Perhaps every gardener to attempt to grow a tomato, lettuce, or bean has had to contend with animals trying to enjoy the food before the gardener themselves can, whether it’s a groundhog, rabbit, mouse, crow, or even iguana. There are numerous ways to discourage these mischievous animals from foraging the garden beds including traps, but these devices have their downsides as well. False alarms can be a problem as well as trapping animals that will be overly aggravated to be inside the trap (like skunks) and while the latter problem can’t easily be solved by technology, the former can with the help of Meshtastic.
[Norman Jester]’s problem was an errant possum, but these nocturnal animals generally come out while humans are asleep, and other nighttime animals like rats can activate the trap and then escape. To help with this, a Meshtastic node was added to the San Diego mesh using a 3.5mm audio jack as a detector. When the trap is activated, the closing door yanks a plug out of the jack, alerting the node that the trap has been closed. If it’s a false alarm the trap can be easily and quickly reset, and if a possum has found its way in then it can be transported to a more suitable home the next day.
It’s worth noting that American possums (distinct from the Australian animals of the same name) are an often-misunderstood animal that generally do more good than harm. They help to control Lyme disease, eat a lot of waste that other animals won’t, don’t spread rabies, and don’t cause nearly as much disruption to human life as other animals like feral cats or raccoons. But if one is upsetting a garden or another type of animal is causing a disturbance, this Meshtastic solution does help solve some of the problems with live traps. For smaller animals, though, take a look at this Arudino-powered trap instead.
Thanks to [Dadsrcworkbench] for the tip!
Press mute before playing video.
Actually, if you’re looking for technical detail, don’t press play. The whole video seems to be possum, por…, well, possum footage and not really hackaday-worthy details on code, effective radio range, etc.
Thanks for the heads up. I like seeing videos of cute animals almost as much as like seeing LoRa and radio stuff
Surely, I cannot be the only one right :D
I too love opossums, particularly how they grasp their food as they eat it.
That video is forthcoming.
I used a zwave magnetic door/window sensor on a live rat trap by sticking the magnet to the door and placing the sensor on top of the cage. The sensor is closed when the trap door is open.
It worked great except that my notification system was flawed so the critter didn’t make it out alive.
My penance was setting up OAuth for use with the GMail HA integration as I attend to my email more diligently than phone app notifications.
Now all I need is a good way to find how these critters fit into the attic and block them.
That’s a good way to do the trap sensing. Too bad for the critter.
Hey that’s my possum trap! Thanks for noticing it. I’ll be posting a video of the technical details soon. The video was not made to be a huge tech discussion initially but with the recent Meshtastic presentation I did for SANDRA that’s on my YouTube, many have seen the possum trap video and are asking for a how-to. So in the spirit of DIY and Hackaday etc, I will put together that video and post it. Again thanks for noticing my possum relocation trap for Meshtastic. The animals are cool and I relocated them to a much safer place for them. I kinda miss them even though they were destroying my gardens and avacado trees.
I dunno. possums eat all the bugs and stuff. in the spectrum of backyard pests they aren’t bad. sure ugly tho. unlike some others, humane relocation seems a decent middle ground.
They are quite capable of quickly killing an adult chicken. I have literally ripped a decapitated pet chicken from one when the coop door opened early the day after time changed. My RTC was outdated and I didn’t know it but heard the chaos and went to investigate. They are cute animals. They’re pretty docile if raised from babies.
If you’re saying that they help prevent Lyme disease by eating ticks, the tick eating claim has been widely debunked. The original study was done very poorly and there has been almost zero instances of ticks in their stomachs in other research.
I’m not sure what their share of the kill is, but I read that between them, skunks, and racoons, they account for something like 70% of the deaths of wild turkey eggs and young birds. No, they don’t do much harm to humans, but they can have a really big impact on other wildlife.