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Managing Wildlife
31 Plays4 years ago
This podcast episode features Erin Lizotte, Integrated Pest Management Educator with MSU Extension, and Phil Tocco, Preharvest and Postharvest Food Safety Educator with MSU Extension. They discuss the best ways to manage wildlife on the farm.
Additional Resources:
Wildlife Management Resources
Do I Need a Permit to Control Wildlife on my Farm?
Preharvest Wildlife Scouting Interactive Video
Funding for this podcast was made possible in part by the Food and Drug Administration through grant PAR-16-137. The views expressed in the posted materials do not necessarily reflect the official policies of the Department of Health and Human Services, nor does any mention of trade names, commercial practices or organization imply endorsement by the United States Government.
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Transcript
Introduction to Agri-Food Safety Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the Agri-Food Safety Produce Bytes podcast, where we discuss all things produce safety and dive into the rules and regulations surrounding the Food Safety Modernization Act Produce Safety Rule.
00:00:13
Speaker
My name's Erin Lazott. I'm an educator with Michigan State University Extension and I work statewide on integrated pest management. And most of my focus is on specialty crops, but I also have become very interested in wildlife management on the farm over the last five years or so. My name's Phil Toko. I'm with Michigan State University Extension and I serve statewide in on-farm food safety.
Wildlife Impact on Farms
00:00:42
Speaker
So I'm curious, Aaron, there are a lot of critters out there. There's a lot of wildlife out there. I'm curious about which wildlife are the most economically damaging when good wildlife go bad, if you will. Right. Yeah, I think this is an important question when we talk about wildlife, especially kind of maybe through a food safety lens.
00:01:06
Speaker
We don't often think about the economic challenges of some of these pests or what we think of as pests when they're doing damage on the farm anyway. But there are certain species that obviously create more economic damage and they don't necessarily correlate to the species that present the biggest food safety risk.
00:01:28
Speaker
So there's a couple of different reasons on the farm, of course, why growers might want to mitigate wildlife coming in, especially at certain times of the year, production wise. I think probably anyone listening, any farmer listening is probably shouting, dear, dear, the biggest issue economically. And I think that's been shown through, we actually just conducted a survey last fall of producers and asked them
00:01:58
Speaker
What the most economically damaging pest was on their farm and that was primarily in Michigan that we got responses, but we also did around the Great Lakes region get some respondents and over and over again by a landslide white tailed deer were listed and.
00:02:17
Speaker
One of the interesting things about the economic challenges of wildlife on the farm is there is not a lot of published research data on this issue. It's kind of a big issue to get your arms around when you think about all the different cropping systems we have, all the different wildlife species that can cause damage on a farm, and then kind of the unique relationship between those different species and the crops. So when we look at something
00:02:46
Speaker
like fruit, birds become a huge issue, not surprisingly to anyone who has a berry bush or a fruit tree in their backyard. Versus when we look at field crops, when we are more interested in those undulant kind of herd grazers like deer that tend to cause a lot of damage.
00:03:05
Speaker
There's also the issue of looking at when damage occurs throughout the year. So when we look at something like corn, early in the year when we're seeding corn, sandhill cranes are a huge issue. They come in, they'll plant those little baby cotyledon plants, and they'll eat that seed at the bottom of the plant.
00:03:23
Speaker
later in the season as that crop grows, then we get into more browse by deer. As the corn comes on, we see bear come in and eat the, and actually they have very specific preferences for types of corn that they prefer.
00:03:39
Speaker
And so, you know, it is a very complex issue. And so, you know, I would say definitely deer is at the top. I would probably put birds second. And birds, you know, so many species, so many different implications if you're talking about a feedlot, that is a fruit field or fruit orchard.
00:04:00
Speaker
And then I think rodents would probably be up there quite high as well when we're just thinking across the spectrum of cropping systems.
Food Safety Risks from Wildlife
00:04:11
Speaker
Interesting. I mean, when it comes from a food safety perspective, deers are some reservoir with respect to carrying E. coli and whatnot, but birds tend by and large to be a big one with respect to Salmonella.
