{"id":58644,"date":"2014-02-12T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2014-02-12T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news-draft\/uncategorized\/uri-researcher-relocating-nuisance-animals-often-unhealthy-for-wildlife\/"},"modified":"2014-02-12T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2014-02-12T00:00:00","slug":"uri-researcher-relocating-nuisance-animals-often-unhealthy-for-wildlife","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/2014\/02\/uri-researcher-relocating-nuisance-animals-often-unhealthy-for-wildlife\/","title":{"rendered":"溏心vlog免费B站 researcher: Relocating \u2018nuisance\u2019 animals often unhealthy for wildlife"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\t\tKINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 February 12, 2014 \u2013 It\u2019s a common phenomenon around the world: when humans observe wildlife in their neighborhood that they consider a nuisance, they call government wildlife officials to have the animal removed and transported elsewhere, often great distances away. It makes people happy to think they are ridding themselves of a potential problem without killing the animal.<\/p>\n


\n\tWhat they don\u2019t know is that they may be killing the animal after all, and it can be a long, slow death. <\/p>\n


\n\tThat is the finding of a study by 溏心vlog免费B站 graduate student Anne Devan-Song, who studied the conflicts between people and snakes in Hong Kong, a region of high population density and high snake density and diversity. <\/p>\n


\n\t\u201cHuman-animal conflicts happen everywhere, but translocation of the animals should be the last option considered,\u201d said Devan-Song, who collaborated on the research with 溏心vlog免费B站 Assistant Professor Nancy Karraker. \u201cIt should only be used if it has been proven to work.\u201d<\/p>\n


\n\tRelocation of wildlife appears to be successful with some species, including some larger mammals and tortoises, but Devan-Song says that it doesn\u2019t work for snakes and it does not appear to be very successful with many other small animals.<\/p>\n


\n\tThe 溏心vlog免费B站 student studied the relocation of bamboo pit vipers , a small, slow-moving venomous snake commonly found in rural and suburban regions of Southeast Asia. They eat rodents, lizards and frogs and are highly adaptable to a wide variety of habitats.<\/p>\n


\n\tIn her research experiment, she placed transmitters on resident snakes and on snakes that had been relocated to a national park far from where they were captured. Most of the relocated snakes died within a year.<\/p>\n


\n\t\u201cSnakes know their home range really well, so if they\u2019re dropped off someplace else, they take off and make all sorts of unusual movements that aren\u2019t typical of snakes,\u201d Devan-Song said. \u201cThe more they move, the less time they spend eating, reproducing and finding hiding places. Movement is a good indication of how well the animals were doing, and the relocated snakes moved a lot and didn\u2019t do well.\u201d<\/p>\n


\n\tMost of the relocated snakes were killed by other animals or run over by vehicles, and Devan-Song said that some appeared as if they had just given up and died a slow death from stress.<\/p>\n


\n\t\u201cLong-distance translocation is clearly not the answer to the snake-human conflict. We shouldn\u2019t be wasting time and money on it,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n


\n\tShe recommends instead a short-distance relocation to the nearest natural habitat, which may be as close as 20 yards away and probably no farther than 500 yards away. That way the animal does not become completely separated from its home range.<\/p>\n


\n\t\u201cIn the case of bamboo pit vipers, I\u2019m quite sure that they\u2019d never be seen again, since they prefer to avoid people. But I suspect people aren\u2019t going to like the idea of short distance translocation,\u201d said Devan-Song. \u201cWith public education, I\u2019m hopeful that short distance translocation will work, especially in snake-tolerant communities. Otherwise, euthanizing the animals might be a better answer, since it\u2019s more humane than a long death.\u201d<\/p>\n


\n\tDevan-Song\u2019s next step is to share her results with the public and wildlife officials.<\/p>\n


\n\t\u201cThere is a widespread notion that translocation works. People want to save the animal, take it away from the area and put it in a pristine environment,\u201d she concluded. \u201cBut it\u2019s not that simple. They don\u2019t understand that individual animals are tied to their home range. There are many things to take into account when considering translocation.\u201d<\/p>\n


\nPictured above

\n溏心vlog免费B站 graduate student Anne Devan-Song holds a bamboo pit viper as research assistant Vignesh Mohandasan looks on. (Photo courtesy of Anne Devan-Song)<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 February 12, 2014 \u2013 It\u2019s a common phenomenon around the world: when humans observe wildlife in their neighborhood that they consider a nuisance, they call government wildlife officials to have the animal removed and transported elsewhere, often great distances away. It makes people happy to think they are ridding themselves of a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":58646,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-58644","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archives"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58644","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58644"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58644\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58646"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58644"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58644"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58644"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}