Comments on: Cute, but Eeeeeeeevil

By: sammyo

sammyo — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 05:08:04 +0000

Ha, outside is nuth’n. In the walls of the bathroom is really weird, scary and annoying. The landlord had some work done on the roof and the carpenter left it OPEN overnight. Sealed it up the next day and that evening the small beast tried to dig down to the ground floor apartment. Ok, what the friggn dickens are the neighbors doing? No, that’s not people, OMFG, that’s one beeeg rat. Finally in the middle of the night he managed to claw through the upstairs folks kitchen roof, then found a corner in their living room. Took a few hours to get an animal control to come with a neck capture stick. Ruined their sofa, kinda like that picture of a lawn.

Now if we dumped the idiot leash laws and let big dogs run around the critters would head for the woods.

By: Dave Hall

Dave Hall — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 18:03:43 +0000

Lab Lemming Says:
“Just so y’all know, there is a fairly simple 2nd amendment solution to this kind of problem…”

Are you suggesting a well-regulated militia of raccoons?

It would make more sense to teach them how to lay sod correctly instead of calling them evil for bungling the job.

By: The Almighty Bob

The Almighty Bob — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 16:17:11 +0000

That was aimed at Low Math, by the way; my (in)coherence really is a wonder.

By: The Almighty Bob

The Almighty Bob — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 15:52:33 +0000

Considering that worms are an introduced species in North America, yours is probably the most pragmatic viewpoint. “,)

By: Ray Saunders

Ray Saunders — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 14:29:41 +0000

This thread cracks me up! We have become so divorced from the natural world that any manifestation of if ‘intrudes’ on what we are smug enough to call a Life Style but would be better called an Anti-Life style. Personally, I am delighted and thankful every time the animal kingdom reminds me how fragile and arbitrary a world we have created for ourselves. The little creatures and their big brothers bring a much-needed sense of perspective into our lives – if we let them.

By: Lab Lemming

Lab Lemming — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 22:22:06 +0000

Just so y’all know, there is a fairly simple 2nd amendment solution to this kind of problem…

By: Alan Boyle

Alan Boyle — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 02:38:17 +0000

The problem with raccoons (which is a *real* problem here on the Eastside, across the lake from Seattle) is that some folks have gotten into the habit of feeding them (or leaving catfood dishes out for them). This is like feeding the bears at Yellowstone … it already distorts the natural order of things. These critters might look cute, but they are nasty gangsters, especially when they set up shop in the neighborhood because of a human-tended gravy train. They’ve killed pets in our neighborhood, and even though they’re generally nocturnal, they almost killed our dog on a spring afternoon. Here’s the local TV story about it (some scenes may be upsetting):

http://www.king5.com/animals/news/stories/NW_080508WAB_raccoons_dog_attack_KC.1b8a7ee2.html

All-night talk radio might do the trick, but first make sure the neighbors aren’t putting food out for the little monsters. Once we were able to convince our neighbors that feeding the raccoons was uncool, the raccoon problem improved dramatically.

By: John R Ramsden

John R Ramsden — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 23:19:06 +0000

The little sods! (by which of course I mean the small lumps of turf those critters have pulled up)

I was driving past the REME barracks in Longmoor a year or two ago, and their front lawn literally looked like a lunar landscape of mole hills, and fact there were more hills than grass. Either they are field testing some new kind of landmine or they have the worst mole infestation ever.

Badgers are even worse though. My brother had a family of them tunneling away near his house, and his garage literally started tipping over and sinking into the ground so extensive were their underground galleries. Eventually he had to pay to have them humanely captured and “rehoused” in a nearby park where, touch wood, they seem content to remain (so far).

By: Low Math, Meekly Interacting

Low Math, Meekly Interacting — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 15:23:14 +0000

In the case of my neighborhood, human encroachment is only part of the puzzle. At the turn of the 20th century, almost the entirety of my town was clear-cut farmland, some for growing vegetables, most for dairy grazing. As it became cheaper to ship everything from more arable land in the Midwest than grow it locally (who knows if energy shortages will reverse that trend?), the farms were abandoned, and the forests returned. Hunting and loss of habitat had pretty much wiped out the local wildlife, and with hunting able to continue well into the 20th century, numbers rebounded slowly. The latter quarter of the 20th century saw residential development cut into the re-grown forests, but the increase in animal and bird populations actually lagged behind that trend, and can probably be attributed largely to reduction in hunting, and, quite possibly, climate change. Warmer New England winters and no large natural predators have likely produced the explosion in the white tail deer population, and it’s not a good thing for them or for us. Eventually, we can expect a local epidemic, like what they saw in Wisconsin, where most of the herd had to be slaughtered to halt the spread of wasting disease.

