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Califbill

Poco Loco wrote:
On Tue, 21 Oct 2014 12:56:15 -0400, wrote:

On Tue, 21 Oct 2014 12:28:42 -0400, Wayne.B
wrote:

On Tue, 21 Oct 2014 10:29:03 -0500, Califbill
wrote:

Poco Loco wrote:
On Mon, 20 Oct 2014 22:17:28 -0400, wrote:

On Mon, 20 Oct 2014 20:03:54 -0400, F*O*A*D wrote:

Sure, but you have to be able to see the varmint and have a rifle
capable of shooting something fairly small at a reasonable distance.
Maybe you should practice with your driver.

Interesting conundrum. Is it more ecologically sound to hunt (even
assuming we are not talking about invasive exotics) or to play golf or
any other lawn based sport?

I would say to hunt. A lot more animals succumb to habitat destruction
than to bullets. Hunters actually promote setting aside more habitat,
granted to have more to shoot at, but it is management of the
resource, not simply wiping it out to plant grass.

I feel the same way about residential lawns, the largest single crop
in the US and one that does not really feed anyone except the guys who
charge to mow, fertilize, poison and suppliers who provide for those
who do. (a $15 billion dollar industry)

Both our golf course and our neighborhood have very nice deer herds,
thank you.

Saw a small buck next to the road by the shopping center yesterday.
Permanent sleep. We are a suburban area, so we have lots of critters.
Since I do not have dogs, seem to get lots of squirrel in my yard, getting
at the bird feeder.

===

If you want to have some fun observing animal ingenuity, try building
a squirrel proof bird feeder some time. It would have made a great
YouTube video as the squirrel learned how to defeat all of my counter
measures.

The closest I have seen was a feeder under a big sheet metal cone,
suspended on baling wire, far from anything they can climb on
Even if they can get down the wire, the cone shoots them off away from
the feeder.
As far as I am concerned, if you are feeding wildlife, why are the
squirrels excluded? You end up sharing the food with the rats anyway.
A roof rat can get to just about anything a squirrel can and they have
no problem foraging the stuff the birds scatter on the ground under
the feeder.

My bird feeders are gone because of rats! About five years ago I
looked out back and saw three Norwegian rats under the sunflower seed
bird feeder. Exterminators said to ditch the bird feeders. After a few
months the rats were no longer into the bait stations. Haven't seen
hide nor hair of them since.

We get roof rats here in suburbia. Smaller than a Norwegian rat. But
still big.