Efficacy of increased visual and olfactory cues for luring and trapping invasive tegu lizards

Controlling invasive wildlife species relies on the ability to efficiently remove individuals from the invaded environment. Thus, maximizing capture potential is of high interest, particularly for species that are difficult to capture. For invasive species such as the Argentine black and white tegu lizard (Salvator merianae), increasing attraction to traps could increase the probability of removal. While it has been established that S. merianae can be lured with a single chicken egg, the efficacy of increasing olfactory or visual cues to increase tegu captures has not been rigorously tested. To test this, we leveraged an ongoing National Park Service trapping effort near Everglades National Park. In 2023 and 2024, we randomly assigned traps to a control treatment (single real egg), increased olfactory and visual treatment (three real eggs), an increased visual plus standard olfactory treatment (one real egg and one decoy egg, or one real egg and two decoy eggs), or visual treatment only (three decoy eggs). We fitted Bayesian binomial models for tegu lizards and non-target species to the trapping data to assess how bait treatment, trap style, and trap location affected the daily probability of capture at a trap. Additionally, we fitted Bayesian linear models to test the effect of bait treatment on the size of tegus captured. We found that increasing the olfactory cue to three real eggs increased the probability of tegu capture, but not the probability of non-target species capture. Conversely, traps with one real egg and two decoy eggs increased the probability of non-target captures while reducing the probability of tegu captures. Trap style and trap location also had statistically significant effects. Bait treatment did not significantly influence the size of tegus captured; however, there was a weak effect suggesting juvenile and male tegus captured in traps with three real eggs were larger compared to traps with a single egg and two decoy eggs. Our results highlight potential improvements in tegu control methods that balance effective capture with minimizing non-target bycatch.