Coyote Nesting Near Our Property - Concern for Kitties

[Ivan Seeking]

Skunks love to eat grubs, including the larvae of Japanese Beetles and other destructive pests. Never harm a skunk if you like to garden - they work all night long for you. For every little hole they leave in the lawn, there is at least one or more grubs gone. I love skunks.

I have to credit Zooby with correcting my approach to skunks. They do get thick around here some years. You even may recall that one year we had several families living on the property! I posted a picture of one mom with seven babies.

Last year we had a HUGE hornet's nest right outside the back door of the house. I would bet there were many thousands of hornets in there. I pondered the situation for a long time and was planning a strategy to clean them out. Then, one morning I got up and the nest was gone. I have a skunk to thank for that one.

 

[turbo]

Last spring, a bear tore down both of my suet-feeders and mangled them pretty badly. I really couldn't get upset, because (s)he cleaned out a huge nest of white-faced hornets (the worst stinging insects ever!) one cold night the previous fall, which let me get safely into that blackberry patch to pick berries.

 

[physics girl phd]

I have to credit Zooby with correcting my approach to skunks. They do get thick around here some years. You even may recall that one year we had several families living on the property! I posted a picture of one mom with seven babies.

My best friend in high-school had a picture of a baby skunk from her family's property inside her locket. She went through boys too quickly to keep a picture of one of them in there... and people always wanted to see the picture inside. This way she always had a picture to show them of something just like a boy... cute, but probably liable to end up stinking.

I know what I'd keep inside a locket... a picture of Little Tyke! (presently swooning over his kitten cuteness).

 

[hypatia]

Pull out all the BIG guns to save Little Tyke! Do what ever it takes, omg he's just sooo cute

 

[Ivan Seeking]

hes just sooo cute

She; when we named her we thought she was a he.

She adores me. I've never had a cat who was so attached. Many days she will not let me out of her sight.

Anyway, yes, threaten my Little Tyke and I break out the heavy artillery!

 

[dlgoff]

Coyotes require immediate intervention. As far as I know, they are always shot.

Get a coyote call (rabbit scream) and try to get that sucker to come to you.

 

[turbo]

Get a coyote call (rabbit scream) and try to get that sucker to come to you.

That works! My cousin's husband night-hunts for coyotes and that's what he uses. Not surprisingly, he also calls in Great Horned owls that come in very quietly and scare the crap out of him. He now has a roof on his blind.

 

[dlgoff]

...Great Horned owls that come in very quietly and scare the crap out of him.

Oh yea. I had a Great Horned owl nail a rabbit about 10ft from my sleeping bag on a camping trip in New Mexico. Scared the crap out of me.

 

[SticksandStones]

Wait, wait, wait - are you telling me skunks and bears eat hornets? How can I get one of these majestic creatures on my property?

 

[turbo]

Wait, wait, wait - are you telling me skunks and bears eat hornets? How can I get one of these majestic creatures on my property?

Create a friendly habitat, and let them come to you. I don't use any pesticides, so I have to put up with infestations of Japanese beetles and other pests, but once they are here, the skunks move in and help me, and they are not getting killed off by eating grubs contaminated by pesticides. As for the bears, they were in the area before I got here, and I think that I have an individual (male or female) denning on the back side of my 10 acres, based on the frequency of track-sightings and the disappearances of protein-rich hives on cold nights when the hornets are torpid, and the destruction of my suet-cages in the spring when bears are ravenous for high-fat foods.

Edit: Black bears are very shy, and it's tough to get near enough to them to even spot them unless you are very woods-wise, or you have lulled them by exploiting their late-fall need for calories (baiting). I have been hunting and fishing for over 45 years in some pretty wild areas, and I have only seen a couple of bears in the wild, though I tend to move quietly through the woods. People who walk loudly, talk, snap branches, etc, drive away so much wildlife that they never get to see lots of stuff - a mother otter feeding her kits a trout, a baby moose taking its first steps, etc.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Oh yea. I had a Great Horned owl nail a rabbit about 10ft from my sleeping bag on a camping trip in New Mexico. Scared the crap out of me.

Funny! I bet that would darken the shorts a bit.

Has anyone ever heard a moutain lion? The first time I heard one, honestly, I thought someone was being murdered in the woods. I immediately thought of someone being stabbed to death.

 

[Danger]

Has anyone ever heard a moutain lion?

There was a situation in BC a few decades back, wherein a kid about 10 years old got chased by a cougar. He stumbled, lost one of his gumboots, then recovered and ran home. The neighbourhood got together and went hunting. They found the cat and shot it. Upon autopsy, it turned out that the only thing in Tabby's stomach was the kid's gumboot. It had been starving to death.

 

[OAQfirst]

Funny! I bet that would darken the shorts a bit.

Has anyone ever heard a moutain lion? The first time I heard one, honestly, I thought someone was being murdered in the woods. I immediately thought of someone being stabbed to death.

