Discarded Bottles as a Mortality Threat to Shrews and Other Small Mammals in the Southern Appalachian Mountains

Abstract

Abstract A total of 2,445 discarded bottles were inspected for skeletal remains at 50 roadside pull-off sites along the southeastern Blue Ridge escarpment of North Carolina and Georgia to assess their mortality risk to shrews. Of these, 1,196 bottles were open and served as potential traps, with an average of about 239 open bottles per km of roadside searched. Small mammal remains were found in bottles at 54.0% of the study sites and in 4.7% of the open bottles we examined. A total of 126 specimens were found in bottles representing 4 species of shrews, 2 species of rodents, and one mole, with approximately 25 entrapped specimens per km of roadside examined. Frequency of small mammal entrapment was 10.6% due in part to multiple captures in individual bottles, and the overall mortality rate was calculated as 32.3 animals per year across all sites. Although accumulation of new bottles in this region is slow, those that persist along roads generate enormous numbers of trap-nights which could potentially result in many small mammal fatalities.