Best practices for nuisance wildlife control operators in New York State

Home | Wildlife control | NYS DEC | CCE | NYS IPM

Complete listing of the contents in the manual

Chapter 1: Introduction

• Learning objectives
• What’s this all about? Definition of “best practice”
• How to use this manual
• Goals of the Department of Environmental Conservation’s wildlife programs
• Definition of “nuisance wildlife.” What causes conflicts between wildlife and people?
• Setting a trap does not make you a trapper
• Customer relations and professionalism
• Optional activities
• Review questions

Chapter 2: Balancing the needs of people and wildlife

• Learning objectives
• Definitions of “humane” and “integrated wildlife damage management” 
• Six questions to consider when choosing capture, handling, transportation, and disposal methods for wildlife
  • Is it safe?
  • What are the likely ecological consequences of this action?
  • Is it practical?
  • Is it humane?
  • Is it legal?
  • How would your actions play on the evening news?
• Optional Activities
• Review questions

Chapter 3: Legal issues

• Overall Learning objectives
• Federal laws and regulations
  • Endangered Species Act
  • Migratory Bird Treaty Act
  • Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA)
  • Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA)
• State laws and regulations
  • Environmental Conservation Law
  • Getting and keeping a NWCO license
  • Which species can you handle with just your NWCO license? Which are off limits?
  • What’s the public allowed to do?
  • Pesticide laws
  • Sanitary Code
  • Cruelty to Animals Law
  • Licensing, Identification, and Control of Dogs and Animal Population Control Program
  • Firearm ordinances
  • Building codes
• Local regulations (Firearm regulations; building codes; wildlife control ordinances)
• Lists of NYS endangered and threatened wildlife species
• Excerpts from the Environmental Conservation Law
• Excerpts from the New York State Sanitary Code

Chapter 4: A common sense approach to safety on the job

• Section 1: Risks faced by your customers

Section 2: Risks that come with your job

• Ladder safety
• Wildlife diseases
• Bites and stings
• Heat-related illnesses
• Tetanus
• Electrocution and other safety risks

Section 3: Common sense precautions require some uncommon gear

Section 4: What you need to know about wildlife diseases

• How do you catch them?
• How do you protect yourself from wildlife diseases?
• Rabies
• Raccoon roundworm encephalitis
• Histoplasmosis
• Toxoplasmosis
• Hantavirus pulmonary syndrome
• Mange
• Distemper
• West Nile virus-associated illness
• Lyme disease
• Handling and disposal of contaminated materials and dead animals
• Chart: other wildlife diseases in the northeast

Ch. 5: Best practices: A step-by-step guide

Introduction: Explanation of the best practices strategy

Step one: Assess the situation

• Learning objectives
• Signs of wildlife presence
• Your knowledge of animal behavior helps
• Interview the client
• Inspect the premises
• Optional activities
• Review questions

Step two: Choose management options

• Learning objectives
• Six options for a wildlife nuisance problem
• Option - Do nothing
• Option - Make the environment less attractive
• Option - Scare the nuisance animal away
• Option - Remove the culprit
  • Onsite release of the animal
  • Trap and transfer
  • Kill the captured animal
• Option - Reduce the local breeding population
• Option - Keep the animal out of the area
• Optional activities
• Review questions

Step three: Do it (tools and techniques)

• Avoid creating wildlife orphans

Nonlethal techniques:

• Direct capture (catchpole, buckets, nets, drugs)
• Live traps (cage trap, multiple capture trap, foothold trap, nets, bird live traps, cable restraints)
• One-way doors
• Frightening techniques and repellents (scare devices, hazing, chemical repellents, guard animals)

Lethal techniques:

• Lethal traps (body-gripping traps, snap-back traps, mole traps, foothold traps, glue boards)
• Shooting
• Carbon dioxide chambers
• Cervical dislocation
• Stunning (as primary method; as two-stage method)
• Chest compression
• Barbiturates
• Pesticides
• Clean-up and disposal of contaminated materials and dead animals

Step four: Prevent future problems

• Habitat modification (remove artificial food sources, limit their shelter)
• Exclusion techniques and materials
• Monitoring

Step five: Evaluate success
 

Ch. 6: Professional standards 6-1

• What Professionalism means
• NWCO code of ethics

Appendices

• Appendix A: Glossary of wildlife terms
• Appendix B: Control tips for common nuisance species in New York

MAMMALS

• Bats (little brown and big brown)
• Chipmunk
• Coyote, Eastern
• Foxes (red and gray)
• Mice (house, white-footed, deer)
• Moles (star-nosed, hairy-taled, Eastern)
• Opossum
• Rabbit (Eastern cottontail)
• Raccoon
• Rat, Norway
• Skunk, striped
• Squirrels, tree (gray, red, fox squirrel, northern flying, southern flying)
• Voles ( pine and meadow)
• Woodchuck

REPTILES

• Snakes (garter, milk, rat, and water snake, some information about those found statewide)

BIRDS

• Pigeon
• Starling, European

• Appendix C: Beyond the routine: What to do when a customer calls with a complaint about protected wildlife species

Federally (and state) protected migratory birds

• American crow
• Canada geese
• Gulls
• Woodpeckers

• Game species managed by the NYS DEC

• Black bear
• Beaver
• Deer, white-tailed
• Muskrat
• Wild turkey

• Species under the authority of the NYS Department of Agriculture & Markets  (domestic cats and dogs)

• Appendix D: Contacts and equipment suppliers D-1

• Map

• Appendix E: Resources

• Figure 1: A typical year for NWCOs working in New York State (wall chart inserted into pocket)