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Post by Deleted on Feb 3, 2020 17:37:41 GMT -5
I think any animal can become a problem to the farmer, orchard owners or home owner depending on the circumstances. What can or should be done may vary a great deal related to laws and personal choices. Some folks find killing any animal abhorrent, others not. I think we all would agree on a world without animals would be beyond sad. I do try to respect nature and wildlife, but each and every one of us bends and shapes nature to our own uses as we choose to do so. Back when I farmed/ranched, it wasn't the wild animals that were the biggest animal problem I had, it was people who thought it was dandy to let their dogs out and running freely. Right up there with those people who dump animals in the country. Much worse than the wildlife with the possible exception of wild hogs, which can not only be incredibly destructive and incredibly dangerous as well. Grackles, LOL, yes, they can be aggressive, noisy and poop all over, and more. They also seem to have a complex social system that is interesting to observe, much as crows and many other birds do. Of course, any group of animals have to work out a social system of some sort. Some of the people here do not eat meat, some eat meat that is from a market only, some have hunted or killed their own meat, some have butchered out meat animals completely. Most people have some sort of emotional reaction to killing and butchering animals, either positive or negatively, some find the blood and smells disturbing. I farmed and was raised with meat animals, so find it just a fact of life, much of a manner of degree in the sense that to survive, humans kill things all the time, even vegetables. Cut that head of broccoli before it flowers and reproduces and dies afterwards is really not all that different than killing a chicken or another animal, except as an emotional response; often the messiness and smells of butchering an animal is what many find disturbing, but vegetables bleed their own juices and life forces as well. Everything is consumed by something else, one way or another. One thing dies that another thing may eat.
Edit:
This is not to upset anyone or denigrate their own choices in life, just presented my rather unemotional point of view.
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Post by bestofour on Feb 3, 2020 23:49:44 GMT -5
Did I imply that I kill the Grackles by saying "when the berries are gone they are too". What I meant is the birds eat all the berries then leave because I've changed from sunflower to safflower seed and they don't like safflower seed. I don't kill them but @imp, is right when she says they poop all over and after they've eaten the berries their poop is purple or red and stains everything. It's awful.
I agree with Laura's conclusions too and guess I'm too thick headed to realize we were on the verge of an argument. Sorry.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 4, 2020 7:45:27 GMT -5
I didn't think that you implied anything other than what you said, that when the berries were gone, the grackles left. Though most birds can sure poop a great deal, grackles get an extra bad deal with it as they like to bunch up in larger numbers at night and then the area under that tree or perching area is a concentrated area of fertilizer to be. Not as bad as sea gulls are though.
I didn't even notice anyone was on or even in the neighborhood of an argument? I thought we were all haviing a mannerly and good exchange of ideas, done with respect and consideration for other's point of views. If I have offended any one, I regret that one had been offended.
Oh, Best, I am a female, LOL. (Peeks down shirt front, yep, still a girl this morning! think of trying to explain that to the authorities..."Well, you see, I went to sleep, and then I woke up and...never mind, LOL!!)
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Post by spike on Feb 4, 2020 21:33:43 GMT -5
I am all for live and let live BUT I am not currently having any major pest problems. The rabbits give my pups exercise and the coons eat my corn and some little turds eat my tomatoes >,< BUT I have the solution for squirrels media.giphy.com/media/Tv8LAttpRivWo/giphy.gif
DON'T GET MAD I AM KIDDING!!
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Post by Laura_in_FL on Feb 7, 2020 10:04:37 GMT -5
Seriously, scrolling down spike's link I saw where someone had employed a Slinky to keep squirrels from climbing a pole. It seemed quite effective yet unlikely to hurt the squirrel. Clever.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 9, 2020 12:32:29 GMT -5
LOL, I have seen several versions of the squirrel catapult on the web.
However, I'd like a comment on crows. I seem to recall that in some areas there are regular crow-shoots, both shotgun and long-range rifle. Crows do enormous damage to crops in some areas. LOL, they got all my apples and half my grapes last year, and I did not even know WHAT got the apples until a neighbor told me he saw them strip the trees.
As for the other predator, I suspect farmers will do what it takes to protect their livelihoods. When I lived in OK I'd hear a rifle shot every now and then late evening or early mornings. Crops there were cattle, peaches, soybeans, alfalfa, combine maize, pecans. Dumped dogs were bad about taking the tails off calves, and one fellow lost nine calves in one night to a pack of only three dogs. Hogs had not yet hit the area. Deer did a lot of damage but were protected. A poor woman lost her commercial apple orchard in NE Ok because of deer.
Opinions vary.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Dec 20, 2020 20:30:46 GMT -5
LOL, probably good advice. None of us who have suffered damage from varmints is going to change. No sane person kills indiscriminately, but no sane person watches his livelihood or his food destroyed while he stands idle. Now, when the people in favor of unfettered wildlife decide that they will pay for wildlife damage that may change.
With regard to Martin's comments on squirrel migration; a fellow here told me that he has seen them swimming across a lake to reach an oak woods. Oddly enough, this fellow said that so long as a squirrel could keep his tail up and dry he could swim long distances.
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Post by Laura_in_FL on Dec 22, 2020 15:53:02 GMT -5
Interesting about the tail. Maybe if it gets in the water it gets too heavy and causes too much drag in the water, causing the squirrel to get exhausted faster? Or maybe if there's a good "tail wind" the squirrel has an effective sail? (Yeah...I went there. )
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tallpines
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Zone:: 4a
Favorite Vegetable:: This week, it’s Rhubarb
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Post by tallpines on Dec 22, 2020 20:43:12 GMT -5
“ No sane person kills indiscriminately,...”
Unfortunately, our county did recently have some indiscriminate killing!
The neighbors down in the southern part of our County heard lots of shooting after dark for a few nights in a row. When they went to look around in the daylight, the discovered about 20 dead deer within a few miles .... someone shot them and then left them lay. And ..... an Amish family found their horse dead from a gun shot.
Testing showed that the bullets all came from the same rifle.
High School kids! COVID kept them out of school ..... so they found other “activities......
😠🥺
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Post by Laura_in_FL on Dec 23, 2020 12:46:20 GMT -5
That's awful. Hunting (and using the kill) and killing animals to protect people or crops are justified. But slaughtering animals "for fun" is a sign of mental illness, or at the very least a worrying lack of empathy for other living things.
I would be very concerned that these kids might graduate to killing people for fun later on.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 23, 2020 21:32:25 GMT -5
Laura; What country kids do may appear thoughtless and even stupid to adults, but those kids shooting rabbits, varmints and even deer are not likely to grow up to kill people. Here, where deer are pests, a good many are shot and since they often show signs of wasting disease they are not always eaten.
Few men reach adulthood without doing something stupid, so the kids shooting stop signs, varmints in their headlights and now and then a cow need no more than a belt across their behinds. Even the kid who killed the cow was likely shooting at eyes in his headlamp. Such kids will be no more likely to end up criminals than their city counterparts who steal hubcaps and beer. There are of course some goody two-shoes around, but they usually have their own secrets.
The knee-jerk reaction that equates teen age folly with criminal tendencies is nuts.
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