Effects of mammalian predator removal on production of upland-nesting ducks in North Dakota

By P. R. Garrettson, F. Rohwer. 2001

107 citations recorded by the source corpus.

In the Prairie Pothole Region, high predation rates often reduce duck nest success below the 15-20% deemed necessary for population stability. Lethal removal of mammalian predators is 1 potential management option, but little reliable information exists on the efficacy of this technique. We trapped 8 41.5 km 2 blocks during April-July 1994-1996, and found higher nest success on trapped sites (x = 42%; 37-46%, 95% CI) than on untrapped sites (x = 23%; 19-25%, 95% CI). We found that daily survival rates increase with nest age and later nest initiation date, and we adjusted for this heterogeneity when we calculated nest success. There were no year or year x treatment effects on nest success. From 1 year to the next, pair numbers tended to increase more on trapped sites than on untrapped sites for all dabbling ducks combined. Removal of mammalian predators dramatically increases duck nest success, but its use as a management tool will also depend on its acceptance by the public.

Subfields: Ecology, Statistics and Probability

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