Do you like wildlife?

[abeja_reina_1989]

I completely adore wildlife and don't mind if they're in my yard. I must admit that I don't want them to eat my garden and mess it up, but they deserve to be there, and it's fine. I just try to get to my food before they do lol.

 

[lizard]

The foxes are real friendly.....they will even let you feed them a sausage......at least they keep the Rabbits under control......in Australia..........better than baiting 1080.......then you kill other wild life.

 

[RobertBrown]

The foxes are real friendly.....they will even let you feed them a sausage......at least they keep the Rabbits under control......in Australia..........better than baiting 1080.......then you kill other wild life.

I often read about the non native species you are plauged with in Australia, feral cats, hogs, goats, cane toads and I think rabbits were introduced as well.
We have cane toads in Florida, huge beastlike toads that will eat anything that moves or doesn't. One of my dogs decided to tangle with one and sometimes I think he was never the same.

I have had several opossum (our marsupials) encouters so far this fall. I decided the proper thing to do was relocate the problem as my dogs get them and it's a bad deal after that.
My plan was to grab the animal out of the tree using a glove put it in a bag and take it someplace....opossumlike. After she chomped down on my thumb, I abondoned that plan and went with plan B...crab net!
A week later I my dog caught her suiter under the tool shed. I dragged this one out by the tail with the dog in tow, by the time I had got to it it was out cold, playing possum if you will. This enabled me to place him in a feed bag and tie it off while I put the dog up and started the truck. He was none to pleased when we reached our destination as he had awoken for the release. There I was at 4:00am in flannel boxer shorts and bedroom slippers, in the middle of the road trying not to get attacked by a rouge opossum. Eventually he fell to the road got up and took off in a direction other than the one I was in and ran off into the woods none the worse for the encounter.

 

[KennyV]

If you and your dog are playing with opossums you both need to be current with rabie shots :biggrin:... They have very big teeth ...
:smile:KennyV

 

[RobertBrown]

If you and your dog are playing with opossums you both need to be current with rabie shots :biggrin:... They have very big teeth ...
:smile:KennyV

Thanks for the heads up Kenny, opossums are like squirrells in that they almost cannot carry rabies as they have an unusually low body temperature. When that young female latched onto my thunb I realized how powerful those jaws were. Luckily thier teeth are space far apart as they are omnivourus and I did not get cut. It did surprise me how fast they can react, a opossum eminates slow and stupid, no doubt part of their defense mechanism

 

[brucesdeere]

I too enjoy wildlife. I live with trees on three sides of me and that brings all sorts of wildlife, coyotes, bears, coons, skunks, porcupines, etc...

 

[Stevie-Ray]

I enjoy it at the northern property, now, but I'm sure once I have lived there for a few years, they'll be pesty. Especially the chipmunks, which can be annoying when they decide to get under the house. We've got black and grey squirrels, mostly, haven't seen any red ones, though we're lousy with those down here. Frogs are what we have the most of up there, and that's great as I've always got a kick out of those. The wife loves them too. We come home from wherever in the summer when we're up there and the house is sometimes dotted with tree frogs. Some of them are quite beautiful. Haven't yet seen a deer in my yard, but that's OK because I've got lots of hostas and would like to keep them.

 

[Two-Stroke]

First of all, I love wildlife - it's always a thrill to see a type of animal that I rarely see.

Now here's my possum story. About a year ago I was walking my dog at night in the city and a little possum popped out from around a corner and, seeing (or maybe smelling) us, bared its teeth and made a hissing sound. My dog didn't like that and picked up the possum in her mouth. Luckily she knows the command "drop it" from playing ball so I got her to drop the possum immediately.

I didn't see any blood so we left the possum and went on with our walk.

(continued)

 

[Two-Stroke]

Possum, Part II:

We came back to the spot where the possum had been dropped about 20 minutes later and it was gone. I believe that it hadn't been hurt in the encounter and had run away after playing "possum".

Here's my favorite part: about a week later, a small possum was on the opposite side of the fence from my dog (the dog was in our back yard) but the dog was not barking -- highly unusual -- she would normally bark like crazy if an animal was close to her on the opposite side of the fence.

I want to believe that it was the same possum and it came by to say "Hi, thank you for not killing me." I believe that my dog, Go-Go, remembered that specific possum. Here's a recent picture of Go-Go.

 

[KennyV]

Here's a recent picture of Go-Go.

Great looking guy... He looks just like my big boy I had years ago.. He was 115 pounds of fun.. :smile:KennyV