Researchers have happened upon a clever new way to fool a notorious
kiwi-killing predator - by using its own sense of smell against it.
Experiments
by Auckland University and Landcare Research have revealed that stoats,
the major killer of young kiwi chicks in the wild, are attracted to the
smell of their two biggest enemies, cats and ferrets, raising the
possibility of using their scent as a lure for traps.
It was a
finding that surprised university doctoral student Patrick Garvey, who
was expecting the stoats to be scared away by the smell of the larger
predators, instead of being drawn to them.
This was because an earlier study he led had found captive wild stoats to be scared when cats or ferrets were near.
In the new study, food was placed in two locations where the
scent of cats or ferrets was absent, and also in another area where
scent was present.
Garvey found that in the area that smelled of predators, the food was actually eaten faster.
Despite
the baffling finding, he felt the research represented an untapped area
of predator control, effectively using mammals' tendencies to hunt by
smell against them.
The ability of stoats and many other mammals
to "eavesdrop" on the olfactory communication system of larger predators
could be the beginning of the search to develop odour-based lures in
pest trapping operations, he said.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11684713
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