Feral swine are an invasive species within the U.S. and cause millions of dollars in damage annually. The management of feral swine may contrast with traditional wildlife management objectives and provides an opportunity to review wildlife damage management in a new context. The authors examine feral swine damage management in the context of the North American Model for Wildlife Management and note where feral swine management departs from traditional management. While wildlife management agencies are actively engaged in feral swine management and control, the traditional approach will need to be modified to prevent populations from spreading. A model feral swine management program is presented for consideration.

We evaluated our ability to deliver adequate daily doses of the reproductive inhibitor, nicarbazin, to individually marked resident Canada geese (Branta canadensis). We also evaluated the efficiency of nicarbazin in reducing egg hatchability. The study was conducted prior to and during the egg-laying period at a wildlife sanctuary that has a large, problem-causing population of resident geese that were accustomed to being fed by people. Twenty-eight adult females were marked with individually identifiable neck collars, 24 of which were affixed with radio transmitters. Grit pellets and gelatin capsules containing nicarbazin were fed to these geese from March 17, 2001 through April 26, 2001. We attempted to deliver doses to geese each day. Doses varied among geese throughout the study and within geese daily because all geese were not present at the site each day, and even if present they accepted the bait to varying degrees. Seven of our target birds did receive what we believed to be adequate doses of nicarbazin. We documented that only about 11% of the resident population nested at the sanctuary, while the others nested in remote areas. We were able to locate 5 nests of birds that received adequate doses, but found no significant effect of nicarbazin on the hatchability of their eggs compared to untreated geese. We found that the biggest challenges to orally-fed reproductive inhibitors include the palatability of bait relative to other food sources, reduced feeding during the breeding period, and movements and territoriality associated with nesting.

We evaluated the movements of 59 radio-collared female white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) at the Gifford Point Wildlife Management Area (GP) and Fontenelle Forest Nature Area (FF) in eastern Nebraska from 1994 to 1997. Annual home ranges averaged 276 ha (CI= 166 ha). Forty-four of the deer maintained relatively small home ranges (0= 129 ha) and resided in the GP lowlands (n=14), FF lowlands (n=11), and FF uplands-Bellevue residential area (BR) (n=19). Deer in the latter area were frequently observed in backyards, at deer feeders, and on city streets. Seven of the deer were transients, maintaining seasonal home ranges that varied in size and did not overlap in location. The centers of these seasonal home ranges were on average 2,430 m apart. No consistent patterns of dispersal or seasonal migration were detected. Deer response to hunter activity was highly variable. Most deer maintained relatively static home ranges before, during, and after the hunting seasons, but three deer moved over 2,000 m and established non-overlapping home ranges after the hunting seasons. Since no migration patterns were observed, we suggest that regulated hunting seasons continue in both the upland and lowland areas of GPFF, and in the open space areas of Bellevue where conditions are conducive to hunting.

The Fontenelle Forest Nature Area (FF) maintained a hands-off management policy for 30 years until it was recognized that white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) populations had grown to such levels that they were severely degrading native plant communities. In 1995, members of a community task force decided to sponsor annual nine-day hunting seasons on FF after learning that densities exceeded 28 deer/km2. Archers harvested 85 antlerless deer in the FF upland areas adjacent to residential Bellevue, Nebraska during 1996 to 1998. Muzzleloader hunters removed 53 antlerless deer from the FF lowland areas. Archery and muzzleloader hunters harvested 297 deer during the same period in Gifford Point (GP), a state-owned wildlife management area adjacent to the FF lowlands. Overall deer densities declined from 28 deer/km2 in 1995 to 14 deer/km2 in 1998. Densities were at or near over-winter goals in all areas by 1998, except for the unhunted residential area, which still maintained 20 deer/km2. Annual survival rates for radio-marked adult and yearling female deer were 0.70 and 0.59, respectively. Archery was the primary mortality factor (20%) for radio-marked deer across years. Population models predict that densities would increase to 55 deer/km2 in five years if hunting seasons were abandoned in FF. Hunter behavior in FF has been reported as excellent and little public opposition exists.

The majority of rabies cases reported to the Centers for Disease Control each year occur in wildlife including skunks, raccoons, bats, foxes, and coyotes. Currently, oral rabies vaccination campaigns are employed to immunize coyotes, foxes, and raccoons. Though skunks are vectors of 6 rabies strains, there is currently no effective oral vaccine or delivery system for skunks. More information is needed to determine if baits currently used are sufficiently attractive to skunks, or if the baits are difficult for skunks to handle and consume. We observed bait manipulation by skunks in penned feeding trials to determine the bait type most conducive to ingestion and delivery of a mock vaccine to skunks. Smaller baits were easier for skunks to manipulate and consume, and vaccine containers coated with bait facilitated sachet puncture and increased the potential for vaccine delivery. Our information will be useful in the development of baits and vaccine containers for large-scale rabies vaccination campaigns that target skunks.

