In areas where raccoons do not live, people have a hard time thinking of the creatures as pests. Let’s face it; raccoons are very cute, look cuddly, don’t seem all that creepy, and are also very amusing. Their natural curiosity, their survival skills, and their intelligence all add up to make one big super pest in areas where they are found in abundance.

When it comes to controlling a pest raccoon population, least toxic approaches have always been the most successful. Raccoons are smart enough to avoid most kinds of poisons, so pest control officers and home owners tend towards more active methods of control. Let’s take a look at some of the least toxic ways to deal with a raccoon problem.

(more…)

Due in large part to their biology, raccoons stand apart from other common pests in several different areas. Where they don’t differ is in their ability to become a general nuisance in both urban and rural settings. Understanding the biology of a particular type of pest is part of the foundation of least toxic pest control, where pests are controlled through the comprehension of their habits, diet, and reproductive behaviour. Once these areas are understood, pests can be controlled much more effectively. Let’s take a look at some of the key points in the biological makeup of raccoons.

Diet

Raccoons are both opportunistic and omnivorous. This means that they are willing and able to eat plants or meat, and will take advantage of literally any meal that they can. In the wild, this means roots, seeds, berries, fruit, small mammals, fish, and so on. In an urban setting, though, raccoons will eat just about anything they find lying around. Like most pests, they are particularly fond of garbage, and they also seem to enjoy eating both dog and cat food.

(more…)

Left in their natural environment, raccoons are no problem to people. In fact, these little mammals have been known to make very interesting and entertaining pets, although they can be somewhat hard to manage. A large part of the problems that raccoons cause in urban settings are due to a couple of basic facts about their biology; namely their willingness to eat just about anything and their keen intelligence. Let’s take a look at a few of the problems that raccoons can cause, in their pest mode.

* Damage. Raccoons have earned a bit of a reputation as vandals, although they do not necessarily go out of their way to damage property. Instead, damage that they cause can be attributed to their search for food. Raccoons are problem solvers and will try a number of different methods in order to reach a possible food source, and that can lead to dented garbage cans, wrecked birdhouses, garbage strewn about yards and sheds, and chewed through packaging.

(more…)

If you live in an area of the United States which has a huge deer population, you know exactly the kind of problems this largest of the vegetarian pests can cause. Deer numbers are very hard to keep under control due to a decreasing lack of interest in hunting, great pressure from anti-shooting lobbyists, mild weather, and a dearth of natural predators. As a result deer have become a big issue as pests in many areas of the country. Let’s take a look at some of the problems you can expect from deer.

* Garden destruction. Deer are roughly ten times the size of other common pests, and that means that they can easily inflict ten times the amount of damage at a time. The time is usually at night, as that is when the naturally shy deer, along with most other mammal pests, are most comfortable with. In one night one or two deer can bring total destruction to an unprotected garden; not only will they eat most of the tender plants and vegetables, but their sharp hooves will crush anything they leave behind. Many hobby gardeners have awakened in the morning to a couple month’s worth of work destroyed in a single night by hungry deer.

(more…)

If you have a bear pest problem, you have a very big problem, in every sense of the word. For such a large animal, bears can be very hard to control and outside of sprawling urban metropolises black bears cause problems in almost every state in the country. If you have bears around, here are some of the areas in which bears cause problems that you can expect if you don’t exercise sound integrated pest management strategies.

* Threats. One of the biggest problems with bears is that they are immensely powerful and in areas where they are used to humans or unfamiliar with humans as a possible threat, they can be very dangerous. Bears know that their size makes them king, and although most of the time they don’t throw their weight around direct conflicts between humans and bears never end in favour of the humans. They are especially aggressive when they have babies with them, and black bears are also known for predatory behaviour, making them a serious threat to children in particular. And of course if a bear feels threatened, it poses the greatest danger of any common pest.

(more…)

The good thing about raccoons is that as pests go, they are on the more tolerable side because of their appearance, their intelligence, and because they do not breed as quickly as other types of pests. The bad thing is that sometimes, raccoons can be one of the worst pests there are, again largely due to their intelligence.

Integrated pest management calls for the least toxic approach to handling pests like raccoons, due to the harmful nature of the chemicals and poisons that have traditionally been used to keep pest animals under control. This is maybe more true of mammal pests such as raccoons than insects, because the poisons used against mammals can be just as deadly to humans.

(more…)

When it comes to your garden, deer are one of the biggest pests around. Large numbers in herds around the United States means that deer are a threat to any semi rural home owner’s hobby, and in many cases to landscaping as well. A small number of deer can do a lot of damage in a very short amount of time, so it is important to take preventative measures in so deer don’t realize that your yard may contain a source of food. Here are some ways to keep deer away from your lawn and garden.

(more…)

When it comes to North American pests, there is none bigger than the bear. People dwelling in urban areas of the States and Canada have little to worry about when it comes to bear problems, but the same is not true in the even bordering rural neighbourhoods. Even the most densely populated state of New Jersey is home to hundreds of black bears, and every year there are problems that range from the messy to the deadly involving these bears.

It might be difficult to conceive of black bears in the same pest category as raccoons and even insects, but just one bear can do an awful lot of damage to a home and/or garden in one night. Surprising, they are also a lot easier to control through prevention than almost any other kind of pest, although you certainly don’t want to attempt to deal with a bear yourself. Here are some ways to make sure that your home and the area around it remain bear proof.

(more…)

An important part of an integrated pest management strategy is understanding the biology of animals that we sometimes consider to be pests. Once there is a knowledge about what pest animals eat, where they are likely to seek shelter, their eating and mating habits, it is much easier to control their population so that it does not grow to pestilential proportions.

Deer are probably the biggest garden pest that there is in the United States, both in terms of distribution and size. They can do a lot of damage to a garden or to landscaping efforts in a very short period of time, and the damage that they inflict can encompass a surprising number of areas. Let’s take a look at the biology of deer in order to more fully grasp how they can be controlled.

(more…)

You might wonder what an article about bears is doing on an integrated pest control site. Well believe it or not, black bears are still fairly common in the United States, and where they occur they seem to love everything that humans have to offer. Fruit trees and garbage are ideal meals for a hungry bear, and you will find them in every state. It’s not just urban areas that are prone to black bear problems either; the state of New Jersey is the most densely populated in the country, yet the black bear is as big a problem there as it is in Wyoming; perhaps even more so, given that there are many more opportunities for bears to encounter humans. (more…)