The Critter Hunter

I receive numerous calls every week about “Can you please rescue these baby bunnies/rabbits”.  Whether it is a nest that is found in the lawn or they see the rabbits running around in the back yard; or the kids caught them and brought them home in a box or a cat or dog got to the nest, the facts are:  A female cottontail rabbit will dig a 3-6 inch depression in the ground usually right out in the open. She will use dry grass and her own hair to line the nest where she will give birth to as many as 8 young, which are hairless and blind. The female will keep them covered up but will not stay with them. She may return once every 12 hours to nurse them.  The Rabbit mothers milk is very rich and the baby bunnies grow extremely fast.  The female Rabbit may have up to 6 litters in a single season, if weather permits.  As soon as the baby bunnies are fully furred and their eyes are open they will leave the nest and spread out at this time.  They will pretty much rely on eating vegetation and will give up nursing.  Even though the baby bunnies are still very small they are quite capable of taking care of themselves but are still very fragile and should be left alone.

If the baby bunny is mortally wounded or any broken limbs the animal will absolutely not survive or can it be rehabilitated. They are too fragile to fix.

I do not recommend handling them because you can wind up hurting them very easily.  My motto is always; Let Them Go, Let Them Grow.  Again these animals do not need to be rescued.

If you are unsure about a situation please give All That’s Wildlife, Inc. a call.

Rick Wilberschied a/k/a The Critter Hunter

It’s the breeding season for Whitetail Deer.  I was coming home the other day and saw a Buck chasing a Doe in a corn field that had just been cut. The Doe ran about 50 yards from the road. I slowed my truck down thinking she was going to run out in front of me.  I pulled over and watched them for a while. The Buck kept chasing her closer to the road till they were finally 10 yards off of the shoulder. She grew tired from the relentless chase and bedding down in plain view. He stood in back of her for a while waiting for her to get back up, he also grew tired after a while and bedding down not far from her.

This scene plays out all over the country this time of the year.  Here in Illinois alone there are over 100,000 vehicle Deer collisions reported every year. A lot of these collisions could be avoided just by taking the proper precautions as a driver. Be more aware when driving through wooded areas or around standing crops. At night use your bright lights if there is no one in front of you and there is no oncoming traffic. I’ve experienced by having my bright lights on I was able to see a Deer about 15 yards off to the right in front of me ready to cross the road.  I was able to slow down in enough time. I know there are instances where they will run out and hit the side of your vehicle, like for instance, two weeks ago an absolutely monstrous Buck ran across a stretch of a two lane blacktop straight into the side of a passing pickup truck.  The woman that was driving was able to keep the truck on the road.  She was a little shaken but was not hurt. The Buck did not survive the collision. As I’m sitting here writing this story I can hear a combine off in the distance picking corn. Deer make standing crops part of their shelter and food source.  A moving combine in a corn field pushes the Deer ever closer to the road and in the path of danger.

Be aware, be careful while driving.

Rick Wilberschied aka The Critter Hunter

www.allthatswildlife.com

I don’t know if it was the harsh winter that we had, but animal litters have been a little later this season. As of last week I am now just starting to get more squirrels calls. For a while they have been nonexistent.

The calls from customers start out, “we are hearing scurrying sounds in the attic”. Once I am at the customers house I do a thorough assessment. I will then set a couple of traps in strategically placed areas. Within a few hours I will usually have the female, that’s the easy part. They are always slaves to their stomachs. They absolutely cannot resist a grocery store by their front door. The babies on the other hand can be a little more difficult. Right now I am noticing the different sizes of the young. Some have been ranging from 4 inches up to 10 inches. Depending on the size of the litter it can take from 2-5 days to capture the babies because they are very cautious. They haven’t experienced the outside world as of this time; they depend on the mother for food.

Most recently I trapped a solid black gray squirrel that was living in a wall of a church. I set two traps very close to the hole which happened to be in a real bizarre place and involved a little ingenuity when it came to setting them up. The female mother squirrel was caught within about 2 hours. She was released on my property and for the next 4 days one squirrel per day came out and ventured into the trap where they were caught. Since they were separated from the mother and still too young to fend for themselves, they are currently being fed by hand and doing very well.  When they are old enough they will be released on my property where the mother was released.

Read more about Squirrels at All That’s Wildlife, Inc.

Stay tuned for more stories on Baby Squirrels.

