Teaching Wildlife Damage Management Through Service-Learning

As human-wildlife conflicts in South Carolina continue to increase, it became evident that students in the natural resource majors at Clemson University were not receiving the proper training and exposure to wildlife damage issues and management. To address this need, an undergraduate and graduate course was developed to expose students to various techniques used to reduce human-wildlife conflicts. Other topic areas included the philosophical, sociological, ecological and economic basis for controlling damage caused by individual animals or populations of problem wildlife. The course involves a high degree of service-learning addressing human-wildlife conflict issues in South Carolina

Lack of Support for Coyote Control of Raccoon Populations Predicted by the Mesopredator Release Hypothesis

Predator control programs are often highly criticized for treating predator species in isolation without considering the potential indirect effects of manipulating individual segments of the predator guild. The mesopredator release hypothesis (MRH) in particular predicts strong indirect effects of predator control where mid-sized predators are released from pressure when large-bodied predators are removed from a system. Recent coyote (Canis latrans) colonization of the southeastern United States has prompted speculation on the top-down effects of a new top predator on systems which have gone without a strong predator presence since the extirpation of the red wolf (Canis rufus). This presentation will report on the results of a doctoral dissertation project investigating the potential impact of coyotes on raccoons (Procyon lotor) with three indirect field tests of one prediction of the MRH: 1) lack of significant instances of raccoons in coyote diet; 2) lack of spatial avoidance of raccoons to areas treated with coyote urine; and 3) lack of raccoon behavioral response to coyote scat treatments. This lack of indirect support for coyote suppression of raccoon populations might suggest that coyote control programs in the Southeast are not likely to have indirect effects on ground nesting prey. However, the MRH may still predict indirect effects of coyotes through a different intermediate predato

Backyard Wildlife Enhancement

This Forestry and Natural Resources Fact Sheet 4 by Clemson University Extension Services provides information on backyard wildlife enhancement