Wildlife Control Measures Flashcards
What are some examples of some topical zoonoses transmitted by wildlife?
Aveolar hydatid disease - Echinococcus multilocularis and urban foxes
Haemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome - Hantavirus and rats
Leptospirosis - Leptospira spp and rats
Bird flu - avian influenza A virus subtype H5N1 and wild waterfowl
Toxoplasmosis - Toxoplasma gondii and feral cats
Lassa fever - Arenaviridae virus and mice
What are the reasons for pest control?
Damage to agricultural and horticultural crops, forestry nurseries and plantations, ecosystems that need to be preserved, propterty
Competition with livestock for feed
The risk of predation of livestock and farmed fish, game animals and endangered wildlife
The risk of transmission of specific diseases to livestock or man
Consumption and contamination of stored feedstuffs
The risk of over population
What are the three key components in wildlife control programs?
Setting clearly defined objectives
Deciding how to achieve those objectives
Monitoring the outcome of the plan
What is important to keep in mind when setting objectives?
Determine the optimum or tolerable pest population density
If trying to eradicate disease make sure you are targeting the maintenance population
What are the different types of pest control strategies?
Damage control through deterrents (noise emitters/visual scarers/chemical repellents), exclusion (habitat removal/electric fencing/vermin proof doorways) or feed competition
Pest control through either sustained destruction or eradication by toxicants/traps and snares/introduced disease/introduced predators/hunting, shooting and fishing
What is the problem with using recreational hunting as a pest control method?
Hunters want to keep the sport so will only hunt select animals such as only young bucks but not does so that they can still breed leaving more animals to hunt
How do you monitor the outcomes of wildlife control programs?
Kill rates (number removed in a given period) Elimination rate (proportion removed in a given period) - need to know the population that was there to start with Impact rate (improvement in the conserved resource or change in the pest population density
How is the severity of welfare compromised (W) measured?
W = NxIxDxC N is number of animals affected I is the intensity of suffering D is the duration of suffering C is the capacity of the animal to suffer
Why is 1080 such a good toxicant? Why is it often not used?
Very good at killing mammals - selective
Often want to protect some mammals only used in New Zealand as all land mammals are introduced so are seen as pests
Which toxicants are legal in the EU?
Alpha chloralose
Anti-coagulants - brodifacoum, bromadiolone, pindone, racuumin, warfarin et al
What are some different types of live trap?
Cage traps, box traps, nets, pitfall traps, leg snares, leg-hold traps, glue boards
What are some different types of kill traps?
Neck-hold traps, neck snares, break-back traps, body-catch traps, crushing devices
