Pest Management Professional, August 2012

dos donts WILDLIFE T here you are soundly sleeping at 4 30 a m in the comfort of your bed nestled in nicely beneath the down filled comforter and 1200 thread count sheets when somehow an otherwise foreign soundtrack inserts itself into your dream sequence With time the sounds grow louder eventually garner your attention and bang youre awake listening to what you immediately recognize as an animal moving about above Rifling through your mental index of critters quickly yields a short list of suspects Its spring so it cant possibly be the prancing and pawing of each little hoof The footsteps are way too fast for raccoons and were in the Southeast Its got to be roof rats right With out of town business travel scheduled for that Monday strict orders from The Boss to eliminate the intruders immediately or sooner call for action Assuming roof rats that Saturday morning found me in the attic setting 14 traps with a variety of baits at various places prior to breakfast Well it certainly sounded like roof rats were responsible so a sufficient number of traps were placed in suitable fashion to wreak unholy vengeance Twenty four hours later the uninvited guests were at it again only worse It sounded as if there were a number of them as they chased about the attic and the length of the soffit areas But by about 6 a m things quieted down Naturally placing traps became Numero Uno on the weekend Honey Do list The traps were set and checked the next morning with surprising results Oh Rocky where art thou Our critters turned out to be flying squirrels While residing and working in New York years ago the morning drive time sports radio hosts were talking about a similar pest problem that occurred in the one hosts own home The other host commented that there were no such things as flying squirrels primarily because he had never seen one before Most folks have not seen a flying squirrel likely because these animals are nocturnal Below are some wildlife control related Dos Donts for your review and use Do properly identify exactly which animal pest s are present at the account prior to making key control program decisions Dont assume what the problem animal is based only upon a description of the sound the animals make or on information provided by the customer or by other non professionals Do study up on animal scat identification and acquire the latest guide or reference book for wildlife in your area so you will be better able to identify the pest animal present by the scat present Dont assume that animal scat will appear exactly as it does in reference book photos it might vary from what is seen in reference materials Do use a suitable digital camera to photograph scat and other characteristic physical evidence of pest wildlife so that this evidence may be used for future reference Dont underestimate the value of building your own library of reference photos and animal evidence for training and identification purposes Do study up on the biology identification and behavior of the pest animals present within your geography so you are better prepared to recognize and deal with the situation successfully Dont assume that you will remember everything there is to know about every pest animal species Refer to suitable references It might be useful to create pest animal flash cards or cheat sheets that include key factors pertinent to your control methodology decisions Do keep up with the latest wildlife control information methodologies and techniques by joining your wildlife control trade association reading industry publications attending educational Paul J Bello t Contributor Expecting to catch roof rats which are typical in this area we were surprised to find flying squirrels in the traps Continued on page 62 60 August 2012 Pest Management Professional www mypmp net