Mississippi State Review

The effectiveness of each trap type was tested using a paired design, with the armadillo trap considered as the treatment and the standard cage trap as the control. The study area was searched for armadillo signs, soil disturbance, tracks, and visual sightings. Once a sign was found, each trap type was deployed and separated by less than 20 meters. The trapping sites were placed greater than 225 meters apart in order to reduce redundancy and increase the independence of trap sites. At each site, two potential trap locations were identified, and the traps were assigned to the locations at random to remove any human bias in selecting the more suitable armadillo capture location. The traps were set during three periods that extended from April 3 to June 7, May 23 to July 28, and October 3 to November 30, 2009. Traps were checked daily, and the captured animals were dispatched/released accordingly.

23 Armadillos were captured using the wooden Armadillo Trap, and 3 were captured using a standard cage trap. The incidence of unwanted species captured was also greatly reduced using the wooden trap. The wire traps caught four times as many unwanted species as the wooden trap.

In 2009, MS State University conducted a comparison of armadillo trap types in different scenarios and locations. This study was conducted in Chickasaw County, Mississippi.