00:04:26
Speaker
and transferring, especially like seagulls, I can definitely see seagulls being an issue or feedlot critters moving from a feedlot into a fruit and veg field could carry a lot of stuff in. It's interesting from an economic perspective that a lot of those carry over too. Yeah. I've read some papers about a big portion of how much E. coli is carried
00:04:50
Speaker
and wildlife feces also has to do with kind of the environment. So if your next beef or dairy production area or farm, then there tends to be higher E. coli levels in the animals, rodents and things.
00:05:05
Speaker
live in that environment. Or if you think of things like seagulls that spend time at the dump and then come over and spend time on the farm, they see these higher carrying capacities or carrying loads of things like E. coli, which is of course our poster child for food safety related to wildlife, what we're most concerned with. So I found that really fascinating that so much of it is dependent on the surrounding environment.
00:05:34
Speaker
Cool, cool. So what can folks do to keep some of these critters? What are some effective animal exclusion methods that could keep these critters out?
Animal Exclusion Techniques
00:05:44
Speaker
Yeah, well, I think, you know, physical barriers, that type of exclusion is definitely the gold standard. So it's hard to get better than, you know, netting a vineyard for birds or fencing a field to keep deer out. It gets a little trickier when we start thinking about things that can climb or small things through large fences.
00:06:10
Speaker
you know, like rodents and things. So, you know, when you're looking at a specific pest, there are definitely some exclusion options that are available for some pests, like we just talked about, tall fences for white-tailed deer, netting for birds, things like that. But all of these pests really benefit more from kind of a multifaceted approach to management.
00:06:34
Speaker
So the idea that we're not just trying to exclude them with physical barriers, but maybe we're making the habitat less hospitable or attractive. Maybe we're ramping up some of those aversion techniques like air cannons or, you know, going out and patrolling the area in your truck regularly, things that are going to make a whitetail. Do you want to avoid that pathway? You know, with rodents, we talk a lot about
00:07:02
Speaker
making sure that we're keeping things mowed around the edge that exposes them to bird depredation in some instances outside the crop field or during the off season when crops aren't in.
00:07:16
Speaker
We can also use lethal rodenticides to help suppress populations. But things like rodents, like deer, especially rodents, they have such a fast reproductive ability that it's not something we can just address and walk away from. It's kind of a bug to just keep those numbers low. And I think it's also important to remember that
00:07:41
Speaker
you know, we don't have to provide 100% control of these pests. We want to kind of make a reasonable effort to exclude them from the production area, especially when the crop is on or three months, I think is the kind of rule of thumb prior to when the crop is on. And that's just based on, you know, the half-life or the degradation rate of E. coli in the field. And so I think
00:08:09
Speaker
Planning is really an important part of that. Budgeting for that. Everybody who has budgeted out a pitcher wire fence that's 10 or 12 feet tall lately knows that doesn't come cheaply. Even that requires maintenance. We have to look at what is the cost of protecting this crop versus the value of this crop over time and make some of those hard decisions.
00:08:34
Speaker
And it's certainly also dependent on where you are in the state. So it might make sense to fence an orchard in an area with high deer pressure. And it may not make sense in other locations where you maybe have lower deer pressure. So all of those things are important considerations.
00:08:53
Speaker
you're bringing up the idea that the time to really focus on this is right before harvest or when the crop is present really kind of resonates with me. We talk a lot about pre-harvest wildlife assessments and the fact that on some level, being able to do a pre-harvest wildlife assessment, I mean, as much as it's not required by law, by the Fism and Produce Safety Rule, it is a good practice and something we encourage folks to do
00:09:22
Speaker
And the law really specifies that the growers need to be mindful of pests, of wildlife pests, and to do, basically to do due diligence and to take every reasonable measure to prevent wildlife from entering. But we know they don't, we know they get in. We know that there are issues where critters still attack.
