Muskrat Damage Control

[LightninLew]

Squeezing and drowning doesn't sound too humane to me.

[TheOutdoorsman07]

@LightninLew the conibear brakes their neck. it is very humane.

[byrongilliam1]

i dont see why people want to kill Muskrats anyway, the whole erosion thing sounds like a poor excuse to go kill something, there in my lake and they pose no threat at all

[43charmed]

@byrongilliam1 they do cause a threat when they eat the electrical wiring and insulation on your vehicles...and costs too much to have to keep maintaining them...

[TheOutdoorsman07]

@byrongilliam1 they have great fur.

[UmlautHorviksen]

Yes, oh us Americans. On my property I have seen coyotes, one bobcat, various snakes, large redtailed hawks, a blue heron (okay, it only preys on fish and frogs), etc. But I have a problem with a muskrat in my pond. A muskrat will destroy a dam or a levee, given sufficient time. Perhaps the non-American never has to deal with a mouse or some other destructive nuisance animal? Or lives in a city apartment, isolated from the realities of nature? Sorry. You don't have a clue.

[originaldeftom]

Oh you Americans make me laugh! If you had a more balanced eco system, you would not have a muskrat "problem". Had you left some natural predators in your "overtrimmed and manicured and sterilized" area, you would not have this problem. I'd say reintroduce snakes, birds of prey and other preying mammals and you have the BEST and most SUSTAINABLE "pest" control.

[DIXZA]

if their adaptations could be used productively. Ultimately, a treatment marsh without muskrats is an incomplete ecosystem. :)

[DIXZA]

remove nutrients. This might reduce the cost of harvesting because the muskrats would be doing some of the collection work for free, and the mound material might be used, like compost, as a soil amendment. In a sense the muskrat is a basic element in the ecological and hydrologic self-organization of temperature, humid landscapes. They have evolved to spread water around and regulate wetland processes in marsh ecosystems. It would be a significant accomplishment of ecological engineering...

[DIXZA]

Muskrats threaten dikes in the Netherlands...

Overall, the fact that muskrats can act as positive, keystone species in natural marshes but as negative, pest species in treatment marshes is a paradox. However, active design and management through ecological engineering may shift this balance. Perhaps their ecological role can be used to improve treatment capacity. One strategy might be to take advantage of their concentration of biomass in mounds by harvesting the mounds in the spring to...

[1patter]

i would not put my traps in there that way , you have one spring , so turn over the trap so that the spring is up and than secure w a stick true the eye

you trap will be more sucsesfull that way

[LiLW0LF]

taste all right ... grew up on subsistence living in the middle of no where ... 50 miles to the nearest town.ALASKA 907 ....

[NewYorkTrapper]

man i would love to trap that with some 110 conibears

[1patter]

@NewYorkTrapper your welkom here if you like , i do it for a living

[MoRRisoNRisiN]

i think my cat could easily fit in that lol so i dont think this is safe if you have pets but this guy seems to think it is

[NewYorkTrapper]

duh ya unsafe if your cat likes swimming underwater into muskrat holes

[crawboseth]

When was the last time your cat went through an underwater tunnel?

[bigtwinhd1]

Time to dye the traps! Great video those stancheons look slick, too.

[mdsoultrain]

...how does it "euthenize it?

[XxXmaliseXxX]

well it puts massive amounts *in the muskrats case* on the neck and around the pelvis area and kills them >:( i dislike it as i can but it wont change whats happening

[DarthTurkeyBurrito]

YEAH MUSKRATS!!!

[wtf2256]

traps are inhumane its more humane to shoot and have a quick death rather than a long painful death

[NewYorkTrapper]

it is rare for a muskrat caught in a conibear in a drowning set to live more than 30 seconds

[slop50701]

my experience in trapping has shown there seems to be about 3-6 rats / den in a pond with decent food availability.

[spartanofdelphi]

A 10/22 Ruger or Savage 22 Hornet works nicely and kills! I don't use traps anymore.

[nibbler125]

.22s are more fun or pellet guns if you really want to be a sniper

[stopglobalswarming]

Shoot them!

[klr72]

Great info, well filmed. This should be a great help to small pond owners with muskrat damage.

Kyle