urban wildlife... fetch me my smokepole, Maw!

[satx78247]

Austin has MORE sorts of "urban wildlife" than anyplace that I've ever seen. = I "housesat" all last Summer for my daughter & her GF in NW Austin (while they went out of state) & in that 1/2 acre lot we had a "resident" gray fox, at least one red fox vixen (who had her kits under the back deck), numerous raccoons, a ringtail, armadillos, "traveling salesmen" coyotes, visiting doe/fawn and a BIG hawk of some sort.

YEP, you are correct about "the Austin animal lovers", who want the deer GONE but are adamantly opposed to "harming" them.

yours, satx

 

[Wes/Tex]

Oh yeah...they got the shock of their lives with the net adventure. The news media was there to see how cool a technique was and would solve all the problems. Got much more than they bargained on. City council caught hell over that one and the Bambi lovers had to do a serious rethink! :wink:

 

[Loyalist Dave]

Actually... for the bambi lovers there is no thinking.

The deadliest animal to human life in North America after humans is..., wait for it...., DEER! More folks die from accidents involving deer than are killed by snakes, bears, panthers, and rabid animals combined (source: CDC).

They flourish in areas of high human population desnisty where they cannot be thinned by predation, and where they can easily encounter people driving. Recipe for disaster.

Don't hunt the deer, until they destroy the expensive landscaping on expensive homes....

Don't hunt the geese until they manure all over the golf course greens....

Spend tax dollars on "professional hunters" who are often merely dudes who have formed a company and who legally own a Class III noise supressor, so the socialists who want bambi dead, won't be disturbed by the killing of bambi.... and lets do it at night so nobody knows that hunting works.

OR we could allow bow hunting from stands in areas with say 250 square yards or more on weekdays when school is in session prior to when the kids come home (because suburban kids are silly and will wander over to say "hi" otherwise). Just have the hunter tell the police where the stand is located so when the [strike]morons[/strike], the "citizens" see the hunter and freak out and call the cops..., the cops know it's not a "sniper", and won't need to respond.

LD

 

[satx78247]

EXACTLY TRUE.

Also, a lot of "OH, so 'sensitive' urban dwellers" FEED & "put out salt blocks" for the deer and then wonder WHY they stay around & eat their expensive landscaping.
(One of my daughters neighbors said, at a "town hall meeting" that, "I always feed them but they still eat my azalea bushes.")

The "arrogant ignorance" of "the animal rights" crowd makes me LOL at them.

Addenda: Fyi, the latest "monthly HOA newsletter", where my daughter lives, has an article about "how upset & 'terrible' that it is" that the coyotes & "coy-dogs" are chasing/killing/eating the deer "right in our own yards".
(Do those "sensitive folks" expect the predators to become "vegans"?)

yours, satx

 

[hanshi]

Looks like my backyard and we're surrounded by houses. They come right up to the windows.

 

[larry wv]

Believe it or not but some of the few Deer we have left hide in our barns and sheds to escape the Coyotes. :grin: Makes some interesting times when you are in a hurry to jump on a tractor and a Doe is hiding under it and you are between it and the door. :shocked2: They know where they are safe or not. Usually have one or two a year. My brother and I just call them the barn Deer. Have to sneak past them to go hunting. No fair or fun to shoot one. Larry

 

[fusil de chase]

Not disputing coyotes being hard on fawns but I'd guess there is a food or mineral source in that barn that attracts them. Deer will go to lengths to aquire minerals or grains but never heard of them forting up. Were they brandishing pitchforks and nailing boards on the windows :grin:

 

[fusil de chase]

I didn't know any one said that.

Leopold is likely your greatest American writer, conservationist, philospher etc of the 20 th century. A "Sand County Almanac" Should be required reading for all of us. May seem off topic but the reality is that no one can (read should) approach the management of Urban Wildlife and the mangement of Urban Homo Sapiens in America with out first spending at least an afternoon with Aldo on the porch with a good bottle of scotch and a game bird hanging on the door knob.

Some teasers:

“Is education possibly a process of trading awareness for things of lesser worth? The goose who trades his is soon a pile of feathers.”
”•Aldo Leopold, 1949

“It is a matter of what a man thinks about while chopping, or while deciding what to chop.”
”•Aldo Leopold

“O, God assist our side: at least, avoid assisting the enemy and leave the rest to me.”
”•Aldo Leopold

“What a dull world if we knew all about geese.”
”•Aldo Leopold

“To keep every cog and wheel is the first precaution of intelligent tinkering.”
”•Aldo Leopold

The problem with any unwritten law is that you don't know where to go to erase it

“One swallow does not make a summer, but one skein of geese, cleaving the murk of March thaw, is the Spring.”
”•Aldo Leopold

And it goes on and on.

 

[George]

Hear, hear! A delightful read, every time.

I'm afraid he is little known, these days.

Spence

 

[larry wv]

Just machinery sheds mostly hay equipment regular farm machinery. There mommy's taught them how to hide in the barns. It's been going on for years. Larry

 

[fusil de chase]

Ah that explains it. Very interesting. So do Deer prefer CASE equipment of do they get sucked in by the John Deere logo and green paint? LOL.

 

[satx78247]

NOPE. At least in northeast TX, "barn deer" (on our farm we also have "tack-room deer") prefer "BIG RED".
Otoh, they IGNORE & "SNUB" our restored "Popping Johnny".
(CHUCKLE)

yours, satx

 

[hanshi]

Oh, yes; good scotch brings power to the mind and understanding to the sublime. :thumbsup:

 

[fusil de chase]

LOL, yep I am a teatoller 99.9% of the time but If I was rich and could afford a steady stream of high end scotch I'd have a potential problem on my hands.

 

[StewartLeach]

I live across the street from Bear Canyon Creek in Boulder, Colorado, and the wildlife parade never stops. Coyotes, foxes, a Great Horned Owl pair one year(noisy!) and every summer a bachelor buck club I would like to meet in October a few miles west.

Great place to live, except that last September the creek ran through the house.......

White Fox
White Fox

 

[rafterob]

I always wanted a house with a stream running through it...probably not like what you're talking about though.

 

[brubincam]

my first house had a spring in the cellar-water ran from south end to the north end and was sump pumped outside

 

[cynthialee]

2 winters ago I had about 20 bales of good alfalfa hay in my barn. It was for the goats we no longer have. It was a harsh winter and the local deer made a mess of my barn and ate over half the hay in the barn. Had to throw out the last of it and wow what a chore that was. About 10 bales of strewn about hay all over the place....
:surrender:

 

[longcruise]

Been out there trying to get that creek back to some semblance of normal this past week! Feel sorry for the guys in the culverts. You got the most brazen crows I've ever seen.