Get 20M+ Full-Text Papers For Less Than $1.50/day. Start a 14-Day Trial for You or Your Team.

Learn More →

Facing the dilemma at eradication's end: uncertainty of absence and the Lazarus effect

Facing the dilemma at eradication's end: uncertainty of absence and the Lazarus effect Feral ungulates, such as pigs, are highly destructive to island ecosystems and are therefore often the target of eradication efforts. To succeed in eradication, however, managers must address a question made formidable by the great difficulty of detecting animals at very low levels of abundance: how will we know when elimination has been achieved? We developed and tested a framework to address this problem in a program to remove feral pigs from Santa Cruz Island, California. In an unprecedented timeframe for an island of this size, the program has progressed to a point at which pigs can no longer be detected. We describe seven key attributes of our approach, and how they have increased the likelihood that our inability to detect additional pigs indicates successful eradication, rather than the pigs having become better at escaping detection. This approach represents an important advance in the practice of eradication that can serve as a model for increasing the pace and scale of island restoration around the world. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment Ecological Society of America

Facing the dilemma at eradication's end: uncertainty of absence and the Lazarus effect

Download PDF
6 pages

Loading next page...
 
/lp/ecological-society-of-america/facing-the-dilemma-at-eradication-s-end-uncertainty-of-absence-and-the-jQVJSaZVrY

References

References for this paper are not available at this time. We will be adding them shortly, thank you for your patience.

Publisher
Ecological Society of America
Copyright
Copyright © 2007 by the Ecological Society of America
Subject
Concepts and Questions
ISSN
1540-9295
eISSN
1540-9309
DOI
10.1890/1540-9295%282007%295%5B271:FTDAEE%5D2.0.CO%3B2
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Feral ungulates, such as pigs, are highly destructive to island ecosystems and are therefore often the target of eradication efforts. To succeed in eradication, however, managers must address a question made formidable by the great difficulty of detecting animals at very low levels of abundance: how will we know when elimination has been achieved? We developed and tested a framework to address this problem in a program to remove feral pigs from Santa Cruz Island, California. In an unprecedented timeframe for an island of this size, the program has progressed to a point at which pigs can no longer be detected. We describe seven key attributes of our approach, and how they have increased the likelihood that our inability to detect additional pigs indicates successful eradication, rather than the pigs having become better at escaping detection. This approach represents an important advance in the practice of eradication that can serve as a model for increasing the pace and scale of island restoration around the world.

Journal

Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment – Ecological Society of America

Published: Jun 1, 2007

There are no references for this article.