I used to work at a wildlife rehab center and some of my job was doing animal patient intakes. Turkey vulture vs. motor vehicle and then someone is suddenly handing me a giant, vomiting vulture wrapped in a sweatshirt. Foxes, raccoons, skunks, beavers, hummingbirds, big or small we tried to take them all. A big part of my job was also talking to the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW) and staying current on laws and moratoriums. Due to rabies we often couldn’t take bats or raccoons. Fawns and deer were also illegal and not considered candidates for rehab. The laws changed all the time and it was hard and heartbreaking. The number of animals we could actually help was shockingly small. Small, not only because of rabies and laws, but also because of the injuries. When humans clash with wildlife, it’s no surprise that the wild animals usually aren’t victorious.
Another part of my job was handling phone calls from the general public asking questions about “nuisance” wildlife, a term I frankly despise. It was my job to educate the public about coexistence, although frustratingly, many people just wanted animals disposed of. That particular service was not one we provided so before sending them on their way, I used to do everything I could to persuade people away from trapping or killing.
The laws on that are strict too and I had to keep up on them. For instance if you trap a raccoon you must kill it. It’s illegal to relocate many animals and that’s why if you call one of those “services” to come and get rid of a raccoon, please know it doesn’t have a happy ending. In any event, I took dozens of calls a day, sometimes a hundred. Every call was logged in a log book. The time, the nature of the call and what the resolution was, if there could be one. Sometimes a call could end with me receiving a patient into our clinic, but other times, it ended with me calling the sheriff to “dispatch” a sick or injured animal. Most of the time though, it ended with me explaining, 30 different ways, why the caller needed to search their soul for a peaceful resolution with the animal that was troubling them. This often involved tips and tricks on how to discourage animals from coming too close to their houses, their chickens, or their children. It was a very hard job. It was eye opening too.
Whether it’s a wasp or a cougar many people refuse, out of hubris or fear, to navigate a peaceful coexistence with animals. Many times they are even self proclaimed animal lovers but there is definitely a line where people lose their compassion. There could be a hundred things to try before death and yet death is the norm. People get angry too. Not on my property! not in my garden! Not near my chickens! Well, sadly humans, you are winning this war, and why it needs to be a war is beyond me.
Well, I didn’t live on our homestead when I worked there. I lived in a quaint little neighborhood close to town. I didn’t have chickens, or even see very many animals aside from squirrels on a regular basis, so even though I had strong feelings about man vs. nature, they hadn’t exactly been tested. That of course, has all changed.
Over the last 8 years, we have had many wondrous visitors here on the homestead, some have taken up residence for a time, and some were just passing through. Some have done damage and caused death and destruction, but most have not. Through the years there has been one constant for me when it comes to wildlife and that is: Let go of your expectations. Some of you may remember Frogbert, our resident frog who spent a summer here going out of our bathroom window every night for garden hunting and then returning every morning to sleep in our bathroom sink all day long. We stopped using the bathroom sink for months! And it was worth it. It was more than worth it.
Anytime I see people make blanket statements about what animals will or won’t do, I get my disapproval on record by making a frowny face. Sure, there can be typical behaviors, like when animals are active for hunting or when their breeding season is, but animals really do vary on an animal to animal basis. Ask any pet owner and they will tell you about the personalities of their dogs, cats, goats or chickens. Wild animals are not really different. That why when people say things like: “Skunks will kill your chickens.” Or “you have to get rid of that raccoon” I look skeptical and say
“Really? Because my experience says otherwise.”
Early in our years here on the homestead we had a young skunk who ended up moving in under our house. Back then our chicken coop and small flock of only 5 hens were right next to the house, so the skunk was pretty close to them. He liked to sleep all day but every evening he would come out from under the house and wriggle his way into the chicken run. It was unnerving and sometimes stinky, he would often spray at night, probably facing off with foxes or raccoons. Initially I thought: There’s no way! I wanted to get rid of him and we even borrowed a live trap from the neighbors. I was worried about the chickens and I was worried about our dogs getting skunked too, but for a lot of reasons, we never set the trap. Instead, we just began observing his behavior. By the time he woke up in the evening, the chickens were always secured in the coop. He would go into the chicken run and spend the evening vacuuming up all the spilled chicken feed. He had a little routine and he walked his “beat” every night. That’s how he got the name Officer Friendly.
For the time he lived here, his presence ended all the raccoon and fox activity we had previously had and he seemed well fed and very content to enter the chicken run every evening, eat the chicken food and dig around for worms and things, and then let himself back out. Until one night when we had a big snow storm. It didn’t even occur to me, but he was in the run as the snow piled up and it blocked him in the chicken run. It was too deep for him to dig out and so he wasn’t able to make his escape at dawn.
