Learning tips to deal with local wildlife
The St. Marys Rotary Club received a special guest from the ODNR Division of Wildlife Wednesday, and he had plenty of things to say about how to deal with local wildlife.
Local County Wildlife Officer Mark Schemmel came down to St. Marys in order to give some tips to locals about how to deal with certain critters in the wake of certain environmental changes.
“Loss of large keystone predators was kind of a detriment to some of our numbers, whether its deer or geese,” Schemmel said at beginning of the meeting. “Some of those large keystone predators that we had prior to European settlement kind of kept our numbers at bay.”
Schemmel pointed out that with them gone, animal populations need to be controlled by his division in or
der to keep wildlife populations under control. This hasn’t come without some adjustments from both human and animal residents, who commonly intermingle and commonly start some issues.
Schemmel mainly talked about how to avoid conflicts with certain wildlife, along with preventing damage to property and harm to the animals themselves.
“Have a plan,” Schemmel advises the public. “If you start to see something, try and address it early on.”
Early prevention is said to help prevent it from becoming an ongoing problem. Some of these precautions include not feeding any animals, keep your property clean from most types of debris and keep in touch with local hunters and licensed trappers. Learning about what kind of animals call the city home will also be big boon in future.
There are specific ways to deal with certain wildlife depending on where you life. In case of deer, making sure your landscape has plants inedible or undesirable to them is a good start to keeping them off your property. Properties farther away from city limits can also try pyrotechnics, chemicals or similar prospects can help. Hunting season is also a good way to keep populations down.
For those who deal with Canadian geese often, the best recommendation is to avoid feeding them and letting your pets scare them off. Using fences, along with some methods used on deer also work depending on where on where you live. Lasers at night, particularly green ones, are surprisingly effective.
Schemmel also suggests that anyone who ends up near an aggressive goose to be very careful and to avoid getting hurt.
“You always want to maintain eye contact with them, kinda back up slowly and be careful of your surroundings,” Schemmel mentioned.
He says that turning around will end up with them attacking you. When it comes to smaller animals, such as raccoons, skunks and possums, removing sources of food and water will keep local populations away. Securing garbage, putting up fences, and plugging up certain openings in the boom will keep them outside of the home, and using lights and similar procedures will keep them off the property.
This is also advised for rodents such as squirrels, moles and beavers for anyone who have property near running water.
Schemmel advises that anyone with any serious problems that cannot be fixed by themselves, along with significant changes in behavior of local wildlife to call local authorities as soon as possible.