Monitoring Stoats, Ferrets and Weasels with thermal cameras

Animals identified by the DOC AI Cam

The DOC AI cam can be used to monitor stoats, ferrets and weasels. It is significantly more sensitive that trail cameras. We estimate it will see 10x more stoats that a trail camera. This is because:

• the camera is always on, so there is no wake up time - so a fast stoat will still be captured.
• the camera doesn't rely on an infrared light to illuminate the stoat, but instead sees the body heat. This can be seen from a reasonable distance both day and night.

One our early successes was finding a stoat at Shakespear park. They couldn't see it on their trail cameras and stoat dogs were not able to find it. They found it within a day with the thermal camera. Read more details about the Shakespear Park stoat case study here.

DOC have also used thermal cameras to detect stoats on Motutapu Island.