Wildlife Ecology and Health Group (WE&H-https://weh.cat/) and Departament de Medicina i Cirurgia Animals, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), 08193, Barcelona, Spain.
Fundación Artemisan, Avda. Rey Santo 8, 13001, Ciudad Real, Spain.
Sci Rep. 2022 Sep 5;12(1):15090. doi: 10.1038/s41598-022-17407-5.
Applying contemporary trapping standards when managing wildlife should no longer be an option, but a duty. Increasing wild boar populations originate a growing number of conflicts and hunting is the only cost-effective management option in most cases. However, new scenarios where hunting is unfeasible emerge and trapping necessities cope with lacking regulatory frameworks and technical guidelines. In this research, we evaluated drop nets, a capture method not considered by the international trapping standards, to capture Eurasian wild boar (Sus scrofa), a wildlife species not included in the list of mammal species under the scope of the Agreement on International Humane Trapping Standards (AIHTS). Less than 20% of the captured wild boars presented moderate or severe injuries attributable to the capture method, hence fulfilling the acceptance thresholds of the outdated AIHTS. Based on the new standards thresholds of acceptance, the humaneness of drop-nets in our study ranged 66-78%, under the 85% required. The capture success and selectivity were 100%, as ensured by operator-driven triggering, which should be considered the main strengths of this method, together with the minimization of animal suffering owing the short duration of the stressful situation. Additionally, in spite of the socially adverse environment, with people contrary to wild boar removal, no disturbances against the capture system or operations occurred. This is the first assessment of a drop-net capture method according to internationally accepted mammal trapping standards, with unconclusive results. However, there is a need for adapted procedures and thresholds of acceptance aimed at not-mechanical traps in general, and specifically at drop-nets. Compared to other live-capture methods, drop-nets minimize the duration of the stressful situation -at the expense of a strong adrenergic acute response-, maximize the probabilities of capturing entire sounders of prosocial species, which may be also considered as more humane, and has the ability to coordinate higher values of capture success, absolute selectivity and adaptability to difficult environments.
应用当代的诱捕标准来管理野生动物不再是一种选择，而是一种责任。野猪数量的增加导致了越来越多的冲突，在大多数情况下，狩猎是唯一具有成本效益的管理选择。然而，新的情况出现了，狩猎变得不可行，而诱捕则需要应对缺乏监管框架和技术指南的问题。在这项研究中，我们评估了一种未被国际诱捕标准考虑的捕捉方法——落网，用于捕捉欧洲野猪（Sus scrofa），这是一种不在《国际人道诱捕标准协议》（AIHTS）范围内的哺乳动物物种。只有不到 20%的被捕野猪出现了中度或重度损伤，这符合过时的 AIHTS 的接受阈值。根据新的接受标准阈值，我们研究中的落网捕捉方法的人道性在 66-78%之间，低于 85%的要求。由于操作人员驱动触发，捕捉成功率和选择性达到了 100%，这应该被认为是这种方法的主要优势之一，加上由于应激时间短，动物的痛苦最小化。此外，尽管人们普遍反对野猪的清除，但由于社会环境不利，没有对捕捉系统或操作造成干扰。这是根据国际公认的哺乳动物诱捕标准对落网捕捉方法的首次评估，结果尚无定论。然而，需要制定适应的程序和接受标准，不仅针对非机械陷阱，而且特别针对落网。与其他活体捕捉方法相比，落网在应激时间方面的持续时间最短（以强烈的肾上腺素急性反应为代价），最大限度地提高了捕获整个群居物种的概率，这也可以被认为更人道，并且具有协调更高的捕捉成功率、绝对选择性和适应困难环境的能力。
