FAS Abstracts 2004 Meeting Page

Biological Sciences (BIO A): BIO-8

|search by author| |return to BIO A 2004| |return to FAS 2004|

Population demographic consequences of raccoon removals on sea turtle nesting beaches. B. BARTON and J.D. ROTH.  Dept. Biology, Univ. Central Florida, Orlando, FL 32816. Raccoon predation is one of the highest causes of egg mortality for sea turtles. Predator removal is a common management tool to improve sea turtle nest success. Raccoons have been removed from Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge since 1978, and the initiation of removals on Archie Carr NWR in 2003 allowed us to compare characteristics of a historically managed and an unmanaged population. We compared diet and demography of raccoons removed from these beaches. Differences in sex ratio, morphometrics, and diet of the two populations indicated that the management efforts are impacting the population structure. As raccoons can be important predators and seed dispersers for many species, these changes may imply more widespread ecosystem-level effects of predator removals. However, such effects have yet to be documented