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Minimizing Leg‐Hold Trapping Trauma for Otters With Mobile Phone Technology
Author(s) -
NÉILL LUGHAIDH Ó,
JONGH ADDY,
JONG TJIBBE,
OZOLINŠ JANIS,
ROCHFORD JOHN
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
the journal of wildlife management
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.94
H-Index - 111
eISSN - 1937-2817
pISSN - 0022-541X
DOI - 10.2193/2006-482
Subject(s) - lutra , trap (plumbing) , gsm , otter , mobile phone , standardization , computer science , phone , trapping , fishery , environmental science , telecommunications , ecology , biology , operating system , environmental engineering , linguistics , philosophy
We present and evaluate a protocol for the capture of otters ( Lutra lutra ) using padded leg‐hold traps coupled with Global System for Mobile communication (GSM) trap alarms. The trapping method was highly efficient, capturing 46 otters at 6.9 trap‐nights each. Functioning alarms allowed us to remove 36 otters from their traps within 22 (SD = 14) minutes of capture. We caught 10 otters in trap sets with malfunctioning trap alarms and retrieved them the following morning, after ≤24 hours. Functioning alarms reduced the injuries suffered from an average cumulative score of 77.7 to just 5.5 on the International Organization for Standardization 10990‐5 trauma scale (Z=‐5.074, P ≤ 0.001). As a result, we strongly encourage the use of GSM trap alarms under the principle of refinement in animal experiments.