Bangers and cash: Baiting efficiency in a heterogeneous population.

O_LIContext: The uptake of baits is a key variable in management actions aimed at the vaccination, training, or control of many vertebrate species. Increasingly, however, it is appreciated that individuals of the target species vary in their likelihood of taking baits. To optimise a baiting program, then, we require knowledge, not only on the rate of bait uptake, and how this changes with bait availability, but also knowledge on the proportion of the target population that will take a bait.\nC_LIO_LIThe invasive cane toad (Rhinella marina) is a major threat to northern quolls (Dasyurus hallucatus), which are poisoned when they attack this novel toxic prey item. Conditioned taste aversion baits (cane toad sausages) can be delivered in the field to train individual northern quolls to avoid toads.\nC_LIO_LIMethods: Here we report on a large-scale field trial across eleven sites across one large property in Western Australia. Camera trapping and statistical modelling was used to estimate the proportion of baitable animals in the population, and the proportion of these that were baited at varying bait availabilities.\nC_LIO_LIResults: Population estimates varied at each site from 3.5 ({+/-}0.76 SD) to 18 ({+/-} 1.58 SD) individual quolls per site, resulting in a range across sites of 0.6-4 baits available per individual. Bait uptake increased with increasing bait availability.\nC_LIO_LIWe also estimate that only 62% of individual quolls are baitable, and that a baiting rate of 3 baits per individual (rather than per area) will result in almost all of these baitable individuals being treated.\nC_LIO_LIWe compared our statistical method with prior data informing the probability of being baitable; and with probability of being baitable set to 1; this resulted in largely differing estimates in relation to an appropriate baiting rate.\nC_LIO_LISynthesis and applications: Data and models such as ours provide wildlife managers with information critical to informed decision making and are fundamental to estimate the cost-efficiency of any baiting campaign.\nC_LI