Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

Analysis Of Iophenoxic Acid Analogues In Small Indian Mongoose (Herpestes Auropunctatus) Sera For Use As An Oral Rabies Vaccination Biological Marker, Are R. Berentsen, Robert T. Sugihara, Cynthia G. Payne, Israel Leinbach, Steven F. Volker, Ad Vos, Steffen Ortmann, Amy T. Gilbert

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

The small Indian mongoose (Herpestes auropunctatus) is a reservoir of rabies virus (RABV) in Puerto Rico and comprises over 70% of animal rabies cases reported annually. The control of RABV circulation in wildlife reservoirs is typically accomplished by a strategy of oral rabies vaccination (ORV). Currently no wildlife ORV program exists in Puerto Rico. Research into oral rabies vaccines and various bait types for mongooses has been conducted with promising results. Monitoring the success of ORV relies on estimating bait uptake by target species, which typically involves evaluating a change in RABV neutralizing antibodies (RVNA) post vaccination. This …

Potential Role Of Wildlife In The Usa In The Event Of A Foot-And-Mouth Disease Virus Incursion, Vienna R. Brown, Sarah N. Bevins

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) is caused by foot-and-mouth disease virus (FMDV) which affects domestic and wild cloven-hoofed species. The FMD-free status of the USA and the tremendous economic impact of a virus incursion motivated the development of this evaluation of the potential role of wildlife in the event of a virus introduction. Additionally, this manuscript contains a summary of US vulnerabilities for viral incursion and persistence which focuses specifically on the possible role of wildlife. The legal movement of susceptible live animals, animal products, by-products and animal feed containing animal products pose a risk of virus introduction and spread. Additionally, the …

A Bioeconomic Model For The Optimization Of Local Canine Rabies Control, Aaron Anderson, Johann Kotze, Stephanie A. Shwiff, Brody Hatch, Chris Slootmaker, Anne Conan, Darryn Knobel, Louis H. Nel

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

We present a new modeling tool that can be used to maximize the impact of canine rabies management resources that are available at the local level. The model is accessible through a web-based interface that allows for flexibility in the management strategies that can be investigated. Rabies vaccination, sterilization, chemo-contraception, and euthanasia can be specified and limited to specific demographic groups. Additionally, we allowed for considerable complexity in the specification of management costs. In many areas, the costs of contacting additional dogs increases as management effort increases, and this can have important strategic implications. We illustrated the application of the …

Trail Cameras Are A Key Monitoring Tool For Determining Target And Non-Target Bait-Take During Rodent Removal Operations: Evidence From Desecheo Island Rat Eradication, Aaron B. Shiels, D. Will, C. Figuerola-Hernández, K.J. Swinnerton, S. Silander, C. Samra, G.W. Witmer

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Efforts to remove invasive rodents (e.g. Rattus spp. and Mus musculus) from islands often use toxicant-laced baits containing the anticoagulants brodifacoum or diphacinone. Rodenticide baits are generally delivered through aerialor hand-broadcast, or in bait stations. These baits are not rodent-specific and are subject to non-target consumption or secondary exposure (e.g. an individual preying upon another individual that has consumed bait). During rodenticide applications, it is generally unknown which animals are visiting and consuming bait; and to quantify this, we recommend using trail cameras (e.g. Reconyx^tm motion-activated infra-red) positioned to monitor individual bait pellets. To demonstrate the importance and effectiveness …

Reducing Prairie Dog Populations And Damage By Castration Of Dominant Males, Gary W. Witmer

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Black-tailed prairie dogs (Cynomys ludovicianus) occur widely across the prairie states of North America. They compete with livestock for forage, transmit plague, and damage lawns, landscaping, and property. Interest in non-lethal methods, such as immunocontraception, is growing; however, reductions in the population due to contraception may be offset by increases in survival because adults and yearlings are not subject to the energetic demands of reproduction, and lower densities may increase the amount of resources available to growing offspring. Surgical sterilization provides a means for modeling these effects. Thus, we castrated males prior to the 1998 breeding season to simulate the …

Black Bear Use Of Forest Roads In Western Washington, Gary W. Witmer

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Radiolocations (108) of 20 black bears were used to assess use or avoidance of 3 forest road types in western Washington. Distances of bears to each type of road were compared to distances of 108 random points using t-tests. Females and males avoided 2-lane roads, while only males avoided 1-lane roads, the most common road type in the area. Females, but not males, were located closer to overgrown, spur roads than expected. This road type has substantial cover of grasses, forbs, and berry-producing shrubs along with protective tree cover. This situation may provide easy travel for females along with security …

No Detection Of Brodifacoum Residues In The Marine And Terrestrial Food Web Three Years After Rat Eradication At Palmyra Atoll, Central Pacific, A. Wegmann, G. Howald, S. Kropidlowski, N. Holmes, A.B. Shiels

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Invasive alien species represent one of the greatest threats to native plants and animals on islands. Rats (Rattus spp.) have invaded most of the world’s oceanic islands, causing lasting or irreversible damage to ecosystems and biodiversity. To counter this threat, techniques to eradicate invasive rats from islands have been developed and applied across the globe. Eradication of alien rats from large or complex island ecosystems has only been successful with the use of bait containing a rodenticide. While effective at eradicating rats from islands, rodenticide can persist in the ecosystem longer than the time required to eradicate the target rat …

Home Range And Habitat Use Of West Virginia Canis Latrans (Coyote), Lauren M. Mastro, Dana J. Morin, Eric M. Gese

