Mid-America Bigfoot Research Center

Here is a topic that seems be be a big one on facebook. To bait or feed or not can be a touchy subject and has several view points to take into consideration. This is not aimed to be a topic about the so called "habitators" and what they say. I wanna keep this with real researchers.

What are your opinions and why?

Author: BigKansas [ Mon May 16, 2016 5:46 pm ]
Post subject: Re: To Bait or Not to Bait?
I personally don't because I don't wanna be known as food or the food source to a large animal.

But I do a lot of solo research. I wouldn't feel comfortable going solo in an area where they think of me as the source for goodies.

Author: Biggjimm [ Tue May 17, 2016 8:18 am ]
Post subject: Re: To Bait or Not to Bait?
Baiting can't hurt, but keep in mind you may attract the attention of other creatures as well

Author: therealsuperdave [ Tue May 17, 2016 9:57 am ]
Post subject: Re: To Bait or Not to Bait?
to me, "baiting" can have two meanings or purposes. For habitiators, its a way of making contact in hopes of establishing some repetitive interaction with a local animal. Personally, I think you have a better chance of habituating a squirrel or racoon than a wild predator.

for researchers, baiting is a type of lure, similar to fishermen fishing with live bait as opposed to artificial lures. In research, there are many different types of lures, including food, toys, sounds, visual attractants, pheremone chips and so on.

Food items as a lure are probably not the best lure for a short duration research approach because these animals are adept at finding their own food sources and are highly suspicious of short-term visitors' offerings.

Curiosity lures seem to work much better than food lures based on anecdotal reports from other researchers. Plus food is often consumed by unwanted targets, failing to attract the wanted target because it is quickly consumed. If food is used as an attractant, a scheme is needed for protecting the food from being consumed by unwanted targets before the desired target has a chance to encounter it.

I reccomend experimenting with different types of lures, inluding food, but food can result in attracting many other animals, whereas curiosity would appeal to the animals with intelligence.

here is a link to this topic I started several years ago about "gifting":

Link Unavailable

Author: therealsuperdave [ Tue May 17, 2016 11:19 am ]
Post subject: Re: To Bait or Not to Bait?
This might be of interest from the Havahart website, makers of animal trap cages.


In order to lure your animal into the trap, you must select an attractive bait. The best bait to use varies with each target animal. Expert suggestions for some of the most commonly trapped animals include:

raccoons: marshmallows
rabbits: cabbage
squirrels or chipmunks: peanuts
groundhogs: cantaloupe
skunks or opossums: canned fish
feral cats: cat food
For more animal-specific recommendations, visit the Animal How-To page and select your critter.

TIP: If you aren't sure exactly what kind of animal you want to trap, try a bait that attracts most animals - like peanut butter.