Depredation of Concentrated Feed by Wild Mammals at a Stock Farm in Japan

Abstract

Concentrated feed, which contains high levels of digestible nutrients, is widely used as a food source for fattening cattle in Japan. However, it is also a valuable food resource for wild animals. Wild animals such as crows (Kitazaki and Tanida 1996; Nagano et al. 1998), raccoon dogs (Nyctereutes procyonoides) (Murakami and Arata 1998), and Asiatic black bears (Ursus thibetanus) (Maruyama 2003) steal feeds from cattle farms. In the US and UK, wild animals cause economic losses from depredation of cattle feed (Palmer 1976; Johnson and Timm 1987), and sometimes disease transmission (Garnett et al. 2002; Daniels et al. 2003; Palmer et al. 2004). Furthermore, high nutrition cattle feeds may improve the pest’s nutritive status leading to increase of pest populations. Nevertheless, there are few reports on depredation of cattle feed by wild animals. There is no information about which species are more attracted by the concentrated feed than others. Identifying which species steal cattle feed is valuable for developing countermeasures. In this study, the depredation of concentrated feed on a stock farm by wild mammals was investigated to identify which species steal the concentrated feed, and to establish daily and seasonal patterns of depredation.