Invasive Animals!

I think we need to start a forum for this. I watch the Gardner's on TV and look at books and I see these beautiful gardens. But no one addresses the problems that a lot us of endure. Those pesky animals that destroy our gardens. We plant nice flowers or bulbs just to see it all gone a few days or weeks ,or a year later when it no longer is there. Voles, I can't imagine that there is nothing that will stop them. Rabbits, well you can put up a fence, but I have had them dig under and still get the tomatoes. Deer, Lets just say that the meat taste real good.
Chipmunks, I am not sure if they eat the plants or just aerate the soil so much that the plants just die. Squirrels, well I do like to watch them play, but my bulbs, Hec, I think the voles eat more of them then the squirrels do.
I live near a woods so I think the voles come over for a visit and a real nice picnic. I was thinking about digging a trench along the woods and putting down some kind of barrier in the dirt of something and seeing of that works. I have tried to close the home that the chipmunks have made but they re dig it and then they come out and laugh at me. We don't have deer problems in this part of NJ, I think we have enough hungry people that keep them in check. I also don't see many rabbits here, I don't know what is keeping them in control, maybe its the hawk I see. Oh I forgot one other pest we have in our water gardens, the big crane that likes our fish ponds.
Anyone else have a suggestion ? Or idea's?

There's the Garden Pests & Diseases forum, plenty of people post there about critter troubles.
http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/f/pad/all/

While those animals might be pesky, I'm don't believe any of them are "invasive".

Nope, we're the ones invading their space...but I sure do understand your frustration, Marie, as we live in the middle of a heavily wooded area. There is always some kind of critter eating, digging, or trampling everything. Check out the link that ecrane posted--don't worry, you're not alone, lots of folks there have experience with what works and what doesn't.

Native species, fauna or flora, by definition are not "invasive", but they can be "agressive" or otherwise a pain..

The term "invasive" is also applied to so-called "native" flora & fauna.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasive_species

To quote Wikipedia "This definition, the most used, applies to non-indigenous species, or 'non-native,' plants or animals..."
A secondary deffinition given "includes the first, but broadens the boundaries to include indigenous or native species, with the non-native ones" and gives exploding deer population as an example of usage.
In correct usage of the English language you cannot "invade" your own territory. Mis-application of terms may gain wide usage, but such ignorance degrades the precision of the language.

Precise, like "native".

Good point. The term "native" has suffered the same mis-use. Originally it applied to un-introduced species within their natural range. Now people use the term for plants from Washington state in the context of the East Coast because they are from the same country, though they are 3,000 miles and dramatically different ecosystems apart. The sloppier our usage of the language, the more degraded our communications with one another become.

I'm actually fighting an "invasive" animal---Asian collared doves. They aren't native, they are crowding out the local mourning doves, and they are wildly prolific. Furthermore, they eat my fruit and leave their droppings on my vegetables. A pair appeared in the neighborhood four years ago. There are now over one hundred flying around. I trapped twenty-five last year---the breasts are quite tasty---but this did not make a dent in the winged rat population.

Holy cow... I know that many people are against hunting, but coming from living in the country I know that many animals need to be thinned out or they over populate and then there is not enough food to feed them all and they die anyway. Sometimes we just have to take the issue in our own hands and thin them out. I feel for you with those birds. At least you found out that they can be eaten, just keep hunting.

Hi Marie,

We have the perfect solution....Cats.....allow them to do their natural predatory thing. We don't have any trouble with rabbits, voles, moles, squirrels, snakes, lizards, .....and the bad part is they eat birds too...but that's just the price you pay. They don't get that many birds...but they do get a few of them. They will put a hurtin on the critters you talked about.

Suzanne

http://www.abcbirds.org/abcprograms/policy/cats/index.html

I do not welcome cats in my yard for any reason. I feed the wild birds. Please read some of the above article.
The neighborhood cats sit on my deck rail waiting to catch one of the wildbirds at a feeder. The birds hardly have a chance to survive.

What would be cool is would be to get the natural predators back - fox and bobcats and such that get forced out of their eco-niche by the introduced house cats. (OK, fine, "cool" is in the eye of the beholder.... We watched a lot of Wild Kingdom at an impressionable age...)

How about lions and cheetas, that would bring back the predators that North America is missing.

Are those native to the americas? The biggest thing out here would have been jaguar, but they really are kind of big - maybe better not to have so close to so many people as live out here now. I was just thinking in terms of controlling "rabbits, voles, moles, squirrels, snakes, lizards".

