Vertebrate pests can be controlled using chemical and non-chemical methods. Non-chemical control methods include trapping, using trigger traps, cage traps, or glue boards to capture and kill pests. Noise devices, fumigation of burrows, chemosterilization, shooting, and natural predators can also be used. Chemical control involves baiting with pesticides or using tracking powders that rodents ingest during grooming. Cultural practices like altering planting dates or using resistant crop varieties can also help control vertebrate pest populations.

1. Vertebrate Pest Management
Submit To: Dr. Irfan Ahraf
Submit By: Nasir Habib FA17C1BB013
Class: B.Sc Agriculture (HONS)
5th Semester (FRW)
Department Of Forestry, Range and Wildlife
Management
University College Of Agriculture & Environmental Sciences
The Islamia University of Bahawalpur

2. Different Repellent Techniques & Pest
Management practices for Vertebrate pest
management
 VERTEBRATE PESTS
Vertebrates are any animals with a backbone or spinal column. This includes
mammals (humans, moose, bats), reptiles (lizards, snakes), and birds.
Many vertebrate animals expose humans to dangerous pathogens that have public-
health significance.
There are different techniques or method to control vertebrate pest either they are
 Chemical and
 Non Chemical.

3. Control Methods
 Trapping
 Trapping can be an effective method of controlling rodents, but it requires more skill and
labor than most other methods.
 Trapping is recommended where poisons seem inadvisable and is the preferred method to
try first in homes, garages and other small structures where only a few rodents may be
present. Trapping has several advantages. It does not rely on inherently hazardous
rodenticides, and it permits users to view their success.
 Also, it allows for disposal of carcasses, thereby avoiding odor problems from decomposing
carcasses that could occur when poisoning is done inside buildings.
 Trigger traps
 Trigger traps are generally more effective than cage traps. Simple, inexpensive, wood-
based snap traps are readily available. For rats, bait the traps with peanut butter, chocolate
candy, dried fruit or a small piece of bacon tied securely to the trigger.
 Place traps close to walls, behind objects in dark corners and in other places where rat and
mouse activity has been seen.
 Place them so that the rats and mice following their natural course of travel (usually close
to a wall) will pass directly over the trigger

4.  Cage traps
 Cage traps used for capturing rodents include steel traps, wire live traps and multiple-catch
box traps such as the Ketch-All.
 These traps are designed to catch and hold one or more animals by means of a falling or
sliding door, triggered when the rodent enters or nibbles at a bait.

5.  Glue boards
 Glue boards are an alternative to traps and are good monitors for new incursions. They
catch and hold mice and rats trying to cross them in much the same way that flypaper
catches flies.
 Like traps, glue boards need to be placed along walls where mice and rats travel. They lose
their effectiveness in dusty areas, and temperature extremes may affect the tackiness of the
adhesive.
 Don’t use them where children, pets or desirable wildlife can contact them. A disadvantage
of glue boards is that the rodents are not killed instantly.

6.  Noise and electrical devices (fencing)
 Although rats and mice are easily frightened by strange and unfamiliar noises, they
quickly become accustomed to regularly repeated sounds.
 Ultrasonic sounds, those above the range of human hearing, have very limited use in
rodent control because they are directional, don’t penetrate behind objects and lose their
intensity with distance. There is little evidence that sound of any type will drive established
mice or rats from buildings.
 Several types of electromagnetic devices have also been marketed with claims of repelling
rodents effectively or causing them to behave abnormally. Scientific tests of many such
devices have shown that they failed to control rodents as claimed by their advertising.

7.  Tracking powders
 Toxicants mixed with a dust can be used to control rodents. The powder adheres to the
rodents’ feet and fur and is consumed during grooming.
 Powders are particularly useful for house mouse control, although they are also used for
rat control. Most tracking powders incorporate anticoagulant rodenticides.

8.  Fumigation
 Fumigation is the killing of pests with gases. They are used to kill rodents in burrows in the
soil.
 Fumigants are often used to control rodents in their burrows in outdoor situations, and
sometimes in rail cars and on ships. Gassing outdoor burrows is an excellent means of control.
Many of the rodents are killed underground so the problem with carcass disposal is reduced.

9.  Chemosterllants
 Chemosterilants are chemicals capable of producing temporary or permanent sterility in
animals. The sterile animals compete with the fertile individuals for the resources, yet they do
not contribute to the birth rate.
 Under these conditions, the birth rate drops below the death rate and the population declines
towards extinction.

10.  Shooting
 A possible alternative or supplemental method for eliminating birds is shooting with air-
powered pellet guns.
 Shoot at night or first thing in the morning in roosting areas with a high-powered pellet
gun, which is relatively accurate, quiet and short-ranged and will not cause structural
damage.

11.  Baiting
 Pests are killed by eating the bait that contains the pesticide.
 The amount of active ingredient in most bait formulations is quite low,
usually less than 5 percent. Baits are used inside buildings to control ants,
roaches, flies, other insects, and rodents.

12.  Cultural and Agronomic Methods
 Modification of cropping systems and changes in crop phenology can help limit L
.A damage.
 If crops attractive to migratory forms of sparrows occur on their migratory paths,
they often receive severe damage. By altering planting and harvest dates, it is
possible to escape bird attack.
 Planting of cereal crops resistant to bird damage on the migratory pathway may
also be helpful. Awned millets and high tannin content sorghums have been found
less attractive to birds.
 Diversion Crops
 At times maintenance of wastelands and grasslands in the migratory paths of
depredatory birds may help in protecting the food crops more effectively than
through scaring devices.
 In the case of rodents, scattered plots of Lucerne maintained till late April and May
may help in concentrating rats and mice in these plots and make it easier in killing
them.

13.  Natural Enemies
 Jackals, foxes, jungle cats, mongoose, owls, bu7zards and hawks predate upon
vertebrate pests,particularly rats and mice. But, their role seems limited as they
usually fail to pull the pest populations down below the economic threshold.
 Pathogens have been used in the past to kill rats. Unfortunately they are
pathogenic for man also, hence their use is not advisable.
 Habitat Destruction
 In some areas wild boar are dependent on areas of thick vegetation such as reeds
and mesquite plantation for shelter and hiding places. Villagers should be
encouraged in doing away with these.
 Reeds and mesquite are useful to the common folk who are always in bad need of
fuel and some kind of wooden substance to use in roofs. In some areas, swamps
and marshes with typha growth have become permanent hiding places. These
could be cleated up by installation of tube wells and some drain canals.