Will the wild creatures please go away

Yet another "Stodghill Says So" blog:

Okay, this has gone far enough. I love all the little critters of the world, those who know me understand that. I love the big ones, too, but prefer them when seen from far away or while they are behind bars.
So, feeling as I do, it didn't upset me a bit when the coyotes came back to this area. Nor was I concerned when the rattlesnakes and copperheads decided global warming made this a fine place to live. The big rattlesnake hunt of 1940 had killed 106 of them and that was the last seen of them in these parts. Until recently.
The foxes never did leave, being wily little fellows who knew how to hide out. I'm not sure how they felt when cougars were spotted in the neighborhood but I wasn't too thrilled about it.
Then came the bears. Just why they found Northeast Ohio more to their liking than the mountains of Pennsylvania is anybody's guess. Reminded me of the time when we lived in upstate New York and bears roamed the hills around our house. Not content with that, one of them decided to meander down Main Street in Oneonta at the height of the Christmas shopping season.
This in turn brought memories of the day an elephant strolled through downtown Peru, Indiana. He had escaped from the winter headquarters of a circus. Now you would think that finding an elephant would not be too difficult but apparently that is not true because he had been free for a week or more.
But I digress. The latest event in the animal kingdom's determination to reclaim the land where they one lived without human interference came this week when a panther was spotted nearby. That's right, a panther. Even the most ardent admirers of big cats have never claimed that panthers enjoy the company of humans or purr contentedly when given a pat on the head.
Now we've lost our insects but gained cougars, bears and panthers. Hardly a fair trade off in my book.
So what's left? Only the wolves. So far none have been found in the Akron area although I have seen a couple of large, furry dogs from a distance. Who knows?

Your blog posts reminds me af a passage in my book, The Power of Persuasion:

The holiday to the United States, however, was arranged eventually. I decided to book a tour of New England in early August. Although I’d visited the West side of North America on three separate occasions, I’d never seen the East side of the country.
The year after I spent six months in New Zealand, I’d taken a long haul flight to Vancouver, for a tour of the northwest. From Vancouver, I visited Vancouver Island: the largest and most diversified of the islands lying off the Pacific Coast of North America.
The scenery on the island was spectacular, with ocean beaches, magnificent mountains, expansive lakes, rivers, waterfalls and valleys. To make the most of my visit, I was even adventurous enough to explore the wilderness areas to try to spot deer, cougars and black bears – at a distance! Along the coastal stretches, I looked for grey whales, killer whales, seals and porpoises. I also came across bird watchers (of the feathered kind) looking for cormorants, grebes, sea ducks, herons, plovers and sandpipers, and hundreds of other bird species.
To reach this wild life sanctuary, I had to take a ninety-five minute ferry trip across the Strait of Georgia. I travelled about forty kilometres south of Vancouver by coach and took the British Columbia Ferry from Tsawwassen to Swartz Bay. From there, the bus took me the thirty-two kilometers south to Victoria, the capital of British Columbia. The main purpose of my trip was to visit the university. During my short stay at the University of Victoria, I made contact with a faculty member who shared my research interests.
This contact led to three more visits to the university. I enjoyed all the trips and made good use of the chip trail around the university campus – a very enjoyable jogging circuit – until someone told me that a cougar had been seen close by. Wild life soon loses its fascination if it encroaches on human terrain. Overcoming my fear, I did use the chip trail on all three visits to Victoria and, fortunately, I never did spot a cougar.

We have cougars here, and bears. In fact, the bears strip the apple trees while foraging for winter fat storage. The bears and cougar also love young deer, which we used to have an abundance of. The bear don't take full grown deer, but will take a young fawn if they find one. The cougar are less discriminating, and in their 50 mile range, they will take anything that moves.

People don't want anything killed, but as the cougars and bears invade suburbia, they change their minds. Some of the towns hereabouts have issued warnings like: 'Don't let your children or pets outside unless you are with them' and 'Don't feed your animals outdoors' (like I am going to bring the chickens and cows in the house to eat. Yeah, right!)

Bears can be a real pain in the butt and cougars are cats and I hate cats. I should have mentioned that around here cougars are tan or tawny colored and panthers are bigger and coal black. As the pioneers pushed west as far as the Western Reserve Territory in Northern Ohio they were not greeted too kindly by the animals or the Indians. On the other hand, they weren't too kind to the animals and Indians.

