Chicago Using Coyotes To Fight Rodents 222
Brad Block, a supervisor for the Chicago Commission on Animal Care and Control says a coyote recently spotted downtown is part of a program designed to monitor the rodent population. "The animal has the run of the Loop to help deal with rats and mice," He said no one has called today to complain. “He’s not a threat. He’s not going to pick up your children,” Block said. “His job is to deal with all of the nuisance problems, like mice, rats and rabbits.”
The Cook County, Illinois, Coyote Project (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Mongoose (Score:4, Informative)
Uh, coyotes are native to the midwest. They aren't an invader species.
Re:This is great (Score:3, Informative)
The problem I see with wolves is, if it *does* go over the hood, then you have a really pissed off wolf in the car with you...
At 50+ MPH? I don't think so. Anyway, deer have a much higher center of mass than a wolf, (most of the weight is above the skinny legs) which is why they fly over the hood, and are somewhat more likely to survive for a time. Wolves are more skiddish about noises (cars) and less likely to be seen near traffic anyway, and become radiator food if you hit them in the average Buick. Keep in mind that in the wild, wolves are greatly outnumbered by deer, as it takes more than one deer a year to feed them, so a single wolf can "control" a few dozen deer per year. Adding a few wolves means less total animals in a given area, and a lower need to wander across traffic.
Re:Say goodbye to the cats (Score:5, Informative)
In New York City, we have a bad pigeon problem ... A falconer convinced the Bryant Park Restoration Corporation to let him try a hawk. ... It seemed to work for a while. Then the hawk attacked some lady's chihuahua, and they discontinued the experiment.
Well, jeez; he used a Harris hawk. He should have used a peregrine falcon. They pretty much restrict themselves to killing and eating smaller birds. They were almost extinct in North America 30 years ago, but people started introducing them to cities, and now they've recovered and are busy eating pigeons, grackles, starlings, and lots of sparrows as light snacks, in cities all over the continent.
Of course, they do have some limitations. They don't go after mice or rats; for that it's better to use an animal that lives on the ground and can poke around in out-of-the-way corners. Also, peregrines are highly territorial during nesting season (spring, summer), and won't tolerate a peregrine other than their mate within a mile or so of the nest. The pigeon population in a square mile of most cities is too high for a pair of peregrines to clean out. But this territoriality is common for most other kinds of hawks, too, so as photogenic as they are, hawks are only a partial solution to a pigeon (or starling or sparrow) surplus.
As others have suggested, our best rodent control is probably our domestic cats, with a little help from our dogs. We just have to stop treating them as pampered pets, and put them back to work doing the job that we domesticated them for. They're carnivores whose wild relatives live mostly by eating rodents, and they're well-adapted to living with humans.
It might be interesting to try introducing meerkats in a few areas. They're incredibly cute, and they also like to eat rodents. They also like to make burrows, and could probably invade a lot of the rodents' turfs. There are some other mongooses (mongeese?) that also have potential for urban rodent control.
There's also the area in southern India where people keep household cobras for rodent control ...
Re:Say goodbye to the cats (Score:3, Informative)
It might be interesting to try introducing meerkats in a few areas. They're incredibly cute, and they also like to eat rodents. They also like to make burrows, and could probably invade a lot of the rodents' turfs. There are some other mongooses (mongeese?) that also have potential for urban rodent control.
Not a good idea. Mongooses are diurnal, rats are nocturnal. It's already been tried in Hawaii and all it did was kill off a lot bird species because the mongooses ate their eggs instead of eating the rats.
Re:Advanced notice? (Score:3, Informative)
Except the coyotes we had that actually thought it okay at some to jump our fence to our back yard and try to get our smaller dogs instead of eating out of the trash cans etc.
Coyotes are not harmless at all. They run from you. They don't run from your pets. Your pets are food to them.