I am baiting small areas (using bait poison) for invasive black rats on a tropical island that is covered in many species of land crabs including huge coconut crabs that break open anything to get at food.
The bait stations currently available are 20L buckets - these work well but my experiment will need many of them and the terrain is so rough it will be difficult to transport them around. A lighter alternative is needed. Does anyone have any ideas or know of any recent research that has had this same problem? Thanks
Hi Melissa,
In some pork farms in the Netherlands, there are plenty R. rattus. There they see that poisening is not the (only) way to get them away. Is it not a (better) idea to try other methods than poisening?
Just my two cents...
René Janssen
The Netherlands
Dear Melissa, Wegmann et al. (2007) recommend to apply bait to the forest canopy, which is not available to crabs, and consumption by rats of bait placed in the forest canopy has been observed. I think land crabs having about the same size of rats occupy the same ecological niche (opportunistic omnivores) and are impossible to exclude from baits applied to the ground. To exclude Birgus, metal tube traps may work. Good luck, Robert
Thanks Robert for your answer - that Wegmann et al paper is great, I hadn't seen it before as it is not a peer reviewed article, but a report document (it didn't show up on my databases). Some great ideas for tree and canopy attachment in there! I will try to get in touch with the authors to find out specifics!
Rene, thanks for your answer and concerns, however the current management already uses a well tried and tested rat poison to remove rats, with little non-target impacts (Racumin), so this is the method that is available to my research.
I read about these non-poison lethal traps for rats a while ago, but have no experience with them. http://www.goodnature.co.nz/
I could add as an inspiration the wonderful novel by TC Boyle: When the killing's done
http://www.tcboyle.com/page2.html?2
Jessica, those look very interesting! Also look like something out of a rat's worst nightmare... Thanks for the link.
I have designed bait stations that are plastic, foldable and lightweight for just this situation. See my paper Island Restoration; exploring the past, anticipating the future in Marine Ornithology. http://www.marineornithology.org/PDF/35_2/35_2_97-107.pdf
I still have some for sale. But Coconut crabs are a BIG problem!
Rats are quick learners, so it is best to alternate methods on a regular basis.
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