Development and Evaluation of a Community-Based Rodent Control Strategy at Regae
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- Select Volume / Issue:
- Year:
- 2016
- Type of Publication:
- Article
- Keywords:
- Rodent, Community, Development
- Authors:
- Tshwana, M. P.; Averbeke, W. Van; Kotze, J. J.
- Journal:
- IJRAS
- Volume:
- 3
- Number:
- 2
- Pages:
- 79-83
- Month:
- March
- ISSN:
- 2348-3997
- Note:
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 Creative Commons License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/
- Abstract:
- In rural environments rodents are pests because they damage standing and stored crops and animal feeds and cause distress among livestock, particularly poultry. Rodents also affect rural people more directly in their homes where they cause damage to buildings and furniture and stored food stuffs and they may even bite people. Rodents also present a human health risk because they factor in the transmission of deadly diseases, such as the bubonic plaque which is transmitted through fleas that use the rodents as hosts. For all of these reasons, rodent control is important. In 2002 the Regae community identified the need to control rodents in the village as a development priority. During community meetings it was identified that rodents damaged standing and stored crops, food stores, and furniture and incidences of children being bitten whilst asleep were reported. The current study was undertaken in response to this identified need. Whereas many approaches and techniques to control rodents exist, the development and implementation of a safe, effective, affordable community-based strategy for the control of rodents in rural settlements, such as Regae, has received little attention. Two surveys were conducted in Regae using capture-mark-release (CMR) and structured questionnaire method respectively. Rodent populations inhabiting suitable environments have the potential to increase rapidly up to the size limit imposed by that environment.
Full text: 
IJRAS_378_FINAL.pdf [Bibtex]
IJRAS_378_FINAL.pdf [Bibtex]