A Training Manual On Vertebrate Pest Management

This book is a reprint of the Vertebrate Pest Handbook, 2nd ed. All the information is present and readable (some font issues are present) and the images have been converted to black and white. This training material created by pest control expert, Dr. Austin M. Frishman uses a question and answer format to teach readers and technicians about rodents (mice, rats, ground squirrels, voles etc.), wildlife (raccoons, bats, squirrels etc), wildlife diseases, and control methods. Pest management professionals, wildlife control operators and the interested public will find the book informative.

This GHP manual is full of comprehensive information about general household insect and vertebrate pests. It is an ideal study guide to prepare pest control operators for the certification exams.

The Vertebrate Pest Handbook, 3rd edition, is a revision of Dr. Austin Frishman's 2nd edition published in 1999. The revision retains his question and answer format but narrows the scope to commensal rodents, brown rats (aka. Norway rats, Rattus norvegicus), house mice (Mus musculus), deer and white-footed mice (Peromyscus leucopus, and Peromyscus maniculatus) and roof rats (aka. black rats, Rattus rattus). Pest control operators (PCOs), pest management professionals (PMPs, public health professionals, and wildlife control professionals (WCOs) looking to test their knowledge or have questions for in-house company training, will find this book a helpful addition to training resource materials. This book was revised to achieve several goals: * to serve as a handy reference for anyone engaged in vertebrate pest control without overwhelming readers with excessive detail, * to aid both Pest Management Professionals (PMPs), Wildlife Control Operators (WCOs) and people from the Board of Health in training new personnel, * to assist professionals in answering customer questions, * to compile a compendium of facts to guide one's working knowledge of commensal rodents, * to provide test questions for supervisors and managers of PMPs and WCOs who wish to train new and experienced employees, and * to stimulate all to think before they undertake a commensal rodent control program.

Vertebrate pests cause considerable damage to environment, agriculture and biodiversity apart from transmitting diseases. The problem is more pronounced in tropical Asia and Africa with non-human primates, elephants, several species of ungulates, rodents, frugivorous and grainivorous birds causing agricultural losses. In Europe and America the damage is due to carnivore predation on livestock, bird damage in cereal crops and rodent problem in urban and agricultural situations. Although there are several excellent books on rodent pest management both in India and at global level, there is a conspicuous lacuna of published books on vertebrate pest management. Even the few publications on the subject mostly deal with birds, rodents, bears, rabbits, foxes, etc because they are written by Americans or Britishers. Because their emphasis is on the problem prevalent in their countries and evaluation of management options available to them. In contrast the problem in tropics especially in India is unique. Rodents of course, are the most destructive. But what rodents do over twelve months of year is matched by a few nights of devastating crop raids by elephants or week long foraging by monkeys. Sporadic and localized damage is inflicted by several species of birds, bats, wild boar, blue bull, bears, hares, peacock etc. The damage is sometimes so high, it is impossible for a subsistence farmer to accept stoically the loss of his entire food source over a couple of days and nights. However, his options are limited in view of conservations and protection status enjoyed by some of these animals. The problem is compounded by religious sentiments associated with a few of them. This book is an attempt to find an acceptable solution to the problem of crop losses of these less studied but economically important groups of vertebrate pests. Sincere efforts have gone into formulation of recommendations keeping in mind the biological needs of vertebrate pests, their conservation status and suffering of the poor farmer. Many a time the sympathies deservedly go to the speechless marauders of crops as it is man who has shrunk, degraded and destroyed their habitat, deprived them of their natural source of food. There are no choices for vertebrate pests but raid the crops in their range but we, humans have several to survive. The book is an attempt to understand this dilemma.