In 2020 Ben McEwan and his father Stuart were walking the Te Araroa walkway which runs the length of New Zealand. They spent four months traversing New Zealand before the Covid-19 pandemic struck and they had to stop their adventure. While walking, one thing that Ben noticed was the lack of bird song in the forests, apart from areas with dedicated predator control.

After his trip, Ben decided to work on increasing the populations of birds. Ben loves making things. He has developed an audio lure system for predators while at the University of Canterbury. He has been doing this alongside the Cacophony Project, a Christchurch company, which is using technology to lure predators.

See more about Ben’s research on our research page and learn about his audio lures.