Capturing Common Ravens (Corvus corax) is very difficult. Several methods are currently used, but none effectively catch large numbers (>25 birds) of ravens at one time. Efficient capture of large numbers of ravens is needed for some autecology studies. We describe and evaluate the effectiveness of using a prebaited rocket net trapping method for simultaneously capturing large numbers of ravens. The study sites were within 2 landfills in California's Mojave Desert, one at Edwards Air Force Base and the other at Fort Irwin National Training Center. We captured 283 ravens on 5 trapping occasions between 1995 and 1997, with an average of 57 birds per trapping occasion. We observed greater numbers of ravens at the bait sites with increasing bait duration, and these numbers appeared to level off after 25 to 30 days of baiting. Longer bait durations may habituate ravens to the resource and compensate for their wariness, which could increase capture success. More than half of the ravens captured (55%) were adults, and subadults composed the remaining age class (42%). Only 3% of the ravens captured were hatch-year birds, a result of trapping early in the breeding season. Using rocket nets is a safe and effective method to capture large numbers of ravens.
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1 July 2013
Catching Large Groups of Ravens: A Note on Procedures using Rocket Nets
Richard J. Camp,
Mark Hagan,
William I. Boarman,
Shannon J. Collis,
Wanda S. Deal
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Western North American Naturalist
Vol. 73 • No. 2
July 2013
Vol. 73 • No. 2
July 2013