Skunks

Skunk Trapping

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Momma skunk with her babies
A mother skunk with her babies.
(Artwork by Sharon Davis. Contact us for her contact info.)

From my perch up in the tallest tree, I can pretty much see everything that goes on around me on this property, and one of the most interesting things I’ve witnessed over the last few weeks was the owner’s attempt at skunk trapping.

As a bird, I’m not really that opposed to skunks myself.  They can’t really hurt me, as a raven, and if they spray some stupid dog or fox, I just fly away from the smell.  But, I could tell this skunk was really getting on this guy’s nerves over the last few weeks!

First, it made free to dig up in the guy’s vegetable garden as it hunted for bugs to eat.  Destroyed some of the crop and left a horrible mess.  Then, it decided to burrow under the guy’s front porch.  He was afraid he’d be sprayed if he surprised the skunk while walking out to his yard, and even I could see it was going to damage the concrete, making it sink down eventually.  One night, the skunk got hungry and toppled over the garbage can, munching on everything edible it could find.  The owner came out the next morning to find a horrible mess on the lawn.

What really sent the owner into a horrible rage was when the skunk got into the chicken house and ate up some of the eggs.  It even attacked one of the chickens.  At first, the owner thought maybe a fox was to blame, but when he figured out it was a skunk, he reached the end of his rope.

He went out and got himself a skunk trap, set it up in the vegetable garden, and caught that smelly skunk.  Problem was, he had no idea what to do with it after that.  He was so afraid to approach the skunk in the trap.  He tried walking up to it really slowly and quietly, he tried throwing a tarp over it.  I spent a good three or four hours just watching this guy circle the cage, try all kinds of things, work up his nerve just to get scared again.  Highly entertaining!  Truth is, that guy just didn’t know what to do with the wild skunk, and he didn’t know what it could do to him.

He should have called a professional to come out and trap the skunk in the first place.  A wildlife removal specialist already has the skills and experience to get rid of a skunk, and will do it legally.  Eventually, he called in an expert at skunk trapping, who not only got rid of the skunk, but repaired the damage the skunk caused.

Now, I wonder if we can get another wild animal to attack the guy’s house again.  I’ve got to get my entertainment one way or another, and watching him fumble around with wild animals is always good for a laugh!

Raccoons

Raccoon Trapping

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“Okay, Martha, you ready for an evening full of fun and raccoon trapping?”  Max was sixty-eight, newly retired, and bored out of his mind with all the free time he’d had on his hands.  He admitted to himself he was probably driving Martha crazy, with all the new projects he’d started and then left unfinished.  He just wasn’t ready for retirement, and Martha wasn’t ready for him to be retired, hanging around the house all day long, banging away at something and then leaving it for another project.

“Sure, Max.”  Martha sighed.

They were both curled up on the couch, lights off and video camera running.  A couple of raccoons had been hanging around their house for a few nights, and they’d even noticed their cats’ food was disappearing each night.  Max was sure the raccoons were coming into the house through the cat door, and decided to try his hand at raccoon trapping himself.

Martha had suggested just getting a lock for the cat door, but Max didn’t want the hassle.  He knew if they got a locking cat door, they’d just end up having to get up throughout the night to let a cat in or out, and he was enjoying his long nights of sleep, after years of waking too early to an alarm clock.

Martha propped her feet up on the coffee table.  Max’s excitement hadn’t quite infected her yet.  As far as she was concerned, raccoon trapping was just another of Max’s projects.

But, before too long, the cat door swung open a little, and a human-like hand, a raccoon paw, came reaching through the opening.  “Shh, shhh, it’s happening!” Max exclaimed, even though Martha hadn’t made a sound.

Max had set up a raccoon trap with the cat food inside of it.  Martha wasn’t so sure that was the best way to go about it, but she’d learned years ago that it was easier just to let Max pursue his own things, and let him come to his own conclusions.

