BoomBox

BoomBox attaches to a camera trap to create an Automated Behavioural Response (ABR) system for wildlife research, conservation and non-lethal deterrence.

BoomBox Project Website Launching Soon!

An ABR system is a remote playback system that records and captures animal responses to specific audio cues. It combines the benefits of camera trapping, which includes continuous monitoring in remote locations, lack of human observers and large data volume, with the power of experimental manipulations which includes controlled perturbations for strong mechanistic inference. Building on this research, as a non-lethal deterrent, BoomBox allows for the creation of a ‘landscape of fear’ within designated areas to deter wildlife.

Applications

ABRs are designed to study free-ranging species responses to external cues, which may include the presence of predators/prey, competitors, or human ‘super predators’. In addition, they can be used to study wildlife responses to anthropogenic disturbances, explore species interactions and coexistence, understand reactions to conspecifics, prey, novel stimuli, or human activity and as non-lethal deterrents.

BoomBoxes can be deployed in areas of special interest, such as at waterholes or carcasses, to understand interactions at limiting resources; they can also be paired with other methods, such as camera trap surveys, weather stations, or biologgers, to contextualize how the environment or individual condition modulates behavioral decision-making, For some purposes, it may not matter why animals are in front of the camera, and as such, these devices could be baited or otherwise positioned in ways to maximize detection.

BoomBoxes can also complement or combine with other deterrent approaches, for example, deterring invasive species from breeding grounds of endangered species, or deterring wild boar, pigs, elk and elephants from raiding crops.

Deployment Ideas

Predator – Prey Interactions

ABR systems can help understand predator-prey interactions, predator responses to prey and predator/prey responses to invasive predators/ prey. ABR systems can help study anti-predator responses to present, historically present and reintroduced predators, and can be deployed along underlying gradients of predation risk, such as areas of high, medium, and low predator use/occupancy and across environmental features that prey associate with risk and safety. Similar experimental designs could be used to test predator responses to prey, predator / prey responses to invasive predators / prey.

Intraguide Interactions

ABRs can assess the mechanisms of competition and coexistence within trophic guilds and evaluate how loss or addition of keystone species affects intraguild interactions. ABRs could be placed at high-value resource units, such as carcasses, to establish dominant/subordinate status among competitors.

Human Activity

ABRs’ can be used to assess how species respond, negatively or positively, to human activity. They can positioned across gradients of human disturbance (e.g., in national parks, outside park boundaries, in human settlements, or in the same area during hunting and non-hunting seasons) to test whether human ‘super predators’ are attractive to prey due to mechanisms such as the ‘refuge effect’ (i.e., scaring away predators that would otherwise consume prey). ABR systems may be used to evaluate questions that lie further in the realm of animal behavior. For example, Joyce Poole et al. have proposed using ABRs programmed with local languages and Western languages to see whether elephants can discern human dialects, as local people may pose more of a threat due to poaching than non-threatening international tourists.

Human WildLife Conflict, Non-lethal Deterrent

ABR systems can also be employed as an animal deterrent to mitigate human-wildlife conflict. For example using predator and/or human activity audio to elicit flee responses and/or avoidance behaviours of places. BoomBox Disco combines audio and light to flash lights and play sounds when triggered, with the goal of preventing crop-raiding elk, elephants and wild boar from designated areas. Additional modalities including smell and motion are in development.

Animal Intelligence

ABRs could also be employed to test animal responses to novel cues (neophobia/neophilia) and thereby test theories regarding the evolution of animal intelligence (e.g., Borrego 2020) or problem-solving abilities.

Videos

Don’t forget to turn on the audio

Features

Compatible with most off-the-shelf camera traps.
Audio playback is triggered directly from the camera trap’s PIR sensor
Audio plays within ~3 milliseconds of camera being triggered
Speakers output approximately 80 DB @ 1 metre (adjustable)
1 – 1.5 months battery life (depends on trigger frequency, volume and other factors)
Comes with a rugged IP65 rated enclosure
Ability to set delay before audio plays
Sequential or random audio playback order
Accepts multiple and time-based playlists. For example, separate daytime and night time playlists
Ability to play audio at specific times. For example 5 past the hour, every hour
Ability to add on additional modalities, such as LEDS.

Enquiries

To enquire about a deployment application and/or to purchase BoomBox, please contact us using the form below.

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