A Remote Monitoring Device is simply an electronic box that is attached to a trap, senses when the trap door closes, and then immediately initiates a process which leads to one or more nominated people being informed of the event by email and phone text message. The RMD doesn’t link to the trapper(s) directly, but via a virtual web-based ‘portal’. Users register their RMDs on the portal, and tell it which RMD (each has a unique number) is situated in which location. This may sound complicated, but RMDs are extremely reliable once set up, and they save huge amounts of time and mileage. Crucially, they allow a trap to be active 24/7 without the need for daily trap visits. They are used by Government agencies and are, if truth be told, more reliable than many of the people who elect to trap their traps daily. They don’t suffer from hangovers, flat tyres, medical emergencies or waning dedication in the face of hundreds of visits to an empty trap.
That said, the RMD can do no more than attempt to alert people to the fact that a trap needs an urgent visit. If no-one notices the alert, then there’s a chance that an animal in the trap will die a lingering death, and that must never be allowed to happen. For this reason, the many hundreds of traps operated by WRT and its partners across 10 counties are all managed by a small number of local people on the ground, but are also under the watchful eye of a Coordinator, whose job it is to ensure that every single trap alert leads to a prompt trap visit. A Coordinator can oversee the use of more than a hundred traps, and may never visit any of them, but acts as a guardian angel, using phone/email/whatsapp/text message to ensure a visit, and not resting until one has been made and the RMD has been reset. We strongly recommend that every trap is provided cover in this way, and for this reason it makes best sense for people to collaborate, sharing a Coordinator, who can be local or can live in another country. Good communication is the key here.