![\"Rod](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/70c3c24590f5d69b1aff80d5e9c4fbffc589e82c.jpeg\")
<\/p>\nOnce a cat is trapped, the system sends an alert to the mobile of a registered pest control worker, who can then humanely destroy the animal \u2013 removing the risk of animals being trapped and distressed for long periods of time.<\/p>\n
On French Island in Victoria\u2019s Western Port, authorities have been engaged in a multi-year game of cat and mouse to try to catch the last of the estimated 20 to 30 feral cats on the island.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Rod Brindley (left) and James Smith inspecting a smart trap at French Island.Credit: Jason South<\/p>\n
Timberscope feral animal management co-director Rod Brindley said the more than 350 traditional traps on the island had caught thousands of cats.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re wandering further now, you know,\u201d he said. \u201cThe last one\u2019s going to be the hardest one to get; that\u2019s for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n
Traditional traps are a blunt instrument. Workers spend hours every day setting them, checking them, and releasing the bandicoots, potoroos and other native wildlife inadvertently caught in the war on cats.<\/p>\n
On the day this masthead visits, a determined echidna has been caught in a caged trap, and shows no willingness to leave before it is pried out into reluctant freedom.<\/p>\n
![\"Smart](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/4c5fe9c557bf7b21200e7275df9dc58d6b895a4d.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
Smart traps have been installed at locations across Australia by Bush Heritage. The initiative is a game changer for the reduction of feral cats.Credit: Jason South<\/p>\n
Current versions of camera-enabled smart traps<\/a> are labour-intensive, and require the manual sorting of thousands of images. With AI technology, target species can be identified almost instantly.<\/p>\n With the assistance of a $1.7 million federal government grant, Bush Heritage Australia \u2013 in partnership with tech company eVorta and Timberscope \u2013 has launched a year-long trial to develop smart traps for cats.<\/p>\n The technology has been trialled in seven locations with disparate habitats and challenges: in the Tiwi Islands, Christmas Island, French Island, Victoria\u2019s Alpine regions, Bush Heritage\u2019s own Naree Reserve<\/a> in NSW, Yourka Reserve<\/a> in Queensland, and Pullen Pullen<\/a> Reserve on Maiawali Country in Queensland.<\/p>\n Bush Heritage Australia senior ecologist Dr James Smith, who is leading the program, said following the success of the trial, about 100 smart traps would be rolled out nationally within the next 12 months.<\/p>\n \u201cMeasuring things in the environment is really hard to do because people\u2019s time is limited, so with a camera that can sit there all year and record all day and all night, you\u2019ll have a much better handle on what\u2019s there,\u201d Smith said.<\/p>\n Threatened species commissioner Dr Fiona Fraser said more than 2200 plants and animals in Australia were threatened with extinction, with habitat loss, climate change and invasive species such as cats the biggest contributing factors.<\/p>\n \u201cCats have already led to the extinction, or are very closely associated with the extinction, of over 20 Australian mammal species, and as we speak, they continue to apply significant pressure to 200 Australian animal species which are already threatened with extinction,\u201d Fraser said.<\/p>\n She said islands such as Fraser Island were invaluable tools in the fight against extinctions because once invasive species like foxes and cats were eradicated, native populations could flourish.<\/p>\n Loading<\/p>\n \u201cIf we are to protect our native animals from feral cats, we need to throw the kitchen sink at them, we need to have all the right rules and regulations and tools and technologies in place, because cats are highly adapted to the Australian landscape now. They\u2019re super-smart predators, and our native fauna have not evolved to be able to cope with that predation threat.\u201d<\/p>\n Sue Jackman, Melbourne Water executive general manager of service delivery, said her organisation and Parks Victoria were investigating whether Felixers could be a suitable option for the island, and any use of the technology would have to be approved by Agriculture Victoria.<\/p>\n Felixers use four sensors and an artificial intelligence camera to identify cats and foxes from non-target wildlife and humans, before spraying them with a dose of toxic gel called 1080.<\/p>\n But the use of 1080 has been contentious because animals poisoned with the substance die slowly, and there is a risk of secondary poisoning to dogs and some birds that eat the carcasses of animals poisoned with 1080.<\/p>\n Fraser said all available technologies should be deployed on French Island.<\/p>\n \u201cThe last two or three cats that remain from an eradication project are often the smartest, the wiliest, and they\u2019re also used to the other tools and technologies which have been used to remove previous cats,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd so we need to have all the different options available to get rid of those last two or three cats.\u201d<\/p>\n Platform engineer and eVorta founder Hamesh Shah, who developed the technology, said it could identify target species in less than one second, freeing up small organisations\u2019 resources.<\/p>\n \u201cIn some of our bigger projects, you would need 10 or 15 people to go through all those images to get the answers as quickly as we do,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Once a cat is trapped, the system sends an alert to the mobile of a registered pest control…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":205183,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[256,254,255,64,63,105],"class_list":{"0":"post-205182","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-artificialintelligence","11":"tag-au","12":"tag-australia","13":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205182","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=205182"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205182\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/205183"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=205182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=205182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=205182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}