00:09:47
Speaker
So I guess you were talking a little bit about proximity to sources of contamination. Are there particular sources you need to be really mindful of?
Co-Managing Wildlife and Crops
00:10:01
Speaker
You know, one of them that has come up a couple times is when you have cattle, which of course cattle are one of the primary risk kind of sources of E. coli.
00:10:17
Speaker
when you have a cattle field or cattle housed adjacent to a plant production area.
00:10:25
Speaker
And there's some kind of minimum limitations to how close that can be, especially when you have a grade issue. So when those cows are above grade from your production area, and of course you could worry about if you had heavy rain or things like that where you could get surface runoff and it could essentially carry
00:10:48
Speaker
E. coli into the production area. One of the things I think is really too important to think about with that is using our green buffers to prevent infiltration of that E. coli into the field. And we talk about green buffers as being important for a million different reasons. You know, erosion probably at the top of the list, but there's been research that has shown 99% of
00:11:18
Speaker
of E. coli is actually filtered out by a three foot wide grass bumper.
00:11:25
Speaker
So if you think about filtering capacity of just that small strip of, you know, a nice densely vegetated, um, strip that, well, if you could have, you know, 40 feet of that, you would essentially eliminate that risk. And so I think being smart about where we're placing, especially livestock, if we have a neighbor who has livestock or mixed use farm or a mixed producer farm.
00:11:51
Speaker
which of course, cows come with crops. It's just a picture of the beast. And so I think strategically thinking about some of those food safety concerns, and not just also with, do you have a woodlot where you know you have a ton of deer traffic? Well, maybe you don't want to put a really deer susceptible crop or a really enticing crop next to that woodlot. You want to
00:12:21
Speaker
create a portion of the farm where you encourage wildlife and then discourage them on another portion. So if you have a large, large farm, you know, thinking about creating pathways through that farm that are enticing and inviting for wildlife that you do not want in the rest of the
Area-Specific Wildlife Management Strategies
00:12:42
Speaker
farm. And I think that speaks to what a lot of the struggle is with this wildlife component of agriculture. And that's that
00:12:50
Speaker
Of course, wildlife has an intrinsic societal value. Many of our ag producers are avid hunters. They enjoy wildlife. There's kind of these conflicting needs and desires on the part of all of us to see wildlife flourish, but also to be able to safely harvest
00:13:12
Speaker
a full crop. And so I think there are some creative solutions when we think about kind of area-wide planning to support wildlife and also prevent, you know, on-farm contamination and crop damage by wildlife. But it, you know, it takes a lot of planning and it takes, I think, being flexible and thoughtful about how we lay things out.
00:13:36
Speaker
Yeah, that actually sounds a lot like a term we talk about, a term called co-management with respect to wildlife. The idea that both environmental goals and food safety goals or produce safety goals aren't necessarily mutually exclusive. It isn't a neither or, but a both and.
00:13:55
Speaker
I'm curious about something you also talked about with respect to where the wildlife are most dense. When we talk to growers a little bit about pre-harvest wildlife assessments, we often talk to them about focusing specifically on those areas, those interface areas where you know that there's critters that come in regularly so that you know to basically scout for and seek out the poop, if you will.
00:14:23
Speaker
And I think that I really want to kind of draw that out because I think it's really important for folks to really think when they do pre-harvest wildlife assessments that they focus on those areas where there could be a problem so they know where there is a problem. Does that make sense?
00:14:45
Speaker
Yeah, and we have a set of wildlife damage fact sheets at MSU.
