Wildlife Control Ideas to Cope With Critters

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Where bats are concerned your wildlife control efforts needn't be lethal. Just seal cracks—they can get through even the tiniest opening—to keep them our of your home.
Where bats are concerned your wildlife control efforts needn't be lethal. Just seal cracks—they can get through even the tiniest opening—to keep them our of your home.
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Raccoons are cute little fellas, but they also are cunning omnivores that can do damage to your garden as well as your poultry flock.
Raccoons are cute little fellas, but they also are cunning omnivores that can do damage to your garden as well as your poultry flock.
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A live trap large enough for a full-size raccoon will help you manage a range of bothersome critters on your land.
A live trap large enough for a full-size raccoon will help you manage a range of bothersome critters on your land.
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Take the steps necessary to protect your flock of chickens from predators, such as hawks. There may be stiff fines for shooting endangered species.
Take the steps necessary to protect your flock of chickens from predators, such as hawks. There may be stiff fines for shooting endangered species.
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Beware! skunks have bad eyesight but good aim.
Beware! skunks have bad eyesight but good aim.
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Rats are prolific breeders and can eat about 50 pounds of grain a year.
Rats are prolific breeders and can eat about 50 pounds of grain a year.
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Possums look fierce but are rarely aggressive, preferring to play dead than fight.
Possums look fierce but are rarely aggressive, preferring to play dead than fight.

I’m a country person. Not a “40-acre homestead down a dirt road 10 miles from town” person but a “small town at the edge of the wilderness” person; I live on a half-acre homestead in a community of a few thousand people, adjacent to a national park. I built a home here in the early ’70s, and I’ve been reflecting lately on all the critters who’ve shared our homestead with us. I enjoy wildlife as much as the next guy, but like many things, only in moderation.

All around our place, fencing, netting, chicken wire, traps, potions, and tools are part and parcel of living at the edge of wilderness. We have to deter critters that want to eat our garden, kill our chickens, nest in the woodpile, burrow into our rafters, raid the pantry — you get the idea.

We’ve lived in northern California for 35 years and have many of the same animals found across the continent: rats, mice, skunks, raccoons, foxes, possums, bats, ants, termites, gophers, moles, hawks and others. They’re tolerable until they begin to pillage and destroy, and then we have to take action. In this ongoing dance, here are some effective methods of wildlife control for dealing with the invaders.

Rats and Mice

Oh yes! They have been part of the human equation from time immemorial and are survivors par excellence. (If we humans succeed in eliminating life on Earth, there’ll still be rats and cockroaches.) Rodents are immensely clever and adaptable, amazing in their ability to delicately remove food from a trap without springing it. We have chickens, with their feed spread on the ground, so rats relentlessly patrol the chicken coop and yard.

  • Published on Dec 23, 2008
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