I went in to the run and gently used the snow shovel to scoop him up. Boy, he he hung on for the ride! He didn’t spray and I carried him out and around and dropped him off at the opening that led under the house, right at his front door! After the snow stopped, I made sure to shovel out his method of egress into the run, and then I went on with my day. Several hours later I was peeking out at the chickens and saw Officer Friendly bellied up to the feeder WITH the chickens. They were all getting along famously! Just a skunk and his friends. He must have been really hungry to introduce himself, or gotten over his shyness…either way, from then on he sometimes made an appearance in the daytime, grabbing some extra grub. But he never stole an egg and he never attacked the chickens.
One morning in midwinter he got startled and ran across the road. I never saw him again. And yes, we did then wire off the opening that led under the house…but for a time we all lived together in harmony. Sure, he could be annoying and stinky but he was also delightful. Great memories and a foundational experience for me in how I would go on to treat the wildlife around here as welcome visitors or residents here on our property.
Foxes leaping over the fences. Raccoons peering at me from the roof of the chicken coop at midnight, their nimble fingers reaching over to try and pick the lock. Wasps swarming my hands as I refill their pollinator water but not stinging, even a rattlesnake in the barn that we had to move. These interactions have been small, but magical, and they have sustained me over the years. It’s true that sometimes tragedy strikes. Animals are opportunists after all, and often hungry! They are struggling at times and if something happens to kill your fat pampered hen, I urge you to pause.
Can we learn to embrace the wild things? The animals that cross over and onto the borders of our property are a bit like children. They rely on our wisdom and the establishing of boundaries, but they also rely on our kindness and compassion.
Here’s some practical advice.
Even if there’s a tragedy and you lose an animal, pause and observe before you react.
How did the predator access your livestock? Can you fix it? If the threat seems insurmountable, find a way to secure your animals for a few days. In a secure barn or coop. Often the predators will move on when they can’t get an easy meal. Keep the cat inside, whatever it takes. You might have to change your routine for a bit until they move on, but having them decide to leave is still a win for everyone.
Once your livestock are secure, even if it’s an inconvenience, observe, observe, observe. When does the wildlife come and go? How are they getting in to the places on your property where you don’t want them? Use your creative problem solving skills and your hardware cloth, your welded wire, your heavy duty stapler, your plastic deer fencing or your t-bars. There are fixes for most immediate threats, especially in a small scale backyard system or homestead.
Sometimes animals move onto your property or close enough to it that they become regulars. Don’t tell yourself: “Something must be done to get rid of it”. Instead, pretend that it is never going away and ask yourself what you would have to change to make space for it. No really, and this is an important exercise… Try to imagine that the “nuisance” animal is one of the last of its kind and that it has nowhere else to go. Would you really be comfortable being the one to trap it, kill it or harass it?
Train yourself that every single animal, insect and bird has an important and treasured place in the ecosystem, even if you don’t understand or can’t fathom what it might be.
Take wasps for instance. I have made my peace with them and they do have an important role here, even though sometimes they feel like a bother. Did you know they can learn faces? Once I stopped hating them, I stopped getting stung. I move carefully around them and with respect, which leads me perfectly into my next piece of advice.
Animals will often attack if they sense aggression, even fear based aggression. Calm yourself. Acknowledge that something can be painful or dangerous but try to resist the urge to lash out, scream or present yourself as a threat. This may not be possible for true phobias but that’s another thing all together.
Get over your distaste and dislike for one species over another. Everyone has a place, and a wide variety of species are what make a place biodiverse and biodiversity has been declining everywhere. You already collect native plants, you say? What about native bees? Native insects? Beetles? Snakes or coyotes? Not all animals are glamorous, try to love them all.
Imagine you are a part of these animals lives and allow them to be part of yours. It’s not you against them. It’s all of us together.
Having a dog can be helpful, if you love dogs and already have one, it can be a great deterrent to livestock losses. It doesn’t even need to be a livestock guardian, it can just be your family pet that gets to spend some time on your property during the day. I have found that a dog, out on the property with a somewhat irregular schedule is a pretty good block to daytime attacks on the chickens. And the foxes, raccoons and owls all come after 10pm. The dog is inside for bed and the chickens are secure in their coop. There is plenty of time for the wild animals to hunt the ample rats, mice and rodents.
