Small animals census and control on a hardwood plantation

For centuries, man has been at conflict with and has suffered untold crop losses to ubiquitous small mammals. Such losses may range from unnoticed removal of vegetation in hay and grain fields to 95 - 99 percent losses in unprotected orchards or forest plantations. A most dramatic and conspicuous type of damage occurs where large numbers of meadow voles cause excessive tree girdling damage to a wide variety of plantation grown trees. Surveys of small mammal populations carried out on a hardwood plantation in southern Ontario during 1971-72-73 indicated the magnitude of the rodent problem. Control measures using broadcasting of anticoagulant-treated grain proved extremely effective but of temporary duration. Rapid reinvasion and high rate of reproduction soon brought the population number to former levels or higher. A poisoned bait feeder station developed and field tested by the writer proved extremely effective in providing an inexpensive long-term means of rodent control on the study area