Trapping White-Tailed Deer (Artiodactyla: Cervidae) in Suburbia for Study of Tick-Host Interaction.

ABSTRACT: Live capture of white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) (Zimmermann, 1780) is often necessary for research, population control, disease monitoring, and parasite surveillance. We provide our deer trapping protocol used in a tick-host vector ecology research project and recommendations to improve efficiency of deer trapping programs using drop nets in suburban areas. We captured 125 deer across two trapping seasons. Generally, lower daily minimum temperatures were related to increased capture probability, along with the presence of snow. Our most successful trapping sites were less forested, contained more fragmentation, and greater proportion of human development (buildings, roads, recreational fields). To improve future suburban deer trapping success, trapping efforts should include are

SUBMITTER: Roden-Reynolds P 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7604841 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature