The problem with the rodent population is that there aren't any natural predators. I don't have any coyotes, wolves, bobcats, mountain lions/cougars, fox...I wish I could. If I could trust my Kom to stay in the yard and not dart away, she would happily kill any type of varmint that came on to my property. The one main reason I chose to bomb/kill the buggers was the traps mistakenly caught a skunk. So, I had to remove/release a skunk...so, no more hav a heart traps here.
If I lived in the country I don't know if I'd feel the same way, because there are things that would naturally predate on rodents...here, in the city, there's nothing but me...lol.
ID this horrible creature please!!!!
We have a pack of coyotes--6 of them trotting down the road today. They had been after a flock of 18 turkeys which had formed a tight group & backed up against our stone wall along the road. the coyotes gave up & left. I should have put up a sign with an arrow 'wood chuck to the west'. However I didn't want the pack trotting down our driveway. We are semi-rural, houses but also open land & the coyotes are death to peoples' pets.
Coyotes love cats and small dogs.
Also chickens.
We have foxes.
I have not seen any this year... can't say I am not happy!!!
Probably rabid racoons as well. rabies in racoons traveled up from WV & hit this area 6-7 yrs ago. There have been fewer of them for some time, the disease in the skunks has been here for a longer time. We are 25 miles NE of Boston.
We had the rabis wipe out about the same time.
Good thing too, they were a nuisence in suburban neighborhoods, Chattering all night and raiding garbage cans .They're cute but nasty.
I hateto be a wet blanket guys but i am so dismayed over the anger and hatred on these pages! Nature does not mean "only the parts you want". Moving that woodchuck probably killed him (I know, you are jumping up and down with glee), because they are colonial animals, and moving a strange animal into a new colony's location is usually a death sentence. BUt please, put all your negative energies about wildlife into POSITIVE energies to learn to how live and garden with them. I may be an idiot, but I can't see wanting to be in a pristine "nature" that does not include all of her kin. I may not post for a really long time after this one. You all have made me very sad indeed. And I do not mean to be snooty or anything, I mean this from my heart. Bye.
I can only guess you are not nearly as sad as when the deer killed my dog, Joey.
Pristine nature is fine, but not when it distroys a garden that has been worked all summer. It isn't hatred as much as self defense.
IF you would be inclined to shoot there are two choices with a side view like this. Best is to visualize the ear as the face of a clock. Put lead on eight oclock. The only way I can live with these hogs is to put them under the compost pile or for the young ones in the pot.
I live in surburbia and had eleven of these critters to deal with last summer. They are fair game to be shot or trapped in my state. Shooting is a bit tricky unless you know and understand quiet higher quality air or one pump .177 cal. guns. Trapping is legal but not nice when cats get tangled up with the traps. I can only speak for Pennsylvania.
If you have space to live with them that's fine. On the farm cows broke legs in their holes and upset tractors killed real men when we only had two small front wheels. Horses faired even worse usually having to be put down with a broken leg.
I forgot about the pastures. I spent summers on a farm and a family of Chucks could eat heavily into a field of soybeans.
I used a "have a heart" trap in the city.
Chuckes are as big a nusence as deer.
Pirl: you are simply wrong. But animals do not have malice and hate in their hearts. They are just surviving. A dog is a predator and a deer is prey. When you go out and shoot something because it chewed down parts of your gardens, or because you hate what it looks like, that's something different. I am sorry for your dog, Joey, as I would be for anyone in an instance like that. Look folks, don't make assumptions about my defense of the wildlife and other animals vis-a-vis things like Pirl's statement. I too have lost hard-worked gardens/plantings to wildlife, I inform myself and make other planting choices. I am really saddened and surprised by your response Pirl. But shouldn't you take the shooting of creatures to a hunting forum, if one exists? I want to talk plants, not killing.
You said I'm simply wrong. How can I you tell me I'm wrong to have feelings?
So the deer, who was witnessed by several neighbors, running after Joey after it had already stomped out his lung was just having a bad day?
I don't have a gun but if I had one that day you can bet the deer would have been dead.
Pirl: YOU said: "I can only guess that you were not nearly so sad when the deer killed my dog, Joey" (see above, your comment #5722455. I said to THAT: You are simply wrong - about how I feel about your poor Joey's death. Do not attempt to mishmash this into a personal attack nor turn it around into pretending to know how I feel. And no, the deer was not having a bad day as you say, but, well, unless s/he had a portable x-ray machine, s/he would not know that the predator (poor Joey) was out of commission until the "predator" (poor Joey) was no longer any kind of threat (from the prey's eye, that means no longer moving or making noise as in dead). You are doing what many people accuse animal rescuers of doing - you are anthropomorphising the deer's "intent". His/her "Intent" was to outdo his/her "hunter". You would have been perfectly justified if you had shot the deer.