The raccoon paw came through the cat door again, groping around.  Max wondered if it was looking for any sign of a cat, but had no idea why the raccoon didn’t just come through the door all the way yet.  He refocused the video camera and waited to see what would happen next.

What happened next is not what either Max or Martha expected.  That raccoon felt around until its paw landed on the small rug in front of the door.  It grabbed up the rug, tugged it back out of the opening in the cat door, and ran off into the night with its prize.

Both Max and Martha were stunned.  Why would the raccoon want the rug, they wondered.  Martha’s eyes drifted over to the cat food, and she sighed.  Was this effort at raccoon trapping just another failed project, soon to be abandoned, or would Max want to try it again tomorrow night.  She wasn’t sure which she wanted more, but she looked at Max reviewing the video on the camera and realized it didn’t matter.  He was happy.

Pigeons

Pigeon Trapping

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I almost fell out of my roost this morning, I was so excited that the weather was warm and I was sure no one would be thinking about pigeon trapping.  It had been a long and tough winter.  The harsh weather kept most humans from coming out into the park and playground to play, much less to feed us with delicious stale bread or hearty bird seed.  We were left to fend for ourselves, like some sort of wild animals, scavenging and scraping by.

Fortunately, the nearby businesses provided plenty of warm and safe places to roost.  Some of us had found a hole just large enough to get into the warm attic-like space in one office building.   We’d left a lot of droppings everywhere, and some of the snowmelt had mixed with our guano.  It was starting to corrode some of the joists.  Some people from the building got wise to us, though, and put out pigeon traps, but they didn’t follow through and so we ended up spending the rest of the winter in there.

But, today, was beautiful and sunny and just warm enough to get people outside.  I flew down with some of the others to see if the people left scraps behind their picnic lunches, or even better, if anyone had bread or birdseed to toss to us.  I was not disappointed!

Children were squealing with delight as they played on the playground, their parents oblivious (or perhaps choosing to look the other way) to the pigeon droppings smattered around on the slides, swings and crawlspaces.  Adults talked and clearly enjoyed the excellent weather.  All humans were in excellent moods, and not a single one of them even considered pigeon trapping.  On the contrary, some of them had planned ahead and brought bird seed with them to share their good fortune with us birds.

It was agonizingly slow, sometimes, though.  We’d have to wait and wait for a tiny handful of seed to be tossed around, and then fight and squabble with each other over each morsel.  I was getting fed up, so to speak.  I just wanted to gobble up my share, fill my stomach for the first time in months.  Finally, it dawned on me what I had to do, and I was frankly surprised no one else had thought of it.

I waited for the perfect moment, and then, finally, it happened.  One of the women with a large bag of birdseed looked away for a moment.  A moment was all I needed.  A blur, I flew up just high enough and landed right inside the bag!  No other bird could fit in there, and I had all the seed my stomach could hold, all to myself!  Oh, the joy!  Ha ha!  I had been afraid the woman would drop the bag in surprise and ruin my plans, but the weather was so nice that she had to laugh with surprise and joy.  Ah, this was the best kind of pigeon trapping I could have imagined.  All the food I wanted, a happy human, and an exit whenever I felt like leaving.

Bats

Bat Trapping

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Bat Trapping as a family is usually not an organized, pre-planned event, and it certainly is a terrible thing to attempt in the middle of the night.

A family member wakes up in the middle of the night, and heads for the kitchen, visions of last night’s enchilada’s dancing in their head.  Leftovers sound pretty great at 3 in the morning when you can’t sleep.  A light switch is flicked on and he walks over to the refrigerator, grabs out the pan and sets it on the counter.  It isn’t until he turns to the silverware drawer that he sees it, a large black smudge on the wall that wasn’t there before he went to bed.  Then, the smudge moves, and he realizes it’s a bat.

His yell wakes everyone else up, and they come running into the kitchen, only to have mixed emotions when they find out what the yelling was about.  An older brother mocks him for being scared of something so little.  A little sister screams even louder than he did.  Mom shudders, wondering if it flew into any of the bedrooms while her children were sleeping.  Dad’s mad and wants to trap the bat so he can get back to sleep.

