Warning: file_get_contents(https://eutils.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/eutils/elink.fcgi?dbfrom=pubmed&id=32834058
&cmd=llinks): Failed to open stream: HTTP request failed! HTTP/1.1 429 Too Many Requests
in C:\Inetpub\vhosts\kidney.de\httpdocs\pget.php on line 215
The Fox and the Crow A need to update pest control strategies
#MMPMID32834058
Jiguet F
Biol Conserv
2020[Aug]; 248
(?): 108693
PMID32834058
show ga
The recent discovery that cats and mustelids can be infected by SARS-CoV-2 may
raise the question of monitoring domestic, feral and wild populations of such
animals, as an adjunct to the elimination of COVID-19 in humans. Emergency
solutions might consider large scale control of these animals in the wild.
However, looking at science recently published on native vertebrate pest control
reveals first that usual controls do not succeed in reducing animal numbers and
associated damages, second that controlling can be counter-productive in
increasing the infectious risks for humans and livestock. The examples of red fox
and corvids are detailed in a European context, illustrating the urgent need for
an ethical evaluation of ecological and economic costs and benefits of pest
control strategies. A complete scientific evaluation process must be implemented
and up-dated regularly, to be organized in four major steps, once the aim of the
control strategy has been defined: (1) evaluating damages/risks caused by the
animals, to be balanced with the ecosystem services they may provide, also in
terms of economic costs; (2) unravelling spatial and temporal population dynamics
of target animals to identify, if any, optimal control scenarios - which could be
done within an adaptive management framework; (3) estimating the economic costs
of implementing those optimal control scenarios, to be compared to the economic
costs of damages/diseases; (4) finally evaluating how the control strategy
reached its aims. A modern fable of the Fox and the Crow should deliver a timely
moral for an ethical, ecological and economical appraisal of pest control
strategies in Europe.
free
free
free