I don’t doubt that in some parts of the country troublesome animal-human interaction is a direct function of new exurban sprawl. But in my neck of the woods, the ecosystem was irrevocably altered literally centuries ago, and what we’re dealing with now is not what ought to be called “natural”, or some return to a more pristine state. I think it makes little sense to point fingers at those making complaints about unfortunate encounters with animals and claim they’re being ecologically insensitive without more information. The ecosystem was devastated long before we were born, in all likelihood, and the animal populations causing some of the trouble may not even be native to our region (possum were once a rarity up here, for instance, and we never saw tick infestations this great before). We’ve inherited an unstable system we don’t really understand, and things are going to swing about wildly before some equilibrium can be found.

By: Julianne

Julianne — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 07:35:24 +0000

Once
this all belonged
to them.

And given that raccoons are probably smarter than any of us, all this will probably be theirs again.

By: Yvette

Yvette — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 05:50:29 +0000

We had a problem with them when I was growing up at some point, so my dad got one of those humane traps. ‘Coons weren’t going for it, so every day my dad would add some other delicacy to make the trap more enticing…

And then the cat got into it. I really don’t remember how the rest of it ended, but that’s the important point.

By: Lawrence Crowell

Lawrence Crowell — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 04:23:01 +0000

One might try to look at this from the other side. It might be more accurate to say that these animals have a human problem, more than to say that “we” have a problem with pesky animals.

Lawrence B. Crowell

By: Neil B

Neil B — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 04:12:54 +0000

Nick, glad to see you here. I really get a sobering tickle out of your works on quantum mysteries. Maybe knowing it is difficult (or even impossible?) for humans to truly understand the fundamental nature of reality makes one humble? Perhaps one feels less superior to other animals then …

By: nick herbert

nick herbert — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 03:21:41 +0000

Once
this all belonged
to them.

By: TaoApe

TaoApe — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 01:16:42 +0000

Are you certain it was raccoons? Skunks love to do this as well. They are looking for grubs to eat. You can solve this by putting a little GrubEx or similar product on your lawn. This time of year, critters are trying to fatten up and find any kind of food that they can. If you lay sod, it is always wise to put down the GrubEx before you lay the sod, but you can use it anytime.

By: Lab Lemming

Lab Lemming — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 22:53:37 +0000

At least you don’t need to worry about grubs eating your lawn.

By: daisyrose

daisyrose — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 22:13:56 +0000

Peace full kingdom
I have often walked into my barn where my 4 donkeys – and cat were relaxing while a big fat raccoon ate the cat food — and what ever else – I was the only bad note in as I disturbed them.

By: Mandeep

Mandeep — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 22:11:02 +0000

Yes, yes it does ‘meet with my approval’ indeed — if that’s as far as it goes and you don’t get pushed over the edge and start machine gunning them at some point. ;-> (he says as he gnaws on some Endangered Species Chocolate with 10% of profits going to saving wolves). But again, i can understand the annoyance, we all need to figure out ways to deal with our less than welcome non-human fellow planetary passengers in some way or another at various times, certainly. I did once live trap a bunch of mice from our house and let them free far away — yes, maybe they then died being separated from their family and all, but i had given them a chance at least. Good luck anyway, and i’ll be interested in following the saga if you post about it again!

By: Jason Dick

Jason Dick — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 21:44:06 +0000

I don’t know, Julianne. I thought the “leave the radio playing outside all night” option sounded just plain awesome to me.

By: Julianne

Julianne — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 21:21:04 +0000

Any other way you could deal with this, fencing, other kinds of landscape they won’t dig up etc.?

I’m largely dealing with it by calling them names on the internet.

I believe that is a sufficiently ecological response as to meet your approval?