Rick Wilberschied a/k/a The Critter Hunter

Cute But Dangerous1

Cute But Dangerous2

It is that time of the year again where we start to get frequent calls regarding female red fox (vixen) with litters of kits (baby fox) appearing from underneath sheds, decks, and large concrete stoops. It really amazes me sometimes how people don’t even realize that a fox is living on their property until the kits start to emerge from the den.  They are roughly 4-5 weeks of age at this time. People start complaining about dead animal parts lying around in their lawn and on their decks. The vixen is starting to introduce solid foods into the kits diet. The little grayish fluffy balls of fur start to wander out of the den to check out the world outside for the first time.  At first they stay very close to the entrance of the den but soon will start to wander around and check out their surroundings, still not straying too far away. They will wait for the mother to come back and bring them birds, rabbits, chipmunks, mice and other small creatures. She is teaching them what they are going to eat when they are able to hunt for themselves. They will take the best part of the animal at first and leave the less desirable morsels strewn around the yard for later consumption. Other pieces become just toys. This will create an untidy little scene for those with weak stomachs.  What you are seeing is raw nature at its finest.  This is a photographers or wildlife observers dream.  People will ask me “can you or will you remove these animals’. They have concerns about their childs safety and safety of their pets, as well as concern for their neighbors well being.  My answer to them is of course but I also inform them this can get a little expensive and time consuming.  I also let them know that it isn’t a 100% guarantee that we can get the mom and kits. She hunts day and night to bring back enough food for all her kits.  This can make it very difficult to capture her. She will take short breaks, sometimes up to an hour to spend nursing and grooming of her babies.

If we trap the whole family, which could be very difficult and time consuming, they cannot be relocated successfully.  As strong as her motherly instincts are if relocated to a different area her own survival would become the most important thing to her. She will abandon her kits in which they will perish by starvation or predation.   In my own personal opinion do not try to approach them at all as cute as they are they are still a wild animal and pose a threat. If they are not creating a large problem they will usually be gone within another 4 weeks of foreseeing them. When they are strong enough to accompany their mother on hunting trips which is usually about 8-10 weeks of age they will leave the den. They may come back a few times but will eventually disappear and abandon the den site and will wander their territory.  If a customer wants them removed we can certainly provide them with that service. They can call an  All That’s Wildlife, Inc. professional for an assessment.  If you choose to let them be—only enjoy them from a distance.

Rick Wilberschied a/k/a The Critter Hunter

Flying Squirrel

When the phone rang I answered “All That’s Wildlife.”  A voice on the other end said “They are back again!” Just by that short sentence I recognized the voice. This was becoming an all too familiar customer. Three times in two years I’ve been back to this particular house. She had an exterminator come to her house prior to her first call to me. They told her she had rats in her attic. Per our phone conversation and my experience I knew better and just assumed gray squirrels right away.

When I arrived at the house she greeted me at the door and took me up stairs to the attic where she was hearing the noise. She told me she had been hearing scratching, scurrying and squealing noises everyday for the past 2 weeks. After a thorough inspection I determined that it was squirrels, but not just any squirrels, flying squirrels. “What? A Flying Squirrel,”  she exclaimed.  She was astonished. She had never heard of a flying squirrel. And to tell you the truth I was pretty surprised myself, I’ve only had one other flying squirrel job before.

I determined where they were getting in but it was difficult to get to that area to install an excluder (a device that allows the animal to leave and not get back in) to get rid of them. I decided to place a colony trap in the attic. I told her this shouldn’t take long at all and we should have something within the next two days. But to my surprise two weeks had gone by and still nothing. She hadn’t heard anything and the noise had ceased. It’s like they magically disappeared. I resigned myself to the fact that this was a one-time thing. I pulled my traps after a few weeks were up and left. I told her if she had anymore problems to call me back immediately.

It was almost one year later to the day that I got the call back again with the same problem. Again, I did the same thing, as soon as I set the traps the noises and everything else had abruptly ended. Again after about two weeks of not hearing any noises I decided to pull the traps again and patched up an area where I thought they were getting in.

Again, almost to the day another year later, she called me again with the same problem. We put the colony trap out again. After two days she called very excited to tell me we finally had success, something was in the trap. I didn’t know who was more excited me or her. I got to the house went up into the attic and there it was a beautiful female flying squirrel. If you have never seen one of these animals they are absolutely incredible. They are about 4 inches in length in the body with the softest lush fur you have ever seen. Gigantic brown eyes with opossum like paws which are almost human like in a lot of ways and a flattened bottle brushed tail that acts as a rudder when they are gliding from place to place; it’s basically their steering wheel.

I stood there in amazement looking at this little creature that very few people get a chance to see. They can be very common in a lot of areas but are so well camouflaged they can blend right in to a tree branch without even trying. You could be looking right at it and not even know it’s there.

She asked me what I would be doing with the animal and I told her I am taking a 10 mile ride to a release location that I had and assured her it would not be returning to her house. When I got to the release location the caretaker of the grounds met me at the gate. We talked briefly and I told him I’d be releasing a flying squirrel, he looked at me and said “a flying what”. He had never heard of a flying squirrel before. “There is no such thing’ he replied. You will see one in just a second, I replied. When I showed him he almost fell over, he was amazed. “I never knew those things existed”. He became very interested in assisting me in the release of this little critter. I opened the cage door at the base of an oak tree. She stood at the door of the trap for the longest time and didn’t’ want to leave the cage. With a little nudge she hopped on the tree. She looked around and like a lightning bolt she was gone. We were both walking around the base of the tree to see if we could get another glimpse of her but she had completely disappeared. All I can say is they are truly amazing little creatures and was glad to have had the privilege of seeing one up close.

Rick Wilberschied a/k/a The Critter Hunter