Wildlife Services Research Paper

Wildlife Services

For my Service Learning Project, I had the opportunity to work with a trapper from APHIS Wildlife Services. This was an interesting project for many reasons. Not only did I get to set two kinds of traps, but I got to learn about the job, what it requires, and all the different kinds of experiences it brings, along with play with some cute hound dogs.

The first thing we did was visit a few of the ranches. When doing so, I had to keep my eye out for badgers and their holes. This is because up in that particular area, the badgers were being pests, and that's why the employee and I were out there. When I wasn’t looking for badger dens, I was also helping look for good places to put leg traps and a leg hold. Once we found a good spot which was a total of 4. The employee would show me how to set one up. …show more content…
After that, you dig out a square looking hole just right for the trap to sit, but make sure you keep all the dirt in this filter looking thing. Then, you make sure there is no soft, mushy spots where you put the trap down, because it will tell the animal that the ground isn't right. Once that is finished, you take a small screen fitted to the trap and put it above the dog, and lever, this is to prevent dirt from clogging the trap. Lastly, you take the dirt in the filter bucket looking thing and shake it above the trap to hide it. While setting the traps, I had to put each trap onto the GPS, and tell the trapper I was with where his other traps were located to see if he caught