Again, I say that this question should have been posted to the ID Animals forum, not the gardening forum, where it could potentially (and did) raise irrational and sour feelings amongst a very wonderful and intelligent group of gardeners. And if anyone wants to continue with the gun-fun, take it to hunting forum, that's where it belongs. Period. On this, as a member of this forum, I will take no quarter. It is inappropriate here.
Deer not only damage gardens in spite of fences but because they are overpopulated damage themselves. In the next town a 'pet' (fairly tame) deer was hit by a car & upon examination was found not to be that season's young, but an animal over 2 yrs old suffering from malnutrition. There is not enough browse for the number of animals in the area. It is different with woodchucks & though they are hopefully fenced out of an area still get through & cause damage. It does affect gardeners, both those who grow ornimentals like us & those who grow vegetables to help the family budget.
morrigan - these are your words from 10/27/08: I may not post for a really long time after this one.
Perhaps it would be easier for you to just hit the magic "unwatch thread" rather than get upset that others may not see things as you do.
After all, if you check the initial post on this thread, it was from a person trying to protect her garden. We are all gardeners here.
Yes all are gardeners.
Each spring the female ground hog presents the world with two to four new births. Within two months she runs them off to fend on their own so she may give us another litter from the same den. The little ones follow the scent trails of the years gone by to the same areas where last year's little ones left their scent even if they were trapped or otherwise disposed of. There they do what they must.....eat from the associated gardens.
I live two blocks from the source...the area's finest country club where no control or little control exists. On my way to my places of business I pass the cute little kids and can pretty well predict when I will next see them in my back yard. I use all methods of control to take care of the situation. This includes trapping and relocation, smoking the holes, if necessary shooting whatever is needed to get the job done quickly. They are regular eating machines. Last summer we had eleven to deal with. This year only two or the same one on two occasions.
After doing what we have to do we try to close the den holes but when neighbors think they are cute and give them names like Munchy it is often not possible to do that. Unless the cycle can be stopped the scenting continues as an attraction for next year's run offs. Fencing is of no value what-so-ever....they will dig under or crawl over. With children close by electric is not an answer. Even so electric is only of temporary value.....they can learn to put up with the shock to achieve entry to a good meal. One can hardly also circle all landscape groupings or individual plantings with electric.
There are apparently no other legal ways to decrease wood chuck presence than trapping, smoking and shooting. For me this is not a hunting issue. It is a gardening issue relative specifically to wood chucks in relation to my property which is eaten by them each year. My personal losses are not recorded but I can assure anyone if they were the report would be in the thousands for sure. This year alone one chuck ate in one day a hosta bed containing some thirty plants. At four bucks a piece that's this year's major damage only because it made the mistake of being seen the first day or so on the property. This does not account for the few others that got eaten along the way to this bed.
Ahmen!
Thanks for clearing up Chuck behavior for me.
I agree this is a gardening issue, your post put things in perspective.
I luckily dont have a Chuck problem, the deer are bad enough.
You know, all of you - you're right. I never said it wasn't a gardening issue, but more appropriately an ID issue. Since NONE of you can think beyond the edge of your Homo Sapiens eyebrow ridge, I don't think I will waste my time here with you. No, you have not run me off, so don't feel good about yourselves and begin virtually slapping each other on the shoulders. I know all about the life cycle and the pitfalls (pun intended) of having these critters around since I have rehabilitated several of them as a licensed rehabber with almost 20 years experience. You are in simple terms, obstinate and ignorant and self-involved. I empathize with your wish to stick to your own little worlds, both past and present. But you are missing the greater parts of life. However, I am not going to miss any more of mine speaking to you and trying to get you to see things in a gentler manner, for that is all I really wanted you to do - see the world with a gentler eye. You failed.
The human race branched off long long ago, the brutish branch died out. Lots of luck with THIS branching. Ta-ta. Oh, and don't bother replying because I WON'T be checking back here.
Whew! Now we are on our own--how does one rehab a woodchuck? I am more familiar with the bird rehab including raptors.
Waaaaaaay tooooooo out there.
Didnt morrigan promise not to come back days ago?
UHHH HA I thought so.
This message was edited Oct 31, 2008 1:42 PM
Is it safe yet? How can we be sure? Maybe it's a Halloween trick!!!