Identifying Wildlife Damage and Tracks
00:14:51
Speaker
They're free. They're on the IPM page, which is ipm.msu.edu. And a big part of that pre-harvest wildlife assessment, which really, I mean, when you think about
00:15:04
Speaker
how short our season is here and that pre-harvest assessment should be going on I think quite early and I think it's nice to watch the change in patterns that you see particularly I mean we'll pick on white-tailed deer because you know I think everybody can identify a white-tailed deer most of us know what the tracks that look like but you know we'll see their movement patterns across the landscape change depending on
00:15:31
Speaker
you know, do we have does with fawns in the spring? Is it rot in the fall? You know, do we have a neighbor who's got some delicious, nice, bright green alfalfa, just sprouting this time of the year. So all change the way that animal is going to move on the farm. But one of the most basic things we need to
00:15:54
Speaker
adequately do that wildlife assessment is to be able to identify the species that's doing the damage, leaving the tracks, leaving the scat. And so on the IPM page, we have
00:16:06
Speaker
this set of fact sheets that helps you identify, you know, who has been nibbling on my plants? Whose scat is this? You know, what what type of bird birds can be tricky. And so just to help you identify some of those unknowns, I think most growers have a pretty good handle on that. But if you're unsure,
00:16:30
Speaker
that's always a resource you can check out. And then you can also reach out to people that like DNR or Extension and we can help identify things as well if you're just feeling a little unsure of what you're seeing.
Pre-Harvest Field Assessments
00:16:44
Speaker
You talked a little bit about tracks and scat. It seems to me that there's a different level of concern that I would have as a grower with respect to scat. Like I say, I always say follow the poop. If I'm thinking about relative risk, if I see one set of tracks or a couple set of tracks,
00:17:06
Speaker
that gets me sort of inquisitive about looking for more. But if I start to see a lot of tracks or significant traffic in my field or significant crop damage to my mind, then that signals that I've got to think about not harvesting that crop area. Does that sound right to you too? Yeah, I mean, as you know, Phil, and you can correct me if I'm wrong here, but
00:17:34
Speaker
You know, the, I guess the regulatory language around types of situations, it is a little gray, right? And it depends on how you're harvesting, you know, how you're aggregating that crop. Is this something you can just walk around when you see scat because there's hand harvesting?
00:17:55
Speaker
you give it a 10 foot radius and say that's good. I think those are some difficult questions. And I think farmers need to consider the risk, you know, to themselves and industries with these things, you know, unfortunately,
00:18:13
Speaker
We all know of cropping systems that have a reputation for having some food safety issues and how devastating that can be to brands that have to do recalls or things like that. And so even though it feels like a small decision in the field, each of those decisions that's made by that individual farmer can affect not just their farm, but of course, the farm down the road that sells to the same,
00:18:41
Speaker
commercial, you know, whatever, food manufacturer or anything. And so it's important to keep in mind, not just food safety risk, which is of course really important, but the potential economic risks of having a food safety issue on your farm.
00:19:00
Speaker
And probably airing on the more conservative side, in my mind, of what's reasonable is how I would go. Just because the risk is so great if you do have an E. coli contamination, you know, on your individual farm. So that's, it's, I think it's a really hard decision to make in the field. And in fact, Phil, if you have any like insight to kind of switch in the roles here as I often do, and
00:19:29
Speaker
on the phone with Phil, I often have more questions for him than him for me. You know, about how growers go through that process of, okay, we know we have a pile of scats in this row of cucumbers, what are we going to do about?
00:19:46
Speaker
Well, I always think of poop as king. So whenever there's poop, that's something you want to avoid. I think of if there's one incidence of poop, that's not a huge deal, or that's something I need to be aware of and mindful of. But obviously, if there's extensive amounts of fecal deposits in your field, I would definitely consider not harvesting the area that it's around.
00:20:13
Speaker
you did mention whether or not it was hand harvested versus mechanically harvested that makes a lot of sense too particularly because a hand harvested product there there is a lot of selective selection of basically not poopy produce so you get a situation where legally the farm worker the harvest workers
00:20:38
Speaker
must not harvest visibly damaged or visibly contaminated fruits and vegetables. So that goes for things like nibbled on product, that goes for things like pooped on product. So as a hand harvester goes through the field, they can be very selective about what they pick.
