Smart Feeder offers green alternative

Ecoland’s Smart Feeder offers a new alternative to harmful pest control.

The automated bait delivery device works with possum behaviour to kill pests while retaining their resources.

Shane Hyde, owner of Ecoland, explains the seven day process.

“The first step is to get the first possum there and from then on it creates a demand for the food source. So over six days you’re feeding them and you’ve got the whole family coming by the sixth day. On the seventh day we can deliver the poison and we can recover the resource so the resource isn’t wasted.”

The Smart Feeder’s poison does not get left in the forest after use unlike other methods such as 1080 poison.

Five years in the making, the Smart Feeder prototype was made by Hyde using a 3-D printer and his knowledge of design.

“I keep using my design skills to improve the nature of pest control work in New Zealand, for health and safety as well as for efficiency.”

With the Smart Feeder’s cost efficiency, it looks to be a legitimate alternative that is environmentally friendly.

Hyde explains that Ecoland’s vision is to create products that allow for a more sustainable future.

“My company is to encourage people to reflect on their own self and find positive ways in which they can work with society and the environment in which they live.”