Of course, no one is thinking very clearly that early in the morning, so the family becomes a living, breathing Laurel and Hardy movie, running around, waving things, throwing things, bumping into each other.  Through it all, the bat just sits there on the wall, oblivious to everything.

Finally, Dad takes charge and calms everyone down as best he can.  He grabs up a towel, and heads towards the bat.  The moment he gets close, though, the bat is off and flying.  People scream, but no one wants to admit it was them.  Dad runs through the kitchen into the front room, following the bat with his trusty old towel.  Someone turns on the light to the front room, which just causes the bat to fly around more frantically.  More screams.  Big brother thinks he’s being helpful when he comes running in with a large plastic tote, waving it around, and bonking into Dad and his towel.  No one is quite sure what either Dad or big brother intend on doing with the bat, armed insufficiently as they are.

Finally, little sister brings in a butterfly net and waits until the bat has landed on a wall again. She hands it to Dad, who creeps up to the wall, intent on bat trapping.  He slams the butterfly net over the bat and Mom asks, “Now what’re you going to do with it?”  Slowly, unsure of himself, Dad maneuvers the net until the bat is trapped within.  He opens the door and throws his new bat trap, bat inside, out into the front lawn, and jumps back into the house, slamming the door behind him.

It took a while for everyone to calm down enough to go back to bed, for the rest of what was left of the night.  Everyone hoped that bat would find its way out of the net and back into the open sky, but no one slept very soundly until they could go out and make sure their bat trap had worked.

Feral Cats

Feral Cat Removal

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My husband and I love to travel, and one thing we’ve noticed is there is a huge need for feral cat removal all around the world.

We’re not your standard American tourists, who stick to bus tours, museums, gift shops and well-known monuments.  We love to walk off the beaten track, strolling into neighborhoods and going where the locals like to hang out.  In our opinion, it’s the best way to see the world, see how someone else lives.

And, we have seen how feral cats are a big problem wherever you live.  Some places have worse problems than others.  Maui has a large feral cat population.  They love to hang out in alleys behind restaurants, munching on free food and the rodents that come to rummage in the trash.  In Tunisia, it’s crazy.  Wild cats roam around the streets, nosing through garbage, tracking disease and fleas and ticks wherever they go.  It seems odd that no one seems to think of feral cat removal in some places.

After a long trip, we love coming home.  Our bed just seems softer, our home more cozy.  We unpack our suitcases, exhausted and ready for a long night’s rest.  Then, in the middle of the night, we’re awakened by a nerve-jarring “rawrrrr-rawrrrrr-hisss.”  Apparently, we have a feral cat problem right in our own neighborhood, and they’re out there fighting and hissing and tracking disease and all over our own subdivision.   We love our neighbors, but can they be serious, setting out food and shelter for the wild cats roaming our streets?  We love cats as much as they do, but if you don’t provide food and shelter, the wild ones will find it somewhere else!

What’s worse, they love to leave their garage door open just a little, just to give the wild cats a warm place to sleep and have their litters.  When the kittens are born, they’re just allowed to wander in and out of their garage.  The cats make a toilet out of our garden, and spray our walls to mark their territory.

We desperately wish our neighbors would at least have the courtesy to trap and neuter or spay the wild cats they feed and house.  That way, the problem would be reduced.  We are seriously considering calling a feral cat removal service ourselves, asking them to be discreet in their efforts at trapping.  We’d hate ending up in a fight with our neighbors over cats that don’t even belong to us, but we’ve seen how bad the issue can be in cities all over the world.  Please don’t let it happen here!

Woodpeckers

Get Rid of Woodpeckers

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Woodpecker
A woodpecker causing damage to the side of a house.
(Artwork by Sharon Davis. Contact us for her contact info.)

