I opened my garage today to find outside a wild turkey female my wife has been talking to on her walks, along with a dozen chicks. It would have been a massacre a few years ago, but my dog has grown very old and hard to bestir.
The wife responded by purchasing a bag of birdseed.
The turkey up here seem to be flourishing, and they also seem capable of distinguishing humans who provide refuge during hunting season from those who hunt them. I’m not sure how, but they do.
There's a fox den a block of so from where I currently live. The foxes have no compunction about wandering through back yards, nibbling dog food, browsing on bunnies, and doing what foxes do.
We have bobcats and coyotes in a green belt a couple hundred yards away that follows a creek behind a grade school and that follows another creek perpendicular and tributary to this one.
The bobcats often come into the neighborhood--the schoolyard is fenced, although the 'cats could get over it. They never have tried, though. The 'cats and the humans leave each other alone; the cats are only after the rabbits that carpet the yards in the pre-dawn hours or that are foolish enough to still be around in the mornings. They also snack on the pets that idiotically inattentive owners let out unattended or let escape from a house.
The coyotes are much more aggressive, and as they stalk humans, get dealt with.
11 comments:
I opened my garage today to find outside a wild turkey female my wife has been talking to on her walks, along with a dozen chicks. It would have been a massacre a few years ago, but my dog has grown very old and hard to bestir.
The wife responded by purchasing a bag of birdseed.
Pictures!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijP_HsVl39I
I didn't happen to get any, but I imagine she'll be back.
I'm not sure how wise it is to teach a naturally wild animal to not fear humans.
Eric Hines
The turkey up here seem to be flourishing, and they also seem capable of distinguishing humans who provide refuge during hunting season from those who hunt them. I’m not sure how, but they do.
It’s a bad idea to feed the bears.
As you probably already know, in addition to being extremely canny and highly suspicious during hunting season, wild turkeys are also very smart.
The game animals really do behave differently when they know they're on the menu.
There's a fox den a block of so from where I currently live. The foxes have no compunction about wandering through back yards, nibbling dog food, browsing on bunnies, and doing what foxes do.
The skunk family, however, is most unwelcome.
LittleRed1
We have bobcats and coyotes in a green belt a couple hundred yards away that follows a creek behind a grade school and that follows another creek perpendicular and tributary to this one.
The bobcats often come into the neighborhood--the schoolyard is fenced, although the 'cats could get over it. They never have tried, though. The 'cats and the humans leave each other alone; the cats are only after the rabbits that carpet the yards in the pre-dawn hours or that are foolish enough to still be around in the mornings. They also snack on the pets that idiotically inattentive owners let out unattended or let escape from a house.
The coyotes are much more aggressive, and as they stalk humans, get dealt with.
Eric Hines
We have lots of coyotes and at least some bobcats.
The local squirrels have trained my wife to feed them. They'll come up on the porch railings and beg like in this picture:
https://images.app.goo.gl/kE5F9MDnnFFPnWKE6
She buys peanuts especially for them now.
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