Do your homework to build secure the livestock housing. This is really important. A neighbor lost her entire flock of 15 chickens over the course of a month and I kept asking how? I have since discovered that the same people who tell me there’s no way to keep chickens safe up here are the same ones who tell me it’s impossible to garden up here, even as I do both. Though I will add. It is hard work.
And finally: Do your research. People have made war on animals throughout time. Snakes, wolves and sharks to name a few, before they understood what the animal was all about, what it was looking for and how it provided benefits to the land. We often fear what we don’t understand. Learn, observe, adapt.
And now I am going to share with you what I have learned about hawks and how to make them welcome. If a hawk preys on your chickens. Make sure you put the chicken feeder under cover. hawks typically attack when the bird is looking down and eating. Hang flags or shiny things that move in the wind near your run. Make sure your chickens have good hiding spots in their run and use netting or shade cloth over open areas of the run if possible. And finally, if you’re in a place where you can do so, keep a rooster. They are vigilant flock movers and protectors. When our recent hawk visitor got my bantam hen Velma, she was outside of the run. That’s on me, she was a regular escapee and I hadn’t clipped her wing again. Right at the time Velma was killed, the rooster inside the run had already gotten his entire flock of hens hidden away.
The hawk has been back, and since I’ve worked to make the chickens even less interesting, the hawk now has its sights focussed on the bird feeder and the activity surrounding it. chipmunks, squirrels and songbirds along with collared doves and Stellar’s jays. My bird feeder is in a fairly sheltered location so there is some cover for the small birds, but I am fine with the hawk having all the time it needs there.
A hawk will typically catch the slower, less hardy animals, even sick ones and in this way a hawk can help the populations of wild birds remain strong and healthy. Hawks like high roosts where they can be still and watch the area below. They like quiet and they need a place to eat securely and then rest while they digest their meal. We have all this, though I also think the hawk will move on if it finds a more suitable hunting ground.
I have always kept my areas for wild birds far away from my chicken run on purpose so I think that the hawk can hunt the area around my feeder fairly safely, and I think he only got Velma because she was a tiny bantam breed, out of the run and also elderly. Time will tell though, and since he is a new visitor, I am observing when I can but I think it will work out. I also have a feeling that the hawk might be an irregular visitor, our property has food for it, but it has me and my dog too, and we are out and about at unpredictable times. But when it’s here, it’s welcome.
And a final word: I’m no expert, just a hobby naturalist. We haven’t had coyotes or bears on our property, though our neighbors have in plenty and I think it’s because of our perimeter fencing. The fencing also mostly keeps deer out of the garden. Sometimes I get frustrated, but I try to look at it as a way for me to flex my creative problem solving skills. There is never, ever any need to punish the wild things. If you call fish and wildlife about an animal, in most places, that is a death sentence for the animal. If you shoot coyotes, they breed faster. If you poison rodents, you’re poisoning everything all the way up the food chain. The way some people talk about animals really bothers me. People say they kill everything for fun, that they destroy everything, that they are a nuisance…and sometimes I think this is just a projection of how these people see themselves. The animals are just looking for a way to be, to survive, and we can help or hinder. And I don’t really think that humans are a nuisance either, not really, but as long as we choose to see ourselves as separate from the natural world around us, we will forever be at odds with it and with ourselves.
And the hawk! The beautiful Cooper’s hawk that I am getting acquainted with, I don’t believe that my home is even its idea of a perfect place to live, but here it is, and our fates are currently intertwined. So I am going to reasonably do everything in my power to allow it to live as best as it can.
And for all the wild things, I keep space in my heart and space in my home for their existence, seeing them as autonomous beings who are my kindred on this earth. Sometimes things go wrong, we can’t plan or foresee everything, sometimes our hearts get broken. Sometimes we humans are the bringers of death, whether for survival or mercy. And sometimes the foxes and the hawks are the killers, harvesting one of our chickens for its dinner, despite our best efforts. I won’t say that living this lifestyle has made me better at handling death, but it has made me no stranger to it. It’s as much a part of life as birth and it comes and goes and comes again, eventually for every living thing.
Pause, observe, adapt. feel. Keep your mind open. Let the cycles of life amaze and horrify you and keep space in your heart for the endings as well as beginnings. Stop meddling when and where you can. Let it unfold and allow yourself to revel in the drama of nature. Let yourself ebb and flow in season with all the living things around you.
And listen to the songbirds chirping happily away, but also know, they are not all meant to live another summer.
Everyone needs to eat
100% agree. We tend to name the wild animals who stick around for a while, too.
Beautiful, thank you. Gave me food for thought about some of my own attitudes, for sure 🌹