It is a beeeeautiful day to be alive – who on earth would want to get rid of woodpeckers? It’s sunny but not too warm, there are gentle breezes to soar upon, and lots of wonderful bugs flying and crawling everywhere.  The bushes are full of gorgeous bright berries.  Yes, siree, it is a marvelous day.

I stride to the end of the branch and cock my head.  I’m hungry, and there are so many choices before me.  I glide down to a nearby bush, grab a berry or two to swallow whole, and then get back to my tree to look for the best and most beautiful insects.  My eye spots a bee, zeroing in on a house, and I watch to see where it lands.  My wings spread and I swoop off my branch and onto the breeze, up, up.  My feet grip the side of the house and I grab the bee up in my beak.  Juicy!

Hmmmm.  I move my feet around on the house and take a tentative peck.  Yes, yes, that gives very nicely.  I cock my head again and assess my find.  First, my pecks are making delightful holes into a wall that gives way, not easily, but well enough.  If I work at it, I might just get through to the other side and find a warm cozy place to nest.  Second, I hear the happy sound of bees.  Obviously, they’ve decided to make this house their home as well.  Oh Ho!  A place to make my own with its own food supply.  Does it get any better than this?

Over the next few days, I breakfast on bright red berries in the morning and then snack on bees throughout the day as I make several holes in the walls, looking for a way through to the other side.  My droppings are making streaks of bright red and brown down the side of the house.  This is truly going to be my house.

Unfortunately, there may be other obstacles to overcome.  Not everyone enjoys my percussion as I try to tap my way through to the warm attic.  Somewhere in the house, a dog is barking at me as I proceed.  Every now and then, someone charges out of the house yelling about how to get rid of woodpeckers, but I just fly away until they go back inside, and then I resume my work.  Once I set my mind to something, I just can not let it go!  Besides, with a feast of bees and this glorious wall to tap full of holes, why would I want to go anywhere else?

Once a mouse climbed up and checked out one of my bigger holes.  I guess I’m not picky about my neighbors.  If a family of mice wants to use a hole to get into the attic, too, I guess that would be okay.  As long as they kept to themselves!  This is going to be a lovely neighborhood.  Unless, of course, someone decides to get rid of woodpeckers.

Porcupines

Porcupine Removal

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As a vet, it was one of the worst cases I’d seen of porcupine quill removal gone wrong. The poor dog had abscesses all over its chest, muzzle and even his tongue.  The skin was more sensitive where the pus-filled cavities lay just under the surface, and warmer to the touch. His body was trying to fight off the little pockets of infection, but it was obvious the dog was in pain.

His owners had tried to remove all the quills with pliers at home after the boxer had chased the porcupine down and tried to catch it.  All he got was a face full of quills.  The family had calmed the dog down, and attempted to pull each quill out one by one, figuring the remaining barbs would work their way out.  Unfortunately, they didn’t know the barbs are shaped in such a way that they usually work their way inward, forming abscesses and sometimes working their way in so deeply they penetrate organs.  Yes, dogs are tough, but quills that keep working their way inward into the body are painful, no matter how tough you are.

The owners had thought they had a deer problem, and had no idea they needed porcupine removal.  They noticed the bark was pulled away from the bottom of the trunks of their trees, and many plants in their beautiful garden were eaten.  They had found portions of the wooden handles of their tools gnawed away, teeth marks in one of the support beams on their children’s playhouse, and holes in one of the tires of the four-wheeler.  It never occurred to them that these were all caused by the same animal, the porcupine.  Porcupines love to chew on wood, and anything salty.  The four-wheeler’s tires had salt from the roadways salted after a snow storm and attracted the spiny animal.  Once their dog came yelping to the back door, impaled with over 200 quills around his mouth and chest, though, they finally figured out they had a porcupine problem.

They’d held the dog down, gotten out a pair of pliers, and started tugging.  Not a pleasant experience for the poor pet.  Porcupine quills are like feather shafts, and can splinter if handled incorrectly.  And, when some of the quills broke, the barbs just started working their way in deeper, eventually causing a great deal more pain and infection.