Like this? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKw4OFAu1WM&feature=related

Edit: Just noticed that the photos can be a bit graphic for anyone of sensitive nature.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

There was a situation in BC a few decades back, wherein a kid about 10 years old got chased by a cougar. He stumbled, lost one of his gumboots, then recovered and ran home. The neighbourhood got together and went hunting. They found the cat and shot it. Upon autopsy, it turned out that the only thing in Tabby's stomach was the kid's gumboot. It had been starving to death.

Wow, and that distracted the lion long enough for the kid to get away?

 

[Danger]

Wow, and that distracted the lion long enough for the kid to get away?

Yeah. Weird, huh? I can only assume that there was enough of the kid's scent in it that the cat mistook it for meat.

 

[turbo]

Funny! I bet that would darken the shorts a bit.

Has anyone ever heard a moutain lion? The first time I heard one, honestly, I thought someone was being murdered in the woods. I immediately thought of someone being stabbed to death.

If you have ever heard the night-call of the Green Heron, you would call 911 immediately to save the woman who was screaming. If you've got a green-horn camping and you hear that call, you can have some fun, but you'd better let them in on the "secret" pretty soon or you'll be up all night babysitting a bag of raw nerves.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Like this? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKw4OFAu1WM&feature=related

Edit: Just noticed that the photos can be a bit graphic for anyone of sensitive nature.

That sounds pretty close, but the screech part was much longer... and louder. Definitely much louder! [unless you happen to run your audio through a good sound system...]. It was waaaaay to close for comfort. Not something you want to hear while walking through the woods in the dark.

 

[mgb_phys]

In the past 100 years, a total of five people have been killed by cougar attacks in B.C. All but one of these fatal cougar attacks occurred on Vancouver Island. ... there were 29 non-fatal attacks in B.C - 20 of which occurred on Vancouver Island. The vast majority of these attacks were on children under the age of 16.

http://www.britishcolumbia.com/information/details.asp?id=11

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Yeah. Weird, huh? I can only assume that there was enough of the kid's scent in it that the cat mistook it for meat.

Not so weird, I'm pretty sure that this is mentioned as a technique to escape from situations like that. Ideally you can throw him a steak.

In fact, that is true. I remember this now from my days as a Boy Scout. Many campers will put themselves between something like a bear, and their food. The people then get attacked when all the bear really wanted was the food. I remember one story about a guy at Yosemite that decided to keep his bacon safe by putting it under his sleeping bag, with him in the bag!

 

[Ivan Seeking]

http://www.britishcolumbia.com/information/details.asp?id=11

I thought this was interesting.

Mountain lion attacks on people apparently increased dramatically since 1986. For example, in California, there were two fatal attacks in 1890 and 1909, and then no further attacks for 77 years, until 1986. From 1986 through 1995, nine verified attacks occurred, an average rate of almost one per year. Attacks were numerous enough to form a support group for attack victims, called California Lion Awareness (CLAW; Outside, 10/95).

http://tchester.org/sgm/lists/lion_attacks.html

But I know for a fact that this is not accurate. I can remember at least a few actual attacks through the 60s and 70s; and it was fairly common [maybe one set of sightings per year, all relating to the same animal] to hear of sightings in the outlying areas of Los Angeles. It may be that the information just wasn't tracked well.

 

[Danger]

Ideally you can throw him a steak.

If I could afford a steak, I wouldn't be tromping around out in the woods.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

I received this in an email this morning.

[URL=http://img26.imageshack.us/my.php?image=catfound.jpg][PLAIN]http://img26.imageshack.us/img26/7373/catfound.jpg[/URL][/PLAIN]

 

[Topher925]

LuL!

 

[mgb_phys]

I thought this was interesting.

Here they were blaming the rise in attacks on jogging. Most cougar attacks in BC/California are on children/young women joggers - to the cat's 'chase it' instinct anything smaller than it and running is dinner.

 

[Danger]

I received this in an email this morning.

I'm not sure, because of both the picture quality and the fact that we don't have them hereabouts, but is that an opossum?

 

[binzing]

I received this in an email this morning.

[URL=http://img26.imageshack.us/my.php?image=catfound.jpg][PLAIN]http://img26.imageshack.us/img26/7373/catfound.jpg[/URL][/PLAIN]

Oh. Wow. People just bottomed out the stupidity scale.

 

[binzing]

I'm not sure, because of both the picture quality and the fact that we don't have them hereabouts, but is that an opossum?

Yessum.

 

[dlgoff]

Not something you want to hear while walking through the woods in the dark.

You are very correct. Only once, and I hope never again, heard one scream out in the pasture (at night). It scared me so bad that the hair on the back of my neck stood up and my legs wouldn't move. Talk about stained undies.

 

[turbo]

You are very correct. Only once, and I hope never again, heard one scream out in the pasture (at night). It scared me so bad that the hair on the back of my neck stood up and my legs wouldn't move. Talk about stained undies.

Hey! Is that Nutella in your Fruit of the Looms?

 

[dlgoff]

Hey! Is that Nutella in your Fruit of the Looms?

It took a while for me to get moving before I could look. But yea; it looked a lot like this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Tartine_et_pot_de_Nutella.jpg"