolate that to the total number of traps across the country, then you can see why this thing would be useful.

"If you know a trap is closed you can go and reset it so you can catch the next pest faster.

"If a trap has closed in an area where you thought you didn't have a pest, you know - instantly - that you have a problem in your defences."

Rather than checking traps, resources could be put into other areas like planting trees, he said.

The system was developed on Great Barrier Island by Mr Sambell and two other locals, Gian Badraun, who developed the first system about three years ago, and Matt Way who was developing the system further.

There were four trial sites with the trap in operation including Glenfern Sanctuary, Okiwi Basin and Tryphena on the Great Barrier Island and Paekakariki on the Kapiti coast.

Mr Sambell works between Tauranga and Great Barrier Island.