Published In
Human-Wildlife Interactions
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
Winter 2019
Subjects
Coypu -- Control, Introduced organisms, Myocastor, Coypu -- Trapping, Animal traps -- Design and construction, Wildlife management
Abstract
Herbivory and burrowing by nutria (Myocastor coypus) cause substantial ecological and economic damage. Trapping is a common, effective practice for reducing nutria damage; however, trapping approaches must continually be adapted to keep pace with evolving animal welfare and ethical issues and to more effectively target pest species of interest. Our objective was to evaluate the efficacy of 2 nonlethal trap types for nutria: single-capture (SCT) and multi-capture (MCT) cage traps. We established 3 MCTs and 3 SCTs at each of 7 sites on a 10,500-ha mixed-use island located 15 km northwest of Portland, Oregon, USA. We pre-baited using carrots, apples, and sweet potatoes for ≥3 consecutive days before trapping. We checked traps daily, and an infrared motion camera was established near each MCT to document activity. We captured 26 nutria over 724 trap nights, and all captures occurred at 4 sites. Nutria captured by MCTs were larger (6.38 ± 1.68 [SD] kg, n = 10) than nutria captured by SCTs (4.21 ± 2.48 [SD] kg, n = 16; F1,25 = 5.51,P = 0.02). Camera surveillance showed multiple nutria present in an MCT on ≥2 occasions, although individuals
Rights
© 2020 Authors
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
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DOI
10.26077/4ssf-gp94
Persistent Identifier
https://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/32355
Citation Details
Sheffels, T. R., Carter, J., Sytsma, M. D., & Taylor, J. D. (2019). Comparing live-capture methods for nutria: single-versus multiple-capture cage traps. Human-Wildlife Interactions, 13(3), 9.