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Canis latrans (Coyote) has undergone a range expansion in the United States over the last century. As a highly opportunistic species, its home range and habitat use changes with ecological context. Coyotes were first reported in West Virginia in 1950 but were not commonly observed until the 1990s, and there is scant information on Coyotes in the region. We used telemetry data from 8 radiocollared Coyotes in West Virginia to estimate home-range size and third-order habitat selection. Home-range areas (95% utilization distributions; UDs) varied from 5.22 to 27.79 km2 (mean = 12.48 ± 2.61 km2), with highly concentrated use of …

The Role Of Scavenging In Disease Dynamics, Joaquín Vicente, Kurt C. Vercauteren

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Contents

Introduction................ 161

The Use of Animal Remains and the Exposure of Scavengers to Disease........ 163

The Relevance of Scavenging for Pathogens to Spread and Persist.......... 166

Human Related Factors Resulting in Increased Risk for Disease Transmission Through Scavenging.............. 170

Management of Scavenging to Reduce Disease Risks.............. 173

Restoration of Large Predators.................. 174

Elimination of Hunting of Scavengers............ 174

Destruction of Big Game and Domestic Animal Carcasses........... 174

Restoration of the Effects of Overabundance............. 175

Excluding Mammalian and Avian Scavengers from Natural Carrions.......... 176

Excluding Mammalian and Avian Scavengers from Vulture Restaurants........... 176

Conclusions and Future Perspectives........... 178

References............... 178

Using Unmanned Aerial Vehicles For Bird Harassment On Fish Ponds, Ciera A. Rhoades, Peter J. Allen, D. Tommy King

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

The effects of aquaculture decline on piscivorous birds in the Mississippi Delta concern catfish farmers, with possible increases in fish loss and disease transmission. Piscivorous birds quickly habituate to most current methods of harassment (loud noises and visual disturbances) leading to increased depredation and disease. Our study was designed to test the efficacy of using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to effectively control piscivorous birds at fish farms. We hypothesized that a UAV would be more efficient at reducing the number of fish-eating birds on fish ponds than current forms of harassment. We conducted pre-treatment bird surveys, harassment observations, and post-treatment …

Carrion Availability In Space And Time, Marcos Moleón, Nuria Selva, David M. Bailey, David M. Bailey, Ainara Cortés-Avizanda, Travis L. Devault

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Introduction

Availability of carrion to scavengers is a central issue in carrion ecology and management, and is crucial for understanding the evolution of scavenging behaviour. Compared to live animals, their carcasses are relatively unpredictable in space and time in natural conditions, with a few exceptions (see below, especially Sect. “Carrion Exchange at the Terrestrial-Aquatic Interface”). Carrion is also an ephemeral food resource due to the action of a plethora of consumers, from microorganisms to large vertebrates, as well as to desiccation (i.e., loss of water content; DeVault et al. 2003; Beasley et al. 2012; Barton et al. 2013; Moleón et …

Ecological Functions Of Vertebrate Scavenging, James C. Beasley, Zachary H. Olson, Nuria Selva, Travis L. Devault

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Introduction

The role of vertebrate scavenging in food web dynamics has historically been minimalized and portrayed as the activity of a select group of obligate scavengers (e.g., vultures), with a simplistic linkage between carrion and detritivores in food webs. Research in the last few decades, however, has revealed that the role of carrion in food web dynamics is severely underestimated, highly complex, and pervasive among ecosystems across the globe (DeVault et al. 2003; Selva and Fortuna 2007; Wilson and Wolkovich 2011). Such observations have led to a surge in research interest in scavenging ecology that continues to reveal new information …

Locally Fixed Alleles: A Method To Localize Gene Drive To Island Populations, Jaye Sudweeks, Brandon Hollingsworth, Dimitri V. Blondel, Karl J. Campbell, Sumit Dhole, John D. Eisemann, Owain Edwards, John Godwin, Gregg R. Howald, Kevin P. Oh, Antoinette J. Piaggio, Thomas A.A. Prowse, Joshua V. Ross, J. Royden Saah, Aaron B. Shiels, Paul Q. Thomas, David W. Threadgill, Michael R. Vella, Fred Gould, Alun L. Lloyd

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Invasive species pose a major threat to biodiversity on islands. While successes have been achieved using traditional removal methods, such as toxicants aimed at rodents, these approaches have limitations and various off-target effects on island ecosystems. Gene drive technologies designed to eliminate a population provide an alternative approach, but the potential for drive-bearing individuals to escape from the target release area and impact populations elsewhere is a major concern. Here we propose the “Locally Fixed Alleles” approach as a novel means for localizing elimination by a drive to an island population that exhibits significant genetic isolation from neighboring populations. Our …

Biology And Impacts Of Pacific Island Invasive Species. 15. Psittacula Krameri, The Rose-Ringed Parakeet (Psittaciformes: Psittacidae)1, Aaron B. Shiels, Nicholas P. Kalodimos

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

The rose-ringed parakeet (RRP), Psittacula krameri, has become established in at least four Pacific Island countries (Hong Kong China, Japan, New Zealand, U.S.A.), including the Hawaiian islands of Kaua‘i, O‘ahu, and Hawai‘i. Most Pacific islands are at risk of RRP colonization. This species was first introduced to Hong Kong in 1903 and Hawai‘i in the 1930s–1960s, established since 1969 in Japan, and in New Zealand since 2005 where it has repeatedly established after organized removals. The founding birds were imported cage-birds from the pet trade. In native India, RRP are generally found associated with human habitation and are considered a …