00:20:58
Speaker
Whereas if you're mechanically harvesting, you can't really do that. It's really hard to maneuver a large harvester around a five foot buffer zone or 10 foot buffer zone. So that's I mean, to my mind, that's a big challenge. Yeah, it seems like it seems like
00:21:17
Speaker
like pre immediate pre harvest field assessment where maybe you're walking a field looking for signs of damage and associated scat would be even more critical for people who are in large mechanized harvesting type systems. Certainly important for hand harvested fields but you kind of get that hopefully secondary look
00:21:39
Speaker
from your trained harvesters about what is your policy on the farm when they're scat? What does that mean? Are you skipping 10 plants? Are you skipping five plants? What does that look like? Yeah, that mechanized one is tough because in likelihood, you're not going to even see it to know. Yeah. The good news is that most of our crops that go for fresh market
00:22:04
Speaker
tend to be hand harvested, which is really nice. But there are some that are not. Well, cool. Is there anything else you think growers need to know about wildlife?
Collaborative Wildlife Management Efforts
00:22:14
Speaker
Well, I think it's, you know, I think first of all, it's important to know that everybody is struggling with questions and challenges. It's not a straightforward proposition. It's not like when we have an insect passed like Japanese beetle that we can all agree, you know, we could live
00:22:30
Speaker
happily with never seen a Japanese beetle again in Michigan. We don't feel the same way about white-tailed deer in general. And so I think just recognizing the complexity of these challenges, reaching out if you have neighbors or wildlife groups or large landowners in your area, and really thinking about an area-wide effort to create space
00:22:59
Speaker
for wildlife where they belong, right? I think that is, in my mind, as I delve more into this topic, I think that kind of large area wide management of wildlife for the benefit of society in general and also the hunters as well as the farmers being able to kind of coexist in this
00:23:22
Speaker
region-wide management strategy is really the direction that we're headed, especially with these large undulates like white-tailed deer. You know, thinking things through ahead of time, penciling out the cost benefit ratio, which is something
00:23:43
Speaker
that can be tough to do when we talk about the risk of having an E. coli outbreak. Well, what is it worth to not have an E. coli outbreak on your farm? But that has to be balanced with the value of the crop as well. And so those are complex issues that I think everyone is trying to work through. Some of it has been ongoing since
00:24:05
Speaker
you know, man-planted corn in the vicinity of a white-tailed deer and some of it has been prompted by, you know, the food safety rules. But it's a growing conversation and there are resources to help you.
00:24:20
Speaker
So, you know, you can get depredation permits for relief through the Department of Natural Resources. We can work with you on that if that's something you need assistance with, but we found, you know, when there's damage about to occur or occurring that the DNR has been cooperative in most cases in issuing those permits. If you're dealing with migratory bird species,
00:24:45
Speaker
then you would be reaching out to Wildlife Services who has an office in Lansing.
Conclusion and Resources
00:24:50
Speaker
Again, they've been very cooperative with helping growers address those issues on the farm, particularly related to things like sandal cranes. And so if you're having this issue and feeling frustrated, reach out. First step, reach out to Extension if you don't know who to call.
00:25:08
Speaker
and we will help get you to the right people. So, you know, this is on the radar of a lot of our wildlife management agencies, and I think they are working in good faith to help address this for farmers. So, you know, let us know how we can help, I guess would be the bottom line.
00:25:26
Speaker
Thanks, Aaron. I really appreciate your time today. That really helped kind of frame it nicely and give a lot of folks maybe some information. We'll certainly make sure we have on the show notes that we've got your wildlife damage information and your fact sheets so that people can find that for sure. Yeah. I also have an article that's like called, do I need a permit? And it's about controlling wildlife on the farm because some of our, you know, unregulated
00:25:55
Speaker
species can be controlled without a permit and then some require DNR, some require wildlife service permits, so we can also link that. That might be helpful as well. Cool. We can certainly do that.
00:26:07
Speaker
Links or definitions to anything referenced in this episode are provided in our show notes, which can be accessed on the website at c-a-n-r dot m-s-u dot e-d-u slash agri-food underscore safety. Thank you to everyone for listening, and don't forget to tune in next month for another episode of our Produce Bites podcast.