OYSTER sauce for feral cats and foxes, honey for antechinus and dunnarts and truffle oil for bandicoots and potoroos.
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Those were some of the ingredients that comprised “The Napthine Blend” batch of animal baits that member for South-West Coast Denis Napthine has helped concoct.
The baits attract animals to three remote sensing cameras along the “Green Line”, a 37-kilometre section of the former rail line between Koroit and Minhamite.
Federal Green Army members laid the baits, which also included peanut butter and rolled oats, to attract wildlife and get an idea of what lives along the land corridor.
With his experience in animal health as a veterinarian and dealing with feral characters as a former premier, Dr Napthine was invited to help create the pungent baits and the outcome was duly named “The Napthine Blend”.
The identification of wildlife along the Green Line is part of the Basalt to Bay Landcare Network’s effort to build up the role of the land corridor as a biodiversity habitat and venue for environmental education.
Network co-ordinator Lisette Mill said the cameras had recorded echidnas, swamp and red-necked wallabies, snakes, a variety of birds and an unknown species of rodent.
The baits were placed inside pipes and emit strong odours, but mesh sections prevent animals getting access to the food.
The oyster sauce bait was used to determine if feral cats and foxes were active in the reserve. The pests prey upon antechinus and dunnarts — small native marsupials that look like mice.
Ms Mill said the truffle oil bait got the attention of rodents, which rubbed their bodies across the vent of the bait station.
One theory about the rodents’ behaviour was that it was an effort to coat themselves in the truffle oil scent to make themselves more attractive to a mate, she said.
The rodents’ behaviour can be seen in a Youtube clip at: http://youtu.be/BN59Fwq59sg