NUISANCE WILDLIFE IN SHELL KNOB
Spring is coming and with it comes gardening and nuisance critters eating Shell Knob gardens. White -tailed deer are delightful, according to the Missouri Department of Conservation, unless they are munching your prized azalea bushes. Opossums are appealing, until they set up housekeeping in your attic. Beavers are facinating, but their industry can be inconvenient when one of their dams backs up water over your driveway.
Squirrels can be so cute to watch, as they use a powerline for a tightrope, or eat some corn you've put out for them, but let them have access to your attic and they can do tremendous damage. Then there is the southern flying squirrel. They are likely to be the most abundant type of squirrel found in this part of the country. They are nocturnal and are difficult to catch sight of, but your bird feeders are one of their favorite places to pig out.
Fortunately Shell Knob is built around Tablerock Lake, but it is this same lake access, that provides for the multitude of critters that thrive with water access so readily available. Missourians have a long-standing love affair with the wild world, but occasionally there are down sides to the Show-Me-State's conservation successes. Recognizing this fact, the Missouri Department of Conservation has a wealth of information-online to help people deal with nuisance wildlife.
At www.missouriconservation.org/landown/wild/nuisance, you can download or print instructions on how to keep deer and other wild animals out of your garden or how to build a rabbit live-trap. You can learn how to legally discourage Canada geese from fouling your dock or waterfront. You can also discover how to persuade several thousand black birds that your yard is NOT
the best place to spend the night, leaving behind a liberal deposit of droppings.
Other pages offer insights about coyote snaring and trapping, mole and muskrat eradication, squirrel and chipmunk exclusion, how to deal with black bears in beehives. They also offer a dvd on watching animals. The Shell Knob library has a copy they will lend out.
The Missouri Conservation Department also has wildlife damage biologists to help with special wildlife problems, such as suspected mountain lion sightings, black bears that lose their natural fear of people or predators killing livestock.
For more information on this area, call Joan, toll free at: 888-823-4125
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