Category: Wildlife – Trapping

Channeling the Wily Armadillo

Note: The following contains critical armadillo trapping advice. Ignore it at your own peril. You’ve been warned. There’s also a walking stick gif. Alert Gazette readers will recall the account of my armadillo trapping woes, wherein the creatures were zooming in and out of the malfunctioning trap as if it were a port-a-potty next to… Continue reading Channeling the Wily Armadillo

Random Thursday: The Tuesday Edition

It’s been awhile since we’ve published a Random Thursday article [Ed–After reviewing this, it’s obvious that it hasn’t been long enough.] Trapping Fails Following a very quiet winter and early spring in which I actually contemplated the notion that I had trapped out the nuisance wildlife population in our immediate neighborhood. Lately, however, our game… Continue reading Random Thursday: The Tuesday Edition

Five Tips for Amateur Trappers in the Texas Hill Country

Lately, I’ve seen a lot of discussion on various local social media about folks who are having issues with critters tearing up their lawns and/or living where they shouldn’t be living (e.g. skunks declaring a homestead under a back yard deck). These discussions often contain a lot of good advice, as well as some that’s… Continue reading Five Tips for Amateur Trappers in the Texas Hill Country

The Fugitive Fox

It’s been a quiet couple of weeks at Casa de Fire Ant, at least from a trapping perspective. I haven’t bothered to bait the raccoon trap for a variety of reasons — laziness being at the top of the list — although the armadillo trap has been armed and routinely ignored. I assume that either… Continue reading The Fugitive Fox

Outfoxed

In my role as a wannabe trapper I’ve grown accustomed to being outsmarted by raccoons, who have frequently escaped with the bait without being captured. However, I’m now being outfoxed by an actual fox. Here’s what happened last night: I didn’t catch footage of the sardine abscondishment, but the tin was missing in another video… Continue reading Outfoxed

Another day…another skunk. This time, with 100% more me.

I woke up around 4:00 a.m. a few days ago (hold your snark; you’ll be old someday, too), and detected the unmistakable odor of skunk. I found this a bit unsettling, but not enough to get out of bed to investigate. I rolled over and went back to sleep. A few hours later, I opened… Continue reading Another day…another skunk. This time, with 100% more me.

Pepé Le Pew Deja Vu

Alert Gazette readers – and, really, aren’t you all? – will recall that I successfully, if foolishly, released a trapped skunk a couple of days ago without incident other than an elevated heart rate. I decided to give the trap a night off, but re-baited and re-armed it last night. I figured that a trapped skunk… Continue reading Pepé Le Pew Deja Vu

Skunk Works, or — “Do you smell what I smell?”

Alert Gazette readers know that I began documenting my critter trapping adventures last summer. Since then, I’ve caught armadillos, raccoons, possums, and one pretty stupid cat. The captive count has ballooned. In fact, I had to expand the Critter Capture Scorecard to accommodate all the new “guests.” Here’s the latest version: Uh…notice anything different about… Continue reading Skunk Works, or — “Do you smell what I smell?”

Paging Dr. Dolittle (or “Is someone building an ark?”)

I’m not a parent so I can only guess at the accuracy of what I’m about to say. I suspect that at some point in every child’s life, they realize that most of those dire parental threats (“If you don’t behave, Santa isn’t coming.” “Your face is going to freeze like that!”) are idle, and… Continue reading Paging Dr. Dolittle (or “Is someone building an ark?”)