People can disagree--it was the tone of the disagreement which I found annoying--no one likes being regarded as the'dregs of the human race'.
So morrigan has thrown stones at all of us and run away.
Lets all take a deep breath and go on with gardening.
morrigan. I got a small green house. 15x28. I made 1,500 bucks last year. I start basically everything from seed. I grow it. I sell it and stuff into my garden also. I grow to eat and harvest. I sell a little to make some extra dollars to put into flowers and plants my garden and around my house, that is small area. My veggie garden is Big.
When you work, blood, sweat and tears and day and night to have SOMETHING to come and wipe you out over night, an inscet, rodent, disease, or human? What are you going to say or do? I would be BROKE and not even have a veggie garden next year. Or even a green house - I work..... Would I want to kill any of the above. NO. Would I? It would break my heart and yes I would, do something. The human would get a rat trap when they tried to pick a tomaot. My small, pittly income working my ass off to the point of What? Not trying to have a garden from start to finish because of what?
I will probably get knocked. Sorry it is the way it is.
I have hesitated to chime in on this thread but after what Sherri said, felt I should say something. I used to grow all kinds of gardens including veggie and flowers. For many years, I would find my vegetables eaten just before harvest by raccoons and deer. The flowers were nipped off just as they were ready to bloom (bye-bye lilies and tulips). My trees and shrubs have been browsed up to the point as high as the deer can stand on their hind legs. The wood chucks ate my squash. I wasn't growing gardens to feed the wildlife, but knew that aside from expensive sprays or 8 foot fencing, there was little I could do. So I stopped growing the vegetables and moved the flowers closer to the house. I do grow some tomatoes in containers, but find the chipmunks are now a pest and the flowers close to the house are still eaten by the brazen deer or the rabbits.
With no natural predators around, the pest population has exploded. It isn't necessarily their fault, but many have lost their fear of humans and are no longer content to feeding in the woods behind my house. Plus - most of them carry deer ticks which is also a big problem in my area (ticks are NOT restricted to just deer). And in my area, you cannot discharge a firearm within 500 feet of a dwelling. We have only dog control, but nothing else. So what does this leave? Just trapping - but as Tommy has said, you cannot relocate an animal elsewhere in our area. No wonder people are desperate.
With the economy what it is, I'd love to grow my own food. It would not be cost effective to do this. So when it comes down to choosing between me and my family or a stupid wood chuck, mouse, chipmunk, rabbit, raccoon, deer, etc. - I choose my family. As long as you are not intending to be cruel, I think you have the right to protect what is yours. And I'm sorry, I don't think any animal I have mentioned is threatened or endangered. The need for birth control is critical, but unless these animals are willing to abstain or take a little pill every day, other action is needed.
The criticism we have received was unwarranted. Maybe there are a few people who should walk a mile in our shoes.
Not a woodchuck, but just to give you an idea of what we have in our backyard. This photo was taken by DH at 11 AM a couple of weeks ago. They were both laying down but the buck got up to feed as he went to get the camera.
The wildlife dept. scattered bait laced with birth control chemical to try & keep rabid racoons off Cape Cod. I don't think it would work with deer. Perhaps we could surround the 'good stuff' with plants they don't like. However too many deer--need new & improved ideas.
Very interesting NY Times article on deer! How timely.
http://topics.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/04/21/deer-and-deer-management/
The deer repellent put on tape (deer stopper?) doesn't work when tape is iced. works in better weather. Interesting articles pirl. I'm sure the deer are worse on Long Island, have been so for many years. can you protect your lovely garden. Why our local 6 pack of coyotes (seen running along the street last week) doesn't deal with the woodchuck surprises me.
Oops! Wrong photo, sorry about that!
We didn't have the problem in our gardens until this year, irisMA, but with all the damage they did we had no choice but to eliminate one entire daylily garden and more will be deleted as time goes by. It's just too much of a heartache to see the many years of work destroyed by the deer in such a short time.
Thanks for that link, Pirl. I think it says it all.
oops... I never imagined that this thread was going to turn into this... so sad... but I continue happy that woody is no longer in my garden... poor woody... he is not wanted in my garden...
I think everyone has an opinion about the issue... so to me is really sad that someone try to convince other people to believe the way they do...
Have no fear, Kassia. I won't ever be tempted to buy presents for the blasted deer though they constantly leave me "presents".
Pirl, they ate all my evergreen last year... not a pretty site... no... and 3 nights ago I got so scared of one big deer crossing the street... beautiful animal but I don't want it eating my roses....lol!!!