You are absolutely right, JoElle. It is unfortunate that humans seem to have no respect for anything except other humans and sometimes not even that.
The poor animals that are coming around here, how desperate they must be for a place to live when they venture into an area populated by millions of people.

In our house in the woods up north, there are bears, wolves, and sometimes wild cats, although we have never seen one. Further north there are moose and we are waiting to see one around our house, with us inside of course.

I have seen a wolf in our driveway, quite a beautiful creature with haunting eyes. But there is enough wild land still there are these creatures.

Carol

A fine example of us living in the animals' natural habitat. I love the big wild cats - I would not want one in my neighbourhood exactly, but they are a fascinating study of perseverance and tenacity.
My closest interaction with a bear was when we were camping in the mountains. The poor bear was startled out of his berry feast and actually chased by a bunch of tourists who wanted a close up picture.

Here, populations of the cougar are escalating due to a sharp decrease in human hunting. Momma cougar mates about every two years and has a litter anywhere from 1 to 6 kits.

By the time they are two, she has banished them from her range (usually a 50 square mile area). As the populations rise, the young kits are pushed out of established ranges (they are solitary animals). This means that the young are turned loose on human populations as they are shoved out of their parent's and their neighbors ranges. And they have not learned to fear humans when they are very young.

It seems that the bears are seeking more land also, although they are not as prolific as the big cats. Bears are pretty timid. At least our small black bears are, as long as you don't appear to threaten a sow's young and the bear is not wounded or generally having a bad day.

Coyote populations were at such an all time high a few years back, that there was a bounty on them. They were chasing planes on the runway in our capital city of Olympia!!

We often hear the coyotes singing at night, but seldom see them or the cougar or bear. As long as they don't eat my animals, I really don't care where they are and can live with them; even if it means packing a gun for protection when I'm outside. They are all stunningly beautiful creatures. And smart, too!!

There used to be bears living in these woods where we live. No more! I have no idea what I would do if bears came up to eat out of the feeders like the cranes and the deer do. I think Wooffer would faint! He is brave, but also a little older. Jazzmin would probably get herself chased and for ever be a-scared of bears. We would watch out the window together, Wooffer, Sara, Jazzmin and I. I can just hear the barking now! They do not go silently, that is for sure.

Love,
Betty

I don't mind the big ones. It's the little ones that bug me. Like mosquitos that wait until the light's out, then buzz right in my ear. (and might be carrying denque fever)

Last spring I was sitting around in my t shirt and kept feeling a tickle on my back. This being the tropics, I assumed it was sweat running down my back. But I couldn't pull the shirt tight or make it stop. Finally I just pulled the shirt off and flipped it across the room. on the way a two inch scorpion fell out and charged at me. (What we call a terminal decision)

I don't mind spiders and snakes or anything much. But scorpions really creep me out. So of course I live beside a vacant lot that crawls with them. I've had them in my bed, where one actually stung me just for rolling over.

They're evil. Just looking at them shows their rotten attitude.

Ooh! I like the new signature, lin. Classy!

Congratulations Betty on becoming a four star member!

I live in a sizeable town --a place across the lake from Seattle and imagine my surprise when a coyote came into my yard and tried to devour the neighbor's cat

I grew up in the woods and was accustomed to hearing the coyotes, but they never ventured near our house.

Times have changed.

The wildest creature coming into my house in recent times was a rat. One night a couple of years ago it sneaked into the kitchen and my wife screamed!!! Then my mum screamed an all!!!

It ran around the kitchen, hiding behind the fridge, then underneath the cupboards then in the corner of the sink unit. Then I rounded it up with a ... I don't know what you call it... that brush-like thing with a metal handle that you scoop up the dust when you're vacuuming the house. I used that to hit the beast a couple of times on its head. It had long fangs and it bit the metal of the thing I was hitting it with, making a loud squealing sound at the same time that I was hitting it. I was wearing sandalls and it jumped and tried to go for my exposed feet. Eventually it started getting dizzy and weak. Then there was blood all over the kitchen floor to be mopped up. I didn't want to catch Wild's disease. This rat was a proper disease carrier that my friend said would even eat sh*t and live down in the sewer... and find its way into your house up the toilet pipe or even eat its way through solid brickwork!

After that night, my friend offered me a revolver to keep in the house as more rats came off the railway line and ran around in my garden. I didn't want the gun, as they'd just become illegal and didn't want to risk getting arrested.