I had to put the dog under anesthesia, just to get him to relax the muscles enough for me to pull each quill out.  We scheduled an ultrasound and later surgery to remove the quills that had moved in deeper.  Fortunately, the quills hadn’t gone in so deep as to touch any organs.

I recommended the family not attempt porcupine removal themselves, as it might end up as disastrous as removing the quills themselves.  The best way to ensure the job is done right is to call a professional.

Raccoons

Removing Raccoons

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Raccoons in attic
Raccoons in your attic.
(Artwork by Sharon Davis. Contact us for her contact info.)

Who would think of removing raccoonsfirst thing in the morning??

The comforting smell of fresh brewed coffee makes it way through the house in the early hours of the morning.  Alarms are softly buzzing in different bedrooms.  Everyone is sluggishly moving about their morning routines, getting ready for the hustle and bustle of a normal day.  Someone turns on the TV while Mom is scrambling eggs.  Talk centers around homework, after school activities and what the general schedule is for the day.

Suddenly, someone says, “Shhhh, shhhhh!  Listen!”  Everyone stops talking and looks awkwardly at each other while trying to figure out what they’re listening for.  “What . . . “ Dad says, but he’s quickly shushed.  There, softly, everyone hears it.  A quiet scrabbling coming from right above their heads.  Then, a small squeak.             Someone volunteers to run outside and see if there’s anything on the roof, but nothing is spotted.  The scrabbling reoccurs.  Dad sighs.  “Must be something in the crawl space.”

Suddenly the day isn’t normal anymore.

Dad gets out the ladder, grabs a flashlight and climbs up into the small hole in the ceiling.  He shines the flashlight around every corner, and almost misses it, but there!  A shiny flash of eyes staring back at him from above the kitchen.  One set of eyes?  No, more.

Dad comes back down the ladder where everyone else is watching expectantly.  “We’re going to have to get help.  I think there’s raccoons up there.”

Everyone bursts into exclamations.  “How did they get up there?”  “Why our house?”  “Come on, Dad, you can get ‘em!”  But, Mom walks over to the computer, gets the number for removing raccoons, and calls.

When the raccoon removalserviceman arrives, he verifies there’s a mother raccoon and her pups up in the attic.  They’re nesting on the opposite end of the house, far away from the crawlspace access, so he suggests the best way to remove the raccoons is to cut a small hole in the ceiling close to their nest.  He’s going to reach in and remove them one by one.

Mom’s worried about the mess.  Dad’s worried about having to patch up the hole afterward.  But, they decide messes can be cleaned up, holes can be patched, but those raccoons must be removed.  The small hole is cut.

The brave serviceman climbs up a ladder, wearing heavy gloves and armed with nothing more than a mirror.  The mirror lets him see where the raccoons are.  He looks, retracts the mirror, and sticks his arm up into the hole.  A short time later, one pup is removed.

“AWWWWW!” says everyone, including Dad.

One by one, the adorable raccoon pups are removed and placed carefully into a bag.  Soon, the bag is wriggling and squeaking.  Although these are pests that have invaded their home, the family can’t get over how cute they are.  Still, they’re happy to have them out of the house.

Removing mamma raccoonisn’t as easy.  It requires a specially devised noose, but she’s removed, spitting and growling and unhurt.  She’s carefully loaded into the truck, along with her pups.

All of a sudden, the house is quiet again and the family goes back to their routine activities.  They still love talking about their little raccoon family!

Squirrels

Squirrel Trap

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Building a squirrel trap? Ah, teenagers in summer.  They have eager minds looking for new ways to explore the world around them, to enrich their communities, and they love to fill the hours by helping around the house.  At least, that’s what we’d like to think a group of teenagers on the East coast were thinking when they decided to build a squirrel trap out of nothing more than a rock in their backyard.  Most likely, they were bored.