I would just love to have a fox. I know there are some not too far from us (a few miles), but there's only one way from here to there that doesn't involve a highway crossing, so it's going to be a long shot for them to find it...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Lion

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_cheetah

I'm pretty much with you, flabotany. I think it's all relative and native and invasive are mostly in the eye of the beholder. Is someone else's 'eye' better than mine? Don't think so.

lol - Well, put me down for one of those giant armadillos...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holmesina

(The point, of course, is that flora and fauna are native to an ecoregion. We just are sloppy in language use sometimes and conflate that to a place and time.)

Also, for those who accept 'survival of the fittest' (which I don't) all arguments regarding native and invasive are irrelevant.

Here is your mud wallowin rootin tootin worm suckin armadillo.

Where do I send em?

OOPS!!!!

I done been caught.

Hahaha. Those pics made me laugh, Wildcat. How do you deal with them there critters? Seriously.

I go along behind them filling in the holes they root. It is a riot when my dogs see one

What do the dogs do? Do the armadillos eat your vegetable or uproot your plants?

Armadillos love worms and grubs. They root up the dirt simiular to pigs. They love it when the dirt is wet easy rooting.
I leave them alone just like I do all animals. I just repair they damage they cause. This was their home before it was mine. The dogs chase and bark at the dillos. The dogs main job is to keep the coyotes and bob cats away. The do real fine job keeping coyotes away , bobcats are tricky. Last spring I had 25 guienas in one month I had one. About 2pm one afternoon that spring '09 a bobcat came into the yard and grabbed a bird and took off with a 2 Great Pyrs in hot pursuit, a futile chase it was. Bobcat momma must have had a bunch of hungry babies. These are native animals who belong here but I wish they would stay at the neighbors.

This message was edited Jul 3, 2010 7:09 AM

No rabbits? I have rabbits.

Lots of rabbits. There is also squirrels, voles, mice, rats, owls, hawks, falcons, buzzards, woodpeckers, cardinals, cedar waxwings, barn swallows, long split tailed birds, doves, mockingbirds, and lots more I can't name and some I have forgotten about. I almost forgot about 6 foot snakes and tree frogs. I left out the roadrunners, stray dogs, my dogs on't like strays, and cats looking for a meal. All of this and more on 40 acres.

Do you have vole problems? Any tips?

No problem with voles. I think they are cute just like my dillos.

I treat the voles like everything else, don't try and eat my pugs or yorkie and stay out the house your are safe

LOL. Me? I hate 'em. I hate 'em real bad.

Dilloes carry leprosy, leave it in the ground for you to walk on, wear shoes, thot we had a giant dillo recently, and it reduces their tendency to stay if you kill off the grubs, didnt get it pictured before it left, was about as big as my 65# dog, chuckl, just don't have the picture....

Killdwabbit - We had a real bad vole problem. Plants seemed to disappear, then one winter about 10 massive clumps of hostas along two sides of the house failed to return in the spring. Examination revealed a hole or two around each crown. They dug a serving line parallel to the house and ate the roots off all the plants. GRRRR! Got a cat and the numbers declined daily. Removing the fall leaves deprived them of easy cover and made their burrows easier to spot. If they re-open holes I fillled I sometimes resort to an anti-ground squirrel product. Unfortunately, the cat sometimes catches chipmunks when the vole population is low, but he leaves the birds alone.

Thanks, greenthumb. I just recently acquired four new kitties. :-)

Coons are one of the worst animal pests!I bought nine watermelons and got home late so i thought i would leave them in the back of my truck till morning.When i went out to unload them all i found was a mess!The coons had gnawed round holes in each of them pulled watermelon guts all over my truck!It was a mess to clean up.

What is the differance between a mole and a vole? Are they treated the same way? How can you tell which one is destroying your yard?

A vole is a small rodent resembling a mouse but with a stouter body, a shorter hairy tail, a slightly rounder head, smaller ears and eyes, and differently formed molars (high-crowned and with angular cusps instead of low-crowned and with rounded cusps). There are approximately 155 species of voles. They are sometimes known as meadow mice or field mice in North America.

Photo of a vole.

Every fall; mid-to late Sept. and into late October I have skunks in my yard. They, too, are digging for grubs. Leave a mess, that's for sure. Holes all over. (sing the following to the tune "Wheels on the Bus)......the skunks in my yard go dig, dig, dig.........

Last month, about a week before Christmas, a skunk came in my house, in the night, through the doggy door. Strolled through the house and met my dog in a back bedroom. Pell mell ensued. Skunk sprayed in the house. The horror was beyond description. The only plant-related news to this story is that we had to remove the houseplants when the house was ozoned. All living things were evacuated. Except the Christmas tree, which was only half living anyway, but quickly dried out afterwards.