Wildlife Damage Management, Internet Center for
Date of this Version
March 1981
Abstract
In the summer of 1980 we initiated a large-scale vole population study in the lower Hudson Valley of New York and had questions regarding trapping designs and sampling procedures. Would samples reflect populations as they occurred in the orchard or would results merely be artifacts of the trapping design?
Renzulli et a1. (1980) examined how time interval between trapping periods, trap spacing, and grid size affected demographic estimates in meadow voles, Microtus pennsylvanicus, in non-orchard habitats. In other small mammal studies conducted in non-orchard habitats, 2 traps per station are often utilized to avoid the exclusion of animals or compare different types of traps (Krebs 1966, Beacham and Krebs 1980, Glass and Slade 1980, Rose and Gaines 1978, Stickel 1954, Rose et a1. 1977). Few, however, actually evaluate the relative efficiency of 1 versus 2 traps per station. Stickel (1954) found a slight increase in number of captures per individual when 2 traps were used instead of 1, but no conclusions were reached.
Comments
Published in Proceedings of the Fifth Eastern Pine and Meadow Vole Symposium, Gettysburg, PA, March 4–5, 1981, Ross E. Byers, editor. Copyright © 1981 Bruns Stockrahm, McAninch, and Harder.