Radiocontrolled upnet enclosure to capture free

Authors: Andrea Dematteis Marco Giovo Fabrizio Rostagno Omar Giordano David Fina Arianna Menzano Paolo Tizzani Giorgio Ficetto Luca Rossi Pier Giuseppe Meneguz

Publish Date: 2009/12/09

Volume: 56, Issue: 4, Pages: 535-539

PDF Link

Abstract

We used an enclosure trap with a lifting net to capture Alpine chamois Rupicapra rupicapra The trap was activated by remote radiocontrolled electromagnets powered by photovoltaic modules The upnet trap had considerable advantages over mechanical methods described in the literature for the capture of chamois During 36 capture sessions we captured 50 chamois or 139 animals per session Capture success was 962 of the average of 14 animals that entered the trap during a capture session Mortality was 2 and another 2 of the captured chamois was injured There were no known postrelease captureinduced pathologies and the capture effort was 17 mandays per chamois The trap allowed to select specific target animals and to capture sex–age classes particularly kids and their mothers that are normally difficult or impossible to capture It could be set off from a distance it only required about 4 h to assemble and could be operated by as few as two peopleThis study was supported by “Comprensorio Alpino TO1—Valle Pellice Chisone e Germanasca” In particular we thank the president of the CATO1 E ArmandPilon for supporting this study despite initial setbacks and the Comunità Montana Valle Pellice and P C Roggiero for logistic support Thanks to P Bottini M Bessone P Bonagura R Brignone C Demarco F Muttoni N Pellissier N Perotto and A Vignetta for their help on the field A special thanks to Marco FestaBianchet for his encouragement in developing the upnet method and for comments on an earlier draft

Keywords: