Inspired by the cacophony of bird song enjoyed by Captain James Cook, a Banks Peninsula man is hoping to bring back the dawn chorus
What do an ancient Spanish castle and Captain Cook have in common? On the surface, not a lot. But for Akaroa-based entrepreneur Grant Ryan, the castle and the captain were the inspiration for a device that has the potential to transform pest control in New Zealand. The self-confessed “tech guy” is the founder and driving force behind The Cacophony Project, a collaborative project that’s using computer software and the cloud to change how bird and pest populations are monitored. The Spanish connection comes from a sabbatical Ryan took in late 2015. Sitting within view of a thousand-year-old castle, Ryan had something of a revelation. “I was looking out at this castle and thinking that we’re never going to have a castle from the 11th century in New Zealand,” he says. “But what we did have in the 11th century was this unique corner of the world with no mammals killing our birds. “I was also inspired by hearing the story about Captain Cook getting off the boat and hearing a cacophony of birdsong,” Ryan continues. “When you go to some of the bird sanctuaries you literally hear a cacophony. It’s a beautiful sound, and it’s also an indicator of the relative health of the native bird population.” Upon his return to New Zealand, Ryan set out to do some trapping in his own backyard on Banks Peninsula. “I realised how manual the whole process is,” he says. “As an inventor and a tech guy, I started thinking that if we could measure the local birdlife, then we could work out the best trapping method.” Together with friend and software developer Dave Lane, Ryan started on the first phase of the project: creating a device that would measure the volume of birdsong within a given geographical area. The end result was the Cacophonometer – a solar powered micro-computer with a built-in microphone. “The Cacophonometer records sound and uploads it to the cloud via a data connection,” explains Ryan. “We just want to start recording everything to get a baseline.” There are already a number of recording devices scattered around the New Zealand bush, but Ryan and Lane decided to go one step further and add features to their device that would allow further analysis. “We want to make sure the devices don’t just record sound; but that they can record images and videos and potentially even weather data,” Ryan explains. [caption id="attachment_12650" align="aligncenter" width="1280"]