Pheromone Lures in Pest Traps

Research is taking place at Victoria University into using pheromone based lures in a revolutionary NZ designed range of self-resetting rat and possum traps.

Rats and possum were introduced to New Zealand and are now leading pest species. They carry significant human and domestic animal diseases, like Salmonella, Leptospirosus and bovine Tuberculosis and so pose a large risk to New Zealand’s food production and export industry.

Currently, the most effective means of controlling rats and possum is via widespread and repeated use of poison. As communities around the world demand ever higher standards of “clean, green” food production, it becomes increasingly important to find new ways of controlling rats and possum or risk a decline in market and market value for our produce. Applying poison is also inefficient. Not only is rat and possum control expensive, poisoning cannot achieve zero pest densities because some animals are bait or trap shy and reinfestation is rapid. More efficient and market-acceptable ways of controlling rats and possums are required.

Recent work with mice indicates that proteins in urine function as sexual attractants that might be developed as a pheromone lure. Sexual attractants are more likely to achieve zero pest densities and make traps more efficient because they target reproductively active animals in search of mates. Early investigations have identified the same proteins in rats. A protein attractant has several advantages for industry over other more volatile and short-lived attractants, including its stability and longevity.

This research is about searching for similar protein-based sexual attractants in possum and their synthesis for testing as pheromone lures to both rats and possum.

The objective is to achieve proof-of-concept towards product development and commercialisation. A pheromone lure for rats and possum would not only achieve large efficiencies in food production and processing, but augment a burgeoning export industry in novel pest-control technologies that has been achieved by several New Zealand businesses.

Goodnature are the industry-based partners for this research project. The company is based in Wellington and designs and manufactures automatic traps that humanely kill pests. The traps then reset themselves. The company manufactures and designs these humane and toxin free traps. They’re powered by compressed gas and are endorsed by DOC and (MAF) MPI. The company grew out of a group of industrial design students who came up with a system for resetting possum traps after one of them spent some time resetting conventional possum traps as a part time job.

Possum trappers say however flash the trap, it has to be able lure the pest in. Traditional food based lures apparently won’t get you all the pests – there’ll always be one or two who become bait shy.

The folk at Goodnature say that a pheromone based lure would be an ideal solution.

The research into lures is being supported by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment.