An automatic wireless capture system of a corral trap for capturing deer

Tree damage by deer is increasing in throughout Japan, and it is causing landslides which impact upon the human habitat. However, it is difficult to solve this problem because there has been an excessive increase in the size of the deer population and a decrease in the number of hunters. In order to solve this problem various measures have been taken in different parts of the country. In the southern part of Fukui, a large corral trap was set up last year. All the components of this system are connected by electrical wires and the system needs to be monitored and operated by an observer. Therefore the system is expensive and inefficient, and the wiring for a large corral trap is difficult to set up. In this study, an automatic wireless capture system was developed for improved efficiency. The developed system consists of sensors to detect the deer, a trigger to close two gates, and a microcomputer for counting the deer and automatically closing the gates once the captured deer have been counted. The wireless module XBee is used to enable the automatic capture system and the modules to communicate wirelessly with each other. By using such a wireless module, the system for a large-scale corral trap is easily set up since wiring is not necessary. The performance of the wireless automatic capture system has been investigated experimentally at the large-scale corral trap in Mihama.