Research interests in feral hogs typically involve their negative impacts on ecosystems or their potential as a disease reservoir, especially with disease transmission to domestic swine. Authors within scientific literature state that feral hogs were captured as part of their research, but usually fail to mention specific conditions in which hogs were captured. Novice researchers of feral hogs must rely on ‘word-of-mouth’ to acquire this information or learn it by trial and error. Our objective was to place this knowledge into the scientific literature as an aid to future researchers of feral hogs. Feral hogs were captured in box traps or corral-style traps baited with sour corn in eastern and southern Texas during April 2004 - June 2005. Daily weather conditions (i.e., high and low temperatures, humidity, average wind speed, and precipitation) were obtained from the nearest weather station for each trapping location. A predictive model using logistic regression was developed from data collected in eastern Texas to predict the success of feral hog trapping on a given night based on significant weather variables and then tested on data collected from southern Texas. A successful night of trapping was defined as ≥1 hog being captured. A total of 212 feral hogs were captured during 166 nights of trapping (1,558 trap-nights). The threshold of 22°C for the daily minimum temperature was the only significant (Chi-square = 26.5, df = 1, P < 0.0001) weather variable found. The majority of hogs (97%) were captured when the daily minimum temperature was below 22°C. The model could correctly predict (95%) when trapping success of feral hogs was unlikely (daily minimum temperature ≥22°C), but it was less accurate (50%) in predicting the success of feral hog trapping when the daily minimum temperatures were <22°C. Because the majority of feral hogs live in areas with hot, humid climates during the summer (i.e., southeastern United States), trapping success, especially during July and August, would be unlikely. Research schedules and budgets should be planned to avoid such periods of extreme heat.

The Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) has produced nearly 600,000 ha of exceptional wildlife habitat in Nebraska. Unfortunately, several species of rodents that inhabit CRP grass fields cause damage to agricultural crops. The emergence of corn seedlings in a 4-row strip of no-till field corn, planted in a 64 ha bromegrass field in northeastern Nebraska was examined. The most common rodent species in the study area was the deer mouse (Peromyscus maniculatus), of which 18 were captured within 10 m of the planted strip during one evening (400 trap nights). Corn seedling emergence in unprotected control areas [mean = 19.2 plants/dekameter of row (dor)] appeared to be lower than in areas protected with welded wire exclosures (mean = 23.7 plants/dor). An in-furrow application of 2% zinc phosphide pellets (2.75 kg/ha) also contributed to an increase in emergence (mean = 21.9 plants/dor). Differences among the treatments, however, were not significant (P = 0.76). Additional research is needed to develop methods to reduce wildlife damage in crop fields that incorporate conservation tillage practices or are adjacent to or converted from CRP fields.

White-tailed deer damage urban and suburban plantings as well as crops and stored feed. A high public demand exists for non-lethal control methods. Several frightening devices are available for deer and all can be categorized as auditory, visual, tactile, and biological. Several problems exist with frightening devices, including: effectiveness, acclimation, cost, and acceptance. We tested the efficacy of a frightening device that played pre-recorded distress calls of adult female white-tailed deer when activated by an infrared motion sensor. Potential benefits of the device are that deer are less likely to acclimate to animal-activated and infrequently projected calls and that distress calls may elicit a stronger and longer lasting response. We tested the product in DeSoto National Wildlife Refuge (DNWR) in eastern Nebraska and western Iowa during late winter 2010. We established 3 treatment sites and 3 control sites, each being 0.004 ha and located >0.6 km apart. At each site, we deployed deer-activated bioacoustics devices and motion-activated cameras to record deer responses to the devices. We maintained one 13-day pretreatment period (10 Mar - 22 Mar) and one 13-day treatment period (23 Mar - 4 Apr) and recorded breaches and feed consumption. The deer-activated bio-acoustic frightening device reduced deer entry into protected sites by 99.3% (ä = -558.00, P = 0.089) and bait consumption by 100% (ä = -75.20, P = 0.064). Unfortunately, small sample size (n = 3) and a natural decline in motivation of deer to access bait due to spring green-up diminished the statistical significance of results. The deer-activated bioacoustics device was effective, deer did not acclimate to the device, and the device was not invasive. The frightening device we evaluated demonstrated potential for reducing damage in disturbed environments and agricultural settings. The device currently is being marked as DeerShield by BirdGuard (http://www.deershieldpro.com/).

Many fossorial species of wildlife cause damage in a variety of land-use settings. Research of these species is challenging because of the complications associated with working underground. Traditional methods of conducting research on fossorial rodents in their natural environments are expensive, labor intensive, and invasive on the landscape. More innovative and effective methods of doing research underground are needed. We evaluated a burrow-probe camera for viewing inside the burrows of California ground squirrels (Spermophilus beecheyi) as part of an anticoagulant baiting study. It was useful for locating carcasses as well as for collecting information on live squirrels and non-target species. We also used burrow cameras to aid in on-going studies of black-tailed prairie dogs (Cynomys ludovicianus) and evaluated their utility in the burrows and dens of other mammals along the front range of Colorado. We will discuss our evaluations of burrow cameras and applications for their use in wildlife damage research.