Muskrat Damage Control

Helpful tips on muskrat damage control.

http://mdc.mo.gov/landown/wild/nuisance/muskrats/

http://mdc.mo.gov

Category:

Howto & Style

Tags:

• muskrat
• damage
• control
• wildlife
• missouri
• conservation
• outdoors
• nature

[TheOutdoorsman07]

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

[TheOutdoorsman07]

@byrongilliam1 they have great fur.

[LightninLew]

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

[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...

[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

[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...