Biodegradable possum bait station

The possum bait station is designed with three cavities for the cyanide pills. How did they arrive at this design?

Richard Williams, the Director of Potatopak, explains how he developed a possum bait station for the Department of Conservation using his potato plate technology.

Transcript

Richard Williams (Potatopak, now rebranded as earthpac.)

We made a possum bait station, and the customer said, “Oh, we need this information on the bait station”. So we made the shape for them, which was their design, so it had the skull and crossbones and poison on it and could staple to a tree, and halfway through, the CEO changed his mind. We discarded the first so we had to make a second with 24 cavities.

And there were a lot of plus factors in changing a design because the first one was a bit impractical. You didn’t need such a large tag to staple to the tree, and also the first design had only two little cavities for the cyanide tablet, the second design had three cavities. So, effectively, you were getting a higher kill rate. And so, at the end of the day, they could charge more for the bait station because you had three cyanide pills in it, and you had blocks of six and so it was much more compact.

Acknowledgements:
Connovation Ltd