Where is everybody?

[Renata L.]

Renata--we called animal control to try to get rid of the raccoon and they told us they only do domestic animals! Couldn't believe it.

Ritzy, the same happened to us with an influx of coyotes in our suburban development. The raccoon went away when my husband (St Francis) stopped leaving food out for stray cats, birds and squirrels... but the coyotes stayed for a couple of years so I could not let my cat out at dawn or dusk for a long time. Animal control refused to help unless the coyotes bit someone! A coyote came onto my neighbor's deck and looked into the French door at her three cats while the family was out one evening. I swear I thought I saw a napkin around his neck and he was holding a fork and knife! :lol:

[Norma H.]

:lol: :lol: :lol: how about the pot to boil them in? :lol: :lol: :lol:
I love this forum. You never know what you are going to learn each day. Thanks Renata for making my day

[Lois B.]

Since we are onto coyotes here, one was seen in the field behind our yard last week. Last year my husband harvested few vegetables from his garden. He did, however, catch 6-9 ground hogs in box traps near the garden where evidence of their distruction was abundant. In the spring more ground hogs had taken up residence in the field. On the contrary as summer progresses we see no ground hogs and the vegetables are growing. What do you think has happened?

[Susan B.]

Since we are onto coyotes here, one was seen in the field behind our yard last week. Last year my husband harvested few vegetables from his garden. He did, however, catch 6-9 ground hogs in box traps near the garden where evidence of their distruction was abundant. In the spring more ground hogs had taken up residence in the field. On the contrary as summer progresses we see no ground hogs and the vegetables are growing. What do you think has happened?

Maybe you caught them all (I hope) or may the coyote ate them. I didn't think they ate anything so large, but we never know.
Ground hogs are such a pest and they sure seem to be entering our urban environment.

[Catherine S.]

If coyotes are hungry, they will attack a larger animal. My niece had her two labs out for a walk and the larger male was attack by two coyotes. My niece was able to scare them off and the dog was unhurt. I think they would definitely eat a ground hog. We have a lot of coyotes here and have a Great Pyrenees to protect out chickens. He does a great job, but barks a lot at night.

[E.M. T.]

We have coyotes here year round....we seldom see them in town, but DH heard pups singing
this morning early... 5:30-ish...very near. Now...racoons...folks along the river have the pesty guys !
Too bad they are cute....people feed them as they don't know what troublemakers they are. :roll:

[E.M. T.]

Nice new pic, Marilyn, and Limbania's too! Nice to 'see' you.

[wendy w.]

Gosh it's exciting the other side of the pond! Biggest wild animals I see round here are the odd rabbit and squirrels

[Geneva C.]

Terrie it's so nice to see you again!

We have coyotes here in our corner of the world. We have a Chihuahua (Duke) and he would be an instant snack (is that like fast food!?) so we don't let him out unless we are with him. We do have bunnies! I saw two this morning while exercising. They are bigger than Duke, which isn't saying much!

I'm enjoying the critters.... as long as they stay away from us!

Geneva

[Nancy R.]

Just to add to the animal fun, my dog and I had a deer go after us last weekend. I was hanging laundry and the dog was just wandering around (he ignores deer in the yard), and a deer started charging him and almost hit me on her way back around. Took me a second to realize that she must have a baby with her. At first I thought we had found psycho deer! We went in to let her relax, then came back out and, sure enough, she did have a baby with her. It was a small baby, probably just a couple of days old since it was big enough to walk, but was still very small. They headed on their way and we finished that laundry. A little bit of mountain fun!

Coyotes have gotten to be a big problem at the lower elevations around here. With our rising populations, we keep expanding into their territories and they have nowhere to go but the parks and neighborhoods. In the last couple of years there have been more problems with attacks on dogs and even a couple on people, so the cities have had to look for solutions. We have coyotes up here, too, but it's not as big of a problem. (Maybe the mountain lions keep the populations down.... :wink: ) Since the coyotes can be around any time of day, I just go ahead and let the cats out when I'm home and let them fend for themselves. It's so wild up here that I think their quality of life is so much higher being able to go outside and enjoy that, that I think it's worth the risk for them. I do try to keep them in at night, but the boy cat doesn't always cooperate. They've made it 6 years so far and my previous cat made it for the 8 years we were up here before she died of old age at 18, so I guess my cats are pretty coyote-savvy.

[Nancy R.]

We have all of the above here: squirrels, ground hogs, coyotes, rabbits, raccoon and deer. Add to that fox and bobcat and you don't want to leave your animals out over night. The thing is--I live in a populated area.

[Nancy R.]

At work...day dreaming about quilting on the weekend! We all need to post more!

[Lois B.]

Nancy, I loved hearing about you letting your cats out to play. I think they should be fine. You have plenty of trees and I think they are much better at climbing trees than the coyotes. I'm thinking they'll do just fine. This is just like the good old days. We are off topic and having a good old visit.

[Rita C.]

We don't have any dangerous wildlife here at all. And of course St. Patrick drove out all the snakes so we don't even have those. We get foxes now and again. A couple of cubs ran out in front of my car the other night. Occasionally we get rutting deer in the garden and we have had a cheeky squirrel who lies about on the fence on sunny days. Otherwise the worst we have here is horseflies, wasps and midges. We do have some very annoying humans though - mostly politicians! :lol:

[Rita C.]

Skunks, anybody for skunks? Hate it when they spray near my house or my dog. :x