HUMANE WILDLIFE REMOVAL
Good humane wildlife removal techniques are the sign of a quality wildlife controller. Every year The Wildlife Company tries to develop new techniques that make wildlife removal more humane.
Exclusion with One Way Door Devices
One way doors are exactly what they sound like. One way doors take many forms, depending on the species, but, in principle, they all function the same way. They allow an animal to leave but not to re-enter. One way doors must be installed and constructed correctly to function. Wildlife species feel just as attached to their homes as humans and will not easily give up. They can be counted on to try to bypass one way doors. Skunks will attempt to dig past the one way door and are excellent at doing so. Special provisions must be made so that this does not happen and the project is successful. Most novices do not have luck getting one way doors to function correctly. I have video footage of skunks working almost 24 hours in an attempt to get past my one way door.
For some species this is the only truly humane option and for others the only real legally humane option. When we use this method, wildlife entrances are sealed except for ones over which a one way door is installed. The one way door allows animals to leave but not to return. This system works because food sources are on the outside of the home. Bats are a good example of this. Bats in the Bristol region feed strictly on flying insects so their food source is always outside of the house. This motivates the animals to leave their den, roost area, etc. Trapping, hand capturing, and relocating bats is not legal or well advised. It is not practiced by knowledgeable wildlife controllers though I have had second hand reports of it being used.
Note - This technique does not work as well for species that are able to find food inside the home like rats and mice. Species in this class are quite adept at raiding food stores and water inside the home and satisfying their needs.
Trap Stress Reduction
Proper trap handling is critical to reducing trap stress for wildlife. We always cover traps and keep caged animals in a location that is away from people as much as possible to reduce stress.
Eviction Scents
By utilizing eviction scents to humanely remove wildlife, I do not mean mothballs. The eviction scent that we have used are professionally-available scents created from urine. These scents capitalize on the susceptibility of denning female raccoons to predation by other animals. The odors, correctly placed, will encourage the female to relocate her offspring to an alternate den site.
Eviction scents are professionally-available fluids that have an odor that encourages the animal to leave an area. They do not permanently eliminate the animal from a home, but encourage the animal to leave long enough that entrances can be sealed. These scents are far more humane and cause less stress for the animal than trapping and relocation or trapping and euthanasia.
Though not 100% effective, we have had good luck with eviction scents in the past and our success rate is high enough to justify use considering the less humane and more expensive alternatives.
Success with eviction scents is dependent on several factors. First, the scent must be delivered as close to the nest of the animal as possible. This is risky and will require that someone approach the nest area or create an alternate delivery plan. Second, success may be affected by the age and experience of the female. Older females are harder to evict as will be females that have denned in that location before. Third, I personally believe that the age of the kits will also affect success. It is much harder to move large kits.
Though using eviction scents seems simple, it is better to have The Wildlife Company apply it personally. Applying it improperly will only force the female to move the litter deeper into the attic where they will be inaccessible. This may eliminate possible options for retrieving the young and placing them in a recovery box.
In 2017, while attending a wildlife controller’s workshop, we learned that this scent can also be used with some success on squirrels. We have not gotten enough feedback yet to make a solid determination on success. The driving principle that makes this work is that raccoons may be predators of squirrel nests in trees. We will post something as soon as we know more.
Important note: Eviction scents are not to be used in place of one way doors or repeating traps. They do not permanently solve the problem. One way doors or force-through traps with swing panel triggers must be set to make sure there is nothing still inside the home. Our equipment is specially designed to either clear the home of unwanted wildlife or to help make a determination of the presence or absence of unwanted wildlife. Eviction scents are used to reduce the odds of catching the mother raccoon and stranding the young inside the home.
Deck Exclusion
Any type of work done that keeps animals from returning to previous problem nest sites prevents repeated trapping, stress, and animal mortality. In short, prevention is the most humane option. Decks and other low to the ground structures are highly attractive to burrowing animals where they find cover while they dig. We have installed barriers that keeps wildlife out of these areas for some time now. To install a barrier, we usually dig a trench and bury screen mesh. This has worked well, but the digging tends to make a mess of yards and landscaping.
Fortunately though, in 2017 we came across a very promising product. This is pounded into the ground to create an inground barrier to keep burrowers out without trenching. We installed this through “burrowing season” with no “call backs”. The Wildlife Company is very optimistic about this product and plans to offer it again in the 2018 burrowing season.
New Burrow Control Technique
Removing burrowing animals and leaving an empty burrow only invites more wildlife to the property and requires retrapping incurring more stressed or euthanized animals. Plugging the hole with stone or other debris does not work. Groundhogs and other burrowing animals understand obstructions and have countermeasures. They know to dig to the left, right, or underneath of the object and to reconnect to the old burrow. This is always the way it goes.
In 2017 the Wildlife Company developed a new method to eliminate burrows. This technique cannot be used in all situations, but in the encounters where it was used, it was successful. This technique is even useful in open fields where sealing the animal out is not a possibility. Leaving an empty burrow is like having a “vacancy sign” for wildlife hanging on your property. Eliminating the need to repeatedly trap animals saves trap stress and the lives of countless animals in the future as well as countless unpleasant “wildlife run ins”. So far we have had no call backs from customers saying that this technique has failed.
Recovery boxes
Recovery boxes are used when young animals are found inside an attic and they can be retrieved by hand. Recovery boxes should have a soft, padded, warm interior to keep the young from becoming hypothermic until mom arrives. Once the young are in the box, Mom can be excluded from the house and the recovery box placed where she is most likely to find it. Recovery boxes are especially important for raccoons which cannot be relocated because of rabies concerns. It can also be useful with squirrels.
Collecting the young for placement into a recovery box may be a risky proposition. It involves going into den areas to collect the young. This should be left for professionals. For more information, check our Should I Enter a Confined Space to Remove Wildlife page.