Wildlife Damage Management (Bernalillo County)

Ornamental, Turf, and Agricultural CEU Workshop 2008: Wildlife Damage Control was one of topics presented. There is an annual requirement to provide Continuing Education Unit (CEU) training and NMDA certification to Ornamental, Turf and Agricultural pesticide license holders. The training was directed to serve 150 license holders whose licenses expire December 31st each year. This year, the license year changed to start January 1st, and all renewals will be due by December 31st each year for all categories.

Planning was accomplished by telephone with Valencia and Sandoval County Extension Agents and an Albuquerque NMDA Pesticide staff member. The agent coordinated the rental and use of the 4-H Center facility, advertising brochures, promoted via mail and e-mail. Also contacted NMSU specialists and speakers to present topics and identify AV and handout needs. Contacted NMDA to award CEU’s from the program. We collected the pre-registrations and registrations at this office utilizing the secretarial staff. This secretarial staff coordinated the collection of purchase orders and payments since this was a fee workshop.

The workshop had 60 participants who qualified to re-certify their NMDA pesticide licenses.

Formal evaluation revealed that 79% of the participants considered the information and methods of presentation to be above average. The evaluation instrument was a scale of 5 with 5 being the highest. (5 received 50% of the rating).

Topics requested for 2009 were Safe Pesticides around aquatic environments, more IPM techniques, Target (spot) spraying, pruning and watering, more about beneficial insects and backflow devices.

Agencies and businesses who participated were: NMSU Specialist / Ag Science Centers, BIA, USDA Forest Service, City of Portales, City of Albuquerque Parks & Recreation, UNM Physical Plant, City of Clovis, Gallup-McKinley County School District, and Albuquerque Bio Park & Botanic Gardens.

Many of the clientele telephone the office and consult this agent on a number of topics, including wildlife damage. Usual protocol is to ask many questions to determine if they have in fact enough data to make a valid recommendation. If not, then often times a site or home visit will be made to help solve the problem. Most questions were very basic in nature and can be solved over the telephone. There were 1344 questions asked of this agent this year, with 192 concerning 4-H and Youth programs. The rest were agriculture, horticulture and livestock related concerning Termites, Bees, Ticks, Ants, Insects in general, Bed bugs, Plant diseases, Weeds, Insecticides, Herbicides, Pigeons, Swallows, Migratory and protected species birds, Cats, Dogs, Gophers, Pack Rats, Squirrels, Pastures, Ponds & pond scum, Alfalfa, Bats & Bat houses and many more. Resource based information and NMSU or other approved literature was provided to the clientele by mail. Most of the clientele were receptive to the information and I am fairly certain that at least 80% used the information in their particular situations.

Short, medium and long term objectives accomplished to date:
1) Farmers, ranchers, and Master Gardeners have been educated on contemporary practices to reduce or eliminate animal damage problems.
2) Research is currently being conducted on the Corona Range and Livestock Research Center to evaluate the impact of carnivore predation on wild ungulates as related to prey condition.
3) Approximately 250 certified pest control applicators were trained on the safe handling of pesticides used to control animal damage problems in 2007.

Bernalillo County Grounds Maintenance Crew included Small Animal Damage Control: The Bernalillo County Grounds Maintenance workshop was conducted to provide 31 local Bernalillo County Grounds Maintenance applicators five credit units of training for them to re-certify and renew NMDA Public Applicator pesticide licenses.

The four hour program was designed to provide the training required and prior approval and certificates were obtained from NMDA, the regulating agency. The class designed was one hour each on the following topics: Pesticide labels (2 hours), and one hour each on Pesticide Formulations & SMALL ANIMAL DAMAGE CONTROL. The workshop was coordinated with the grounds maintenance crew of 31 and also advertised via NMSU e-mail system.

Thirty-five grounds maintenance crew members attended and saved the County over $1,000 of registration fees had they attended other workshops. The crew members recertified with the NMDA pesticide division, which is a condition of their employment.

Ray Balduini, the field supervisor thanked me for presenting the workshop at a time of year that the maintenance was “slower” and the crews needed the training to keep their employment. He estimated the annual salaries from these 31 workers was over $1,000,000 which contributes to the local economy.

Bob Pate has signed on to support Wildlife Damage Management within Bernalillo County.