An easy, cheap and plastic method to trap turtles with calibrate sample efforts

SEMEÑIUK MARÍA BELÉN ; ALCALDE LEANDRO; SANCHEZ ROCIO MARIA; CASSANO MARIA JULIA

South American Journal of Herpetology

Brazilian Society of Herpetology

Año: 2017

1808-9798

A novel method (trot line without hooks) to trap freshwater turtles on aquaticenvironments from the Pampas region on southern South America is here presented.Cost, functioning, effectiveness, biases, maintenance, and constraints of the trot linewithout hooks are analyzed compared to other three methods (two variants of funneltraps and a trawl net) commonly used in studies dealing with freshwater turtle ecology.Field works were made between 2005 and 2015 in streams that drain the northeast ofBuenos Aires province (Argentina). The cow-baited one-mouthed funnel trap with drivefences was the method that most turtles caught. It was closely followed by the trot linewithout hooks, whereas the other two methods explained a small portion of captures.But according to the present analysis, the best method to trap turtles on the region wasthe trot line without hooks because it is plastic, adapts to a wide range ofenvironmental conditions, does not injure the turtles, is easy to build and carry,requires little maintenance, and its materials are cheaper and more durable than thosefrom the other methods. In addition, a calibration for the trot line is provided in order tominimize the effort and maximize the captures: in cost/benefit terms the best result wasachieved employing 1 bait/1.5 meter of shoreline.