Your Home May Be Their Castle, Too : Coexisting With Wildlife Just a Matter of Tolerance

Although the ubiquitous Southern California bulldozers chase many critters away forever, other wild animals stay on, somehow managing to survive, even thrive. In fact, most of the survivors, while retaining their wildness, also learn to take advantage of living close to man.

Skunks often nest in basements, even between walls, and rattlesnakes rest under plants or on rocks in the back yard. Raccoons sneak in through cat doors and snack on feline food, while coyotes make meals of the felines themselves.

Reactions of human co-habitants range from “Oh, how cute, let’s feed it” to fright, horror--even lethal action. The reactions depend not only on the sentiments of the people involved, but also the species of wildlife.

Some creatures, such as rattlesnakes, almost always evoke a negative response, while others elicit mixed or sympathetic feelings. Many of the species regarded as nuisances are the very ones that thrive in our midst.

“Coyotes, raccoons, skunks, starlings, sparrows and pigeons are preadapted to man-modified habitats,” says Douglas Bolger, a graduate student in biology at UC San Diego. “They have evolved in an environment like that created by man.”

Although few people yearn for a world without wild animals, most city folks don’t know what to do when confronted with rabbits in the ranunculus or bats in the belfry. Guided by common sense and tolerance, most North County residents can peacefully coexist with the remaining wild creatures.

“For the past four years, the Humane Society of the United States has been conducting seminars on humane solutions to problems with urban wildlife,” said John Grandy, the society’s vice president for wildlife. “The seminars have become remarkably popular, because everyone has problems.”

The Humane Society will publish a book on the subject this fall. In the meantime, Grandy and local experts have both philosophical and practical advice.

“We first try to impart tolerance, since many of the problems are attitudinal,” Grandy said. “People, like the king of England, think their home, including their yard, is their castle--where they have the inalienable right to do whatever they want. They want to plant corn in the middle of a family of raccoons and not have the raccoons eat it.”

Instead, he recommends that people learn to think like the animal they’re trying to control and look for compassionate solutions.

“The first reaction does not have to be lethal,” Grandy said. “That should be a last resort.”

Project Wildlife, a rescue group, is often called when a wild animal appears at the patio window. Volunteers such as Ray West, the group’s education chairman and vice president for communications, will first ask if pet food is left outside overnight.

“That’s usually the key,” he said. “Almost all these animals are nocturnal and forage for food after dark. If they find an easy source, they come and get it. The answer then is not to leave the pet food out.”

The critter in question will quickly realize this source of food has dried up and search elsewhere. People who deliberately feed wild animals cause even more problems, he said.

“The animals become dependent,” West said. “This may even cost a young animal, one which is learning its hunting skills, the opportunity to develop.”

The feeding usually backfires because the animals hang around and become bolder than normal. A Poway family discovered this phenomenon after watching a coyote give birth. Fascinated by the daily drama as the mother raised her young, they started putting out food. They were less fascinated when the grown litter began showing up on their lawn in broad daylight, looking for food.

The family contacted the city of Poway, which in turn called in an extermination company. The company recommended that the coyotes be captured in leg-hold traps and shot. Project Wildlife rescuers persuaded the city that far better alternatives existed. Their advice: If the family stopped feeding the coyotes, the coyotes would go away. This common-sense, humane solution solved the problem in less than two months.

“Just as we discourage people from feeding wild animals, we also discourage them from taking animals out of the wild and trying to raise them,” West said. “For one thing, each species needs a specific diet. Also, if an animal becomes imprinted on people, it can never safely be returned to the wild.”

Like all the rescue groups in the county, Project Wildlife rehabilitates sick, young and injured animals with the goal of returning them to the wild. But sometimes that is impossible. How can a barn owl--captured as a baby and fed a steady diet of bologna, bacon and hamburger--be released? Malnutrition permanently deformed its talons and feet and left it unable to hunt, or even perch. What about the bobcat that was neutered and declawed and lived in an apartment? It now exists in a limbo somewhere between tame and wild.

There is also the opposite reaction to contact with wild animals. Instead of wanting to take animals home, some people simply want to kill them. A surprising number of the animals that rescue groups encounter have been shot, poisoned or otherwise deliberately hurt.

Most people, however, are willing to do anything within reason to get along with their wild neighbors. Diana Aguirre of Wildlife Center has a number of suggestions for controlling “nuisance” animals:

* For skunks nesting under a house, install a one-way dog door, so the skunk can get out but not back in. In the meantime, close up all other openings.

* To keep birds and other creatures out of a chimney, cover the top of the chimney with a chimney cap.

* To prevent birds from crashing into plate-glass windows, put up hawk silhouettes to scare them away.

* Keep cats inside, especially at night, so they don’t become easy prey for coyotes.

