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Culling Effects on Badgers
Journal
Journal of Animal Ecology - 69
(4) - 567-580
Authors
F. A. M. Tuyttens, D. W. Macdonald, L. M.
Rogers, C. L. Cheeseman and A. W. Roddam
Abstract
Comparative study on the consequences of
culling badgers (Meles meles) on biometrics, population dynamics
and movement.
- Capture-mark-recapture data were used to describe
the process of recovery from a typical badger removal operation (BRO) at
North Nibley, Gloucestershire, UK, which was carried out as part of the
government's strategy to control bovine tuberculosis. Data on biometrics,
demographics and movement from this low-density disturbed population were
compared with those of two nearby high-density undisturbed populations (Wytham Woods and Woodchester Park, UK) in order to study fundamental
principles of population dynamics and density-dependence.
- Badgers moved more between social groups at North
Nibley than in the other study areas, particularly in the immediate
aftermath of the removal operation.
- Re-colonisation of the vacated habitat occurred in
the first instance by young females.
- Although in the first year after the BRO no cubs
had been reared in any of the culled groups, and although the shortage of
sexually mature boars may have limited the reproductive output of sows in
the following year, the population took only 3 years to recover to its
(already lowered) pre-removal density.
- Losses from the adult (and cub) population due to
mortality or emigration were smaller at North Nibley than at the other
sites.
- There was much evidence that during 1995 and 1996
density-dependent effects constrained the reproductive output of the
high-density populations, and some support for the hypothesis that badgers
exhibit the non-linear ‘large mammal’ type of functional response to
density.
- Badgers at North Nibley were younger, heavier and
in better condition than badgers at Wytham Woods and Woodchester Park.
- We argue that the disease dynamics are likely to
be different in disturbed compared with undisturbed badger populations,
and that this could affect the effectiveness of BROs.
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