Their squirrel trap was simple to build – pry up a rock from the stone walkway in the backyard, dig a shallow hole underneath, prop up the rock and tie a string to the props.  Place a nut underneath and wait.

It wasn’t long before a greedy squirrel bounded up and stopped, sniffing the surrounding area.  Was this too good to be true, a nut just sitting there for the taking?!  The group of teenagers held their breath, waiting to see if this could possibly work.  Cautiously, the squirrel circles the nut, keeping most of its body free and clear of the overhanging rock, ready to run at a moment’s notice.  What was that noise?!  It leaps to the side, ears pricked, tail twitching, ready to run to safety.  Waiting, watching, the nut is still sitting there looking oh, so very good.  The squirrel must make sure it’s safe, but that free and easily obtainable food is . . . just . . . sitting there.  Whiskers quivering, it tries to overcome the temptation, but in the end, must succumb.  One more cautious circling of the precious treat, and he creeps ever so carefully into the shallow pit.

As soon as his tail clears the rock, SNAP!  The teenagers laugh and whoop!  They can’t believe it actually worked!  Everyone runs to get a better view, noisily clamoring down the stairs, slamming open the door and running outside, jostling each other.  Now what?

Creeping up to the rock, one brave teenage boy grabs a small length of twine, winds the ends around his hands, and carefully eases the twine under the squirrel trap. His friends are literally giggling with delight.  The moment he lifts an end of the rock, the squirrel leaps into air and runs to safety, a fuzzy brown blur.  The group’s giggles turn into raucous laughter.  “No way!”  “I didn’t even see it, where’d it go?”  “It’s like a squirrel ninja!”

Were they trying to learn more about the natural world?  Were they just trying to rid the neighborhood and home of a pest?  Or, were they very simply, bored and wanted to see if they could trap a squirrel?  Their parents have to wonder what they will think of next, and can only hope they won’t hurt themselves or get into any trouble.

Bees

Honeybee Problem

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As much as I was happy we were finally taking care of our honeybee problem, it hurt me to watch it happen.  We’ve lived in this home for years, and a couple of years ago, we started noticing a few more bees than usual were hanging around our property.  It was great for our fruit trees, I’ll admit, and we got some great yield the last two years, but when our friends and family had to duck and weave to get to the front door, we knew we had a serious honeybee problem, and it was time to finally do something about it.

My son wanted to take care of it himself, even though we had no idea where the actual hive was.  He swore he could save us money, but I couldn’t stand the thought of my son up against all those bees.  He could get seriously hurt, falling off a ladder or getting stung.  No, I wanted a true professional honeybee removal company to take care of it.  They’d be able to find the hive faster, make sure all of the honeybees were removed and do it much safer than my inexperienced, but well-intentioned son could.

So, I was relieved when the truck drove up, full of equipment and a couple of experienced young men.  They easily found the hive in one of the decorative stucco-covered pillars under the deck that ran the full length of the house.  I couldn’t believe how close the hive had been to where we eat, sleep and live.  How did we let it go on this long?

I must admit, though, my heart dropped when I realized what these honeybee removal technicians had to do to get to the hive.  They broke out the rotary saw and cut into the stucco all the way down to the wood, bees swarming everywhere.  I knew it would be repaired, but it was still a shock.  But I was not prepared for the shock I got when he pulled the stucco off.  I’ve never seen so many bees in one place.  There must have been thousands.  Wax, long-dead bees and honey dripped and lined the inside of the pillar.  The air was thick with bees and the sound of their anger at being disturbed.  Bit by bit, they pulled pieces of honeycomb out of the pillar and placed them carefully in a special box.  Honeybees were carefully vacuumed into a special device and then also deposited into the box.  They took special care with the queen bee, making sure she was unharmed.  My son gave me a look that said he was grateful I didn’t take him up on his offer to do this by himself.

Our honeybee problem was extensive, because I’d let it go on so long without having them removed.  Now, after a lot of damage and several hours, they were now going to live somewhere else, far, far away from our home!