Dogs Increase Recovery of Passerine Carcasses in Dense Vegetation

@article{citeulike:2075488, abstract = {Wildlife managers use carcass searches to assess mortality resulting from biological (e.g., diseases) and physical (e.g., structure collisions) sources. Carcass searches may occur over large areas and need to be completed rapidly because of scavenging and decomposition. However, small carcasses are often missed when dense vegetation is searched. We placed carcasses of house sparrows (Passer domesticus) in dense cover of residual and newly grown vegetation and compared searching efficiency of humans and canines. Dogs received no special training in searching for passerine carcasses. In 36 trials conducted in 5 × 40-m plots, human searchers found 45\% (SD = 19) of the carcasses compared to 92\% (SD = 13) for dogs (P=0.005). The ratio of recovered to missed carcasses was approximately 12:1 for dogs and 1:1 for humans. The improvement in searching efficiency using dogs was similar (P=0.58) between residual cover (searched in April) and new growth cover (searched in August). A greater rate of searching efficiency is obtained per unit of time by using dogs. Greater efficiency improves quantitative and qualitative assessments of avian mortality in the field.}, author = {Homan, Jeffrey H. and Linz, George and Peer, Brian D. }, citeulike-article-id = {2075488}, journal = {Wildlife Society Bulletin}, keywords = {dtk9}, number = {1}, pages = {292--296}, posted-at = {2007-12-07 23:54:16}, priority = {2}, title = {Dogs Increase Recovery of Passerine Carcasses in Dense Vegetation}, url = {http://www.jstor.org/stable/3784011}, volume = {29}, year = {2001} }

TY - JOUR ID - citeulike:2075488 L3 - citeulike-article-id:2075488 TI - Dogs Increase Recovery of Passerine Carcasses in Dense Vegetation JF - Wildlife Society Bulletin VL - 29 IS - 1 SP - 292 EP - 296 N2 - Wildlife managers use carcass searches to assess mortality resulting from biological (e.g., diseases) and physical (e.g., structure collisions) sources. Carcass searches may occur over large areas and need to be completed rapidly because of scavenging and decomposition. However, small carcasses are often missed when dense vegetation is searched. We placed carcasses of house sparrows (Passer domesticus) in dense cover of residual and newly grown vegetation and compared searching efficiency of humans and canines. Dogs received no special training in searching for passerine carcasses. In 36 trials conducted in 5 × 40-m plots, human searchers found 45% (SD = 19) of the carcasses compared to 92% (SD = 13) for dogs (P=0.005). The ratio of recovered to missed carcasses was approximately 12:1 for dogs and 1:1 for humans. The improvement in searching efficiency using dogs was similar (P=0.58) between residual cover (searched in April) and new growth cover (searched in August). A greater rate of searching efficiency is obtained per unit of time by using dogs. Greater efficiency improves quantitative and qualitative assessments of avian mortality in the field. KW - dtk9 AU - Homan, Jeffrey AU - Linz, George AU - Peer, Brian PY - 2001/// UR - http://www.jstor.org/stable/3784011 ER -