Optimizing vole trapping strategies in annual and perennial cropping systems

Short Project Description:

Many farmers have been struggling with high vole populations for the last few years, they damage a wide range of crops and management practices are expensive and time consuming. An ability to quickly identify areas with the active vole colonies can help farmers focus their control efforts to achieve the greatest benefit and do the least harm to other wildlife and the environment. We hypothesize that canine scent detection can increase trapping efficiency and improve ecologically sound vole management on farms. We are investigating trap placement methods using canine scent detection and human visual cue detection on vegetable, hazelnut and dairy farms in the Willamette Valley north of Corvallis. We will also host Extension workshops, a project blog and write newsletter articles to engage a wider audience.

Student Responsibilities:

This position will contribute to a USDA: Western Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education grant. The student will help with on-farm field work and data collection. They will visit farm research sites, usually working with the project PIs and staff, and will contribute to setting, clearing, and pulling traps, accurately collecting data including rodent ID, taking photos, maintaining needed supplies, and other assigned tasks.

Before working in the field, the student must complete animal care and use training that includes videos, health certification and a short in-person training/certification to practice primary and secondary techniques of rodent euthanasia. Compliance with current Covid-19 policies and practices required of all OSU employees is required.

Project Objectives:

Voles do not hibernate, but they stop breeding in the winter. So winter and early spring provides a good opportunity for farmers to manage local vole populations in order to reduce breeding potential early in the growing season. If the breeding population is relatively low early in the season, crop damage will also be lower later in the summer.

Our main research objective is to test our hypothesis that canine vole detection is more efficient and accurate than human vole detection. We are training dogs to give reliable alerts to their handlers when they detect a live vole in a field. We are comparing the efficiency of trained vole detection dogs to trained human detection.

Our main Extension objectives are to communicate effectively with collaborating farmers and to share project findings with interested farmers. We are developing a project blog and plan to host a farmer field day in 2023.

Preferred Skills/Experience:

Experience or strong interest in applied research in agricultural or wildlife science. Attention to detail and good data collection experience. An interest in working with farmers and sharing research based information. An ability to work relatively independently to complete reporting requirements for the BES program.

Student Learning Outcomes:

Rodent identification and biology. Vole detection and trapping techniques. Data collection and entry methods and some plot layout skills. Extension work including blog entries and field day coordination.

Specific Duration Details:

Winter and spring term 2023

Hourly Working Parameters:

If the student might be expected to work on weekends and /or outside of 8am-5pm, please provide information here.

Field work will be during normal work hours, but data entry and other desk work can be done on a flexible schedule.