Discouraging varmints

Flower & Garden Magazine, June-July, 1995 by Doc Sprockett

My wife and I are lucky enough to have good neighbors. Just about everyone is willing to lend what they have, return what they borrow and have the good sense to mind their own business. They're all peaceable, law-abiding folks -- except when it comes to critters. It's hard to figure how folks who decorate their gardens with cast-concrete statues of squirrels or display painted plywood cutouts of bunnies on their lawns can turn around and devise the most diabolical plans for eliminating the real living things.

Take my neighbor Tom, for instance. Nicest guy you'd ever want to meet. Aside from a speeding ticket once or twice, he's never been on the wrong side of the law -- except for the citation he got last summer from the local game warden. Tom has a pear tree but never gets fresh pears because the squirrels get them first. He isn't opposed to sharing, but the squirrels weren't letting even a single pear ripen. So Tom, softhearted guy that he is, started live trapping the squirrels in his yard and releasing them down by the river. That's when he got in trouble with the game warden. It seems our town's river area is a nature preserve so trap-and-release laws are strictly enforced.

Tom could have saved himself the trouble -- and the fine from the game warden -- if he had rehlized that squirrels are territorial critters. Even if you do succeed in relocating a nesting pair, another bushy-tailed rodent couple will move in to take their place. Unless you live in a neighborhood where it's lawful to discharge firearms -- and you have an arsenal of ammunition -- you're not likely to significantly deter squirrels.

Another of my neighbors has a much better approach. John is an easy-guy, nothing like the hot-tempered Irishman you'd think he'd be with a name like Kennedy. John enjoys the playful antics of squirrels, but then he doesn't have a pear tree, either.

John thinks he's come up with a way to make the squirrels work for him. A friend of the Kennedys, from South Egremont, Massachusetts, asked John where he could get walnut tree seedlings sturdy enough to survive the tough mountain winters in the Berkshires. So, John dug up and shipped the fellow a few small seedlings that had sprouted from the nuts squirrels had buried in his backyard perennial bed. Thinking that he might be on to something, John scoops up black walnuts from a nearby tree and leaves them in a pile on his back stoop. The squirrels shuck 'em, eat some and bury the rest. John figures it's worth a try to see if the instinctual efforts of squirrels will result in a crop of walnut seedlings next spring.

Sounds a little crazy, I know, but at least John has the right idea. You have to figure out ways to get along with critters because it's darned near impossible to make them go away. My wife says I have to learn that same lesson about people, but that woman lives to irritate me.

Birds are another story. Half the folks in the neighborhood put up fancy little birdhouses, deluxe feeders and ornate birdbaths to attract them. The other half have sonic and ultrasonic speakers mounted on fence posts, big round inflated balls with scary eyes hanging from trees and and stainless steel needle strips draped over roosting places to drive them aw . In had a cat to chase away birds and other varmints; these days there's a leash law!

There's also a lot of other paraphernalia for foiling a whole range of wildlife pests these days. Why, there's even a chemically treated trash bag that's supposed to deter dogs and raccoons from foraging your garbage. Does it work? I don't know -- I use a trash can with a tight-fitting lid.

But many of these devices and potions probably do keep pesky critters away from the garden at last part of the time. Some folks dissolve a bar of mint-scented soap in a gallon of water and spray it on foliage to deter rabbits and deer, others buy scientifically formulated sprays to do the same thing.

These sprays have to be frequently reapphlid and just about any animal will eat even the most distasteful morsel when it's hungry enough.

My biggest trouble this year has been with moles. Spotting the first telltale dirt mound, I knew we were in for trouble. My wife's expert advice, which she picked up from a friend on the garage-sale circuit, was to either plant castor beans around the garden or pour castor oil into the tunnel. My daughter-in-law agreed, recommending some spray she saw for sale at the garden center that is based on an old-fashioned castor oil formula. It's supposed to repel moles, rabbits, squirrels, woodchucks, raccoons and skunks. Sounds too good to be true; I'll try my way first.

I get rid of moles by finding their main tunnel, setting traps and not being squeamish about disposing of the dead carcasses. Some folks say traps are cruel but don't think twice about causing death by poison. There may be kinder, gentler approaches, but as a mechanic I prefer the cold, hard steel of a trap to get the critter-ridding job done. l