(This will also save small, wild creatures from felines. Bolger says the usually dynamic relationship between prey and predator is upset by what he calls a “subsidized predator,” one that is fed by humans and can kill wildlife at its leisure.)

* Put fiberglass or metal strips around trees so opossums cannot climb up and eat the fruit.

* Put up small fences or wrap chicken wire around stakes pounded into the ground to keep rabbits from devouring a garden.

* If pigeons and starlings befoul cars parked under trees, either park elsewhere or trim trees in late fall. “Trimming at that time will make the trees less habitable for the birds during nesting season,” said Aguirre. Also, it’s better for the trees themselves, because they’re dormant at that time.

While pigeons and starlings may be an irritant, few creatures evoke the fear and dread that rattlesnakes and bats do. In San Diego, they also have a few fierce and knowledgeable defenders.

Contrary to popular opinion, rattlesnakes (the only indigenous poisonous snake in the county) present only a minor problem, said Richard Plock, president of the Herpetological Society of San Diego. Even when bitten, most people recover completely if they receive prompt treatment. About 10 people die a year from snakebites in the United States, and most were either handling or otherwise fooling around with the snakes, according to Plock.

“Some people think that all rattlesnakes want to do is lie in wait and bite, but that’s not true,” he said. “The only reason a snake strikes is because it feels trapped or that it is being attacked. Given the opportunity, it will get away from people.”

When residents find rattlesnakes in their yards, Plock said, they should either leave them alone--on the assumption they are only resting and will move along if allowed an escape route--or follow this procedure: Turn a large garbage can on its side, push or chase the snake into the can with a long broom, place the cover on the can and release the snake elsewhere.

Rattlesnakes play a beneficial role in nature, but they are often killed by people who come upon them, along with other helpful, nonpoisonous snakes that are mistaken for rattlers. Plock says gopher snakes (which help control the rodent population, as do rattlesnakes) are most often the victims of mistaken identity.

Bats also have their defenders, such as Martin Schuler, one of a small group of volunteers involved in the San Diego Bat Conservation group.

“It’s important to understand that bats have a place in the scheme of things,” Schuler said. “They eat 500 to 600 insects in an hour and consume five or six times their body weight in one night.”

He cites two reasons for fear of bats: rabies and misunderstanding. At dusk, when bats come out to feed, they swoop down to catch insects. People sitting around a campfire or on their porch swing often assume the darting creatures are after them, not bugs.

“As for the fear of rabies, people need to know that if they find any kind of dead or sick animal, they should leave it alone,” said Schuler, who has studied bats for 20 years. “If you find a nocturnal animal crawling around during the day, it’s important to realize that that’s abnormal behavior and that the animal is probably sick or hurt. Any wild animal which will allow people to come near it or to touch it has something wrong with it.”

The group’s volunteers will pick up grounded bats and give advice on getting them out of spaces where they’re not wanted. They will also advise people on how to attract bats and their insect-controlling skills.

“People who have bats around say they have no insects,” Schuler said. “People who have lots of insects around may want to try to attract bats by putting up bat houses.”

Still, most people are more interested in controlling wildlife than attracting it. In the vast majority of cases, this can be accomplished by taking care not to create a desirable habitat for an undesirable species. The last non-lethal resort should be humane trapping, wildlife advocates say. Although the Humane Society and other animal welfare groups discourage trapping and the relocation of wildlife, sometimes no alternative exists.

A variety of cage or box traps, such as those used to capture feral cats, are available. Typically, these are designed so that a trap door closes as soon as the animal enters the chamber. The Humane Society recommends that animals be released within their home range if at all possible.

Humane trapping is one of the methods used by Critter Control, a national company with offices in San Diego County. While most pest-management companies still rely on extermination, Critter Control uses ecologically sound methods whenever possible.

Critter Control’s Jim Byers said the company was started several years ago, partly in response to budget cuts that curtailed state and local governments’ abilities to deal with wildlife complaints. Besides removing animals, Critter Control repairs damage and installs devices such as chimney caps to keep wildlife from returning.

Attitude changes advocated by the Humane Society’s Grandy could make trapping even less necessary.

“To me, it’s more important to have animals than a picture-perfect yard,” said Grandy. “The alternative is sterility, life without the song of a bird and the yip of a coyote.”

He notes that there is very little left in Southern California that could be called natural and asks if “freeways, pollution and pesticides are natural?”

To keep what remains wild and natural, humans must create corridors for wildlife, said Ted Case, a biology professor at UCSD. Isolating wildlife in fragmented canyons has caused extinction, he said. “In order to preserve what’s left, we shouldn’t just be setting aside little pieces; we need to leave connections.”

Barbara Bamberger, conservation coordinator for the Sierra Club, says it is not too late to create such wild corridors in North County. The alternative is the loss of an increasing number of species.

“Species become extinct before we even know what effect their loss will have,” Bamberger said. “It’s like the human body--when you take away an arm, the body still works, but not as well.”