Animal Control For Predators But Not For Pests
Natural Predators Can Eat Rodents Out of Houses and Homes
Mar 27, 2009
In an odd irony, lady bugs and preying mantises are shipped all over the world to eat their natural prey – but rats are allowed to run wild while Fish & Game officials encourage the killing of their natural enemies.
Rodents are such prolific reproducers, they form the food supply for many predators with enough left over to create problems for humans. While on the other hand, we have zoos, pet stores, and reptile owners buying hordes of mass-produced ‘food rats and mice’ bred and raised just to be served up inhumanely as meals for pet critters that eat them “au naturale” – alive.
Abundant Natural Rodent Predators Are a Green Choice
Small canid predators such as foxes range throughout North America, as well as Canada and Alaska, and desert and jungle-adapted foxes in South America. Studies have shown that the most common food item for all species of foxes, including the South American crab-eating fox, is rodents, followed by beetles, carrion, maggots, birds, eggs, fish, lizards, young turtles, nuts, fruits, and berries.
Occasionally a red fox may get desperate enough to attempt preying on a cat, but an average-sized cat can win such a battle. Further, fox and cat friendships are the stuff of legends, with some wild foxes filmed eating at outside cat dishes and showing deference to cats.
Another rat-eater is the coyote, living throughout the U.S., southern Canada and northern Mexico. Coyote diets consist mainly of rodents, road kill, and small animals such as lagomorphs, squirrels, weasels, mink, lizards, hatchling turtles, snakes, geese, human garbage, and locally plentiful vegetation like cactus fruits in the west, nuts and berries in the east, and fish along the coasts.
They have been observed playing with dogs in neutral environments, yet may attack them near their dens. They are routinely blamed for preying on cats, but in fact, attacks have rarely been documented. Some contentious evidence is on a video taken by Eastern Coyote Research founder, Dr. Jonathan Way of Cape Cod, where a coyote began a stalk, and the cat responded by chasing the coyote away.
Fisher cats are small wolverine-like weasels. A major part of their diet is also rodents and insects, as well as larger animals like rabbits, porcupines, cats (feral and domestic), and occasionally young raccoons, bobcats, or canids.
Domestic dogs, especially terrier breeds, can dispatch most rodents, including woodchucks. Few cats would take on a full grown rat, but they are efficient mousers. Wild ferrets, weasels, owls, hawks, raccoons, skunks, and eagles all compete efficiently for the remaining rodents, which are the most frequently sought food type for all species. They only switch to other foods where rodents are uncommon.
Rat Traps and Poison in Food Facilities Costs
According to the USDA National Wildlife Research Center's Model to Assess Rodent Control in Swine Facilities using traps and poison for year 2000, costs in just one facility ranged from $7600 to $42,000 annually, not even counting the private sector. In a time of economic crisis, cost cutting could preclude huge expenditures on poison and traps for redundant “rodent control measures” that already exist.
With environmental engineers fighting to reduce poisons in the environment, where are the clever entre- preneurs and masterminds that could match just some of these four-legged natural resources to the huge surpluses of rats and mice currently being killed and disposed of by highly-paid experts? That's exactly what all these predators do for free--kill rodents and instantly dispose of their bodies. Departments that manage wildlife should be required to live up to their job descriptions and encourage natural synergy, rather than just selling hunting licenses as if "managing" predator wildlife exclusively means "killing" it.
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