Terry L. Ettinger Horticulture Consulting Services
Meeting The Needs Of Today With A Vision For The Future
Questions of the Week
Wildlife Management
Growing
up in a little town in northern Illinois, I didn't see a "wild" deer
until I was driving along a country road lined with cornfields when
I was in college.
Fast-forward almost thirty years to one early summer morning in front of our home in the middle of the city of Syracuse and what do you think I saw? Yup - a white-tail deer doe strolling right down the middle of the street like it was nobody's business!
And, right along with the deer, it's not unusual for us to play host
to skunks (always less than a pleasant experience waking up to their
distinctive aroma in the middle of the night), raccoons, countless
squirrels, bats, mice, a pretty substantial snake, and even a
neighborhood woodchuck. In fact, about the only critters we've
not yet seen in our neighborhood are rabbits, a coyote and a fox -
though I'll bet their not as far away as one might think?
The bottom line is that typical residential neighborhoods provide ideal habitat for wildlife. There are places to hide, there's plenty of food, and most important, there are essentially no predators - unless you count cars!
So, the key to controlling wildlife in your lawn, landscape and garden is to make them less inviting. For ideas on how to do that, click on the links at right.