Ahad,

Wow! That was quite an exciting story!!

Carol

Ahad,

That was a scary story-the only thing I can think of worse was what hapened to our friends who moved to Texas for a short time.

They discovered a ratltesnake under their bed.
They moved bsck to WA again very qucikly.

Moral of the story: DO NOT MOVE TO TEXAS! STAY IN WA!

How terrible, Ahad! Rats and mice can collapse their skeletons somehow. Perhaps they are made of soft cartilege? Anyhow, a mouse only need a hole the size of a pencil eraser, and rats need only the size of a dime to squeeze through. Any opening in the walls or around pipes and wires will allow them access to your house. And you are right, even the cutest of these little critters can be carrying disease.

Most folks here use poison, but it isn't practical if you have other critters or kids. There are other ways as well. Check your house for ways they can get in and button them up with caulking or something to eliminate the holes. You may be surprised at how many there are when you go looking!

And if you use poison, then they seem to die inside your walls and smell terrible.

We had a rattlesnake in our house in South Carolina. My husband captured it with a kitchen utensil and took it outside.

We lived in Texas when my husband was in the Marines and one of the first lectures he went to was to watch for coral snakes, that some wife thought one was her child's jump rope and did not survive. We also had black widow spiders between the screens and windows, cockroaches, and a horned toad that watched me carefully when I hung up the clothes to dry outside.

Carol

Ahad,
I'm with you in killing rats. You're lucky it didn't bite you.
I go one step further and include snakes. There is a story behind the snake thing that gives me nightmares, but we'll stick to the rats. James Cagney must have had some experience with them since he frequently said,"You dirty Rat!"

Carol,

You are a true survivor. Western WA has no rattlesnakes--I've had no rats in my house or black widows, no horned toads observing my actions.

All we have is an occasional earthquake and a mountain blowing up. Incessant rain is another pitfall, oh well, life cannot be perfect.

Alice,

I am so glad you came to this forum. You add pizzazz and humor. I hope you stick around.

Carol

I've been dealing with squirrels in my attic for some time now. But today I went out and bought a trap to catch what I think is the last one. I had a bigger trap, but the squirrels are too light to set off the trap.

The first two babies came through a hole behind the shower where the plumber cut out to install new fixtures, and they fell into the toilet and drowned. But before the first one drowned, my son saw him sitting on the hook behind the bathroom door. He called to me downstairs, but by the time I got there, the baby squirrel was gone through the wall again. But that night, the baby squirrel went swimming and didn't make it. His brother (or sister) followed the next night into the toilet. I heard the splash, but I wasn't going to look until I was sure it wasn't still alive.

But come fall, there was a new litter of two. My daughter heard them running around in the attic. She pulled on the door and there was one looking down at her. She screamed and released the door, and squished it, with half hanging down. She called to me, but it was late, and I wanted to be sure it wasn't alive before I had to deal with it. I told her we'd wait until morning to deal with it. It was definitely dead by then.

But now there's one more up there. I'm going to catch him in the trap tonight. He was gnawing on something over my bedroom last night. I've heard him scurrying overhead, but now he's gnawing. He's got to go!!

First, I would like to say that I am so glad that My Alice is here.
Sometimes, she is the only person on earth who can see my point of view.

Helen, I am a person who has a bond with squirrels. They talk to me and tell me their troubles. You may wonder what troubles a squirrel family may have. It is not just that the acorns are ready only in the fall, there is all that planting of corn and sunflower seeds for the next year to deal with.

Here, in the south, the winters are not that cold. I imagine that your squirrels are just happy to find shelter. Perhaps you could put up a little condo with heat and pad the whole thing with cedar shavings, make a big feeder where you put walnuts and hazel nuts, some pecans and English walnuts, lots of sunflower seeds and some whole corn, maybe some dried apricots. If you could play some Brahms, it would enhance the whole squirrel experience.


In this woods where we live, the squirrels read the signs long ago. My neighbors say they do not have squirrels or birds that they notice. hahahahahah.

They are all here, eating and resting and singing and flying.
I love that. We have a lot of trees and it is warm.

Helen, go out and tell all those squirrels about Wooffer's Woods!

Love,
Betty

Carol, Helen,, and Betty,

I am honored to be among such creative geniuses--hope some of it will rub off onto me.