 The following program is a production of the Alabama Cooperative Extension Service. Have you ever experienced damage from beaver or coyotes or whitetail deer? Join us as the Alabama Cooperative Extension Service shows what you can do when good animals go bad. Now here is Extension Wildlife Scientist, Dr. Jim Armstrong. Hello and welcome to our program. Tonight we are going to talk about wildlife damage management. First off, I'd like to thank my friend Robert Schmidt of Utah State University for suggesting the title of this program, When Good Animals Go Bad. Robert and I were talking at a meeting when he mentioned the important point that none of the animals will discuss tonight are inherently bad. It's only when their activities have a negative impact on human activities that control may be needed. I say the word may because many times the solution does not involve the use of control measures at all but the education of the clients. In general, wildlife biologists manage wildlife populations for the benefit of wildlife and humans. Sometimes wildlife species come into conflict with humans and steps must be taken to stop or minimize those conflicts depending on the situation that may be done by manipulating the people, the wildlife, or both. Now while it's true that many other species of wildlife come into conflict with humans, three species, the beaver, the coyote, and the deer seem to stimulate quite a bit of discussion among agricultural producers. For that reason, we'll focus on those three species in tonight's discussion. Helping me provide the expertise tonight are Frank Boyd, who is State Director of USDA AFIS Animal Damage Control, and Gary Moody, Chief of the Wildlife Section, the Alabama Department of Natural Resources Game and Fish Division. Our format tonight will consist of a brief overview of the biology of these species, a discussion of the legal aspects of control, and finally a discussion of control measures. After we discuss each species, you'll have the opportunity to call in with questions, so jot down this number. 1-800-258-2237 will encourage you to call us about these species or about wildlife damage in general. Again, our toll-free number from anywhere in the country is 1-800-258-2237. It's 1-800-258-ASIS. Before we get started into the specifics, let's talk about some things that you should know about wildlife damage in general in Alabama. A survey that we did a while back showed just the way we break down our calls. And you can see that we deal with quite a diversity of species relative to wildlife damage in Alabama. This is very consistent with the activities that also go on with USDA Animal Damage Control Program. They also deal with quite a diversity of species as well, as you can see. The way it's generally broken down in Alabama is that migratory species are dealt with by the federal agency because of federal jurisdiction. And non-migratory species such as deer, beaver tend to be handled by the state agency or by the extension service. Now with that background information, let's move on to our discussion. Before we move on to the beaver though, let me ask y'all, do you see a need for wildlife damage management increasing in the future? And if so, why? Well, I think we're definitely going to see an increase in the need for trained biologists to deal with this problem. Mostly because people now are not as adept as they were several generations ago of understanding wildlife. We've become a more urban society. And generations ago, people lived on a farm, understood wildlife and just dealt with things. There are one as many rules and laws and regulations to deal with as there are now. And things are just much more complex. Our ever-increasing human population brings humans closer together and it's just not as easy to resolve issues as maybe it once was. So, yeah, I think we'll see more and more problems dealing with wildlife, a lot more urban problems dealing with wildlife that we're going to need trained people to take care of those problems. Frank, you do a lot of operational work on the ground with landowners. What's been your observations as far as wildlife damage? Well, the same thing. It's growing more each year as people, we get more and more people trying to live on the same amount of land and we're running into more and more problems. I think that's a trend we've seen over the last several years and I don't see any reason why it's going to slow down. Okay, so I think it's quite apparent that wildlife damage management is something here that's going to stay. It's certainly not going to go away anytime soon. Let's begin now looking at the first of the three species. We're going to begin with a discussion of beaver in Alabama. Beaver are the largest of the North American rodents. They are easily identified by their prominent flattened tail. The tail aids in support, swimming, and communication. Beaver are increasing throughout the southeastern United States. In the early 1900s, beaver were nearly extinct. However, beaver pelts were a valuable commodity on the fur market and beaver swamps provided valuable habitat to many additional wildlife species. So efforts were made to reestablish their populations in much of their original range. It would be safe to say that these efforts were a tremendous success. In fact, if you experience damage from beaver, you may feel these efforts were too successful. Keep in mind, though, that from a wildlife management standpoint, beaver ponds are very beneficial. The recovery of wood duck populations in the southeast is directly linked with the increased habitat available in beaver swamps. While beaver may be beneficial in many ways, from a producer's standpoint, beaver ponds may be detrimental. Beaver are capable of altering their habitat to suit their needs. It's this characteristic that may bring them into conflict with landowners. Beaver will girdle and fell trees to build a lodge and dam. This act may also flood standing timber or row crops. The resulting water stress on these flooded trees or row crops may eventually cause them to die. Beaver may also build dens underneath roads, thereby weakening the structure. Depending on your specific situation, beaver control techniques may vary due to the sizable beaver population in the southeast. Live trapping and relocating offending animals is no longer a realistic alternative. In addition, there are no repellents, toxicants, or fumigants registered for beaver control. Eliminating beaver from an area requires a combination of trapping and or shooting the beaver and destroying the dam. One of the most effective traps for beaver is the 330 Connabare. We'll show you how to set this and other beaver traps in just a moment. When properly set, the Connabare kills the beaver instantly. Once all the beaver have been removed from the pond, the dam can be destroyed in the water drain from the flooded timber or crops. If the damage is to just a few trees, say adjacent to a pond, you might want to consider just putting hardware cloth collars around the trees to prevent the beaver from chewing on the trees. Beaver damage is very variable and it's almost impossible to make specific recommendations during this program. However, before implementing any control strategy, it's wise to contact the Conservation Officer in your county. Earlier, Gary Moody, Chief of the Wildlife Section of the Alabama Game and Fish Division, pointed out some of the precautions you should address before beginning to trap. There are really a couple of issues you need to look at anytime you're dealing with beaver because you're dealing with wetland issues as well as a biological problem there. First thing we do is recommend that landowners contact the appropriate agency to find out what wetlands implications and what wetland laws need to be applied. From a biological standpoint, there are no closed seasons on beavers and they can be taken at any time of the year by trap or gun. Anytime there's a demonstrated problem that a landowner is having with beavers, they should contact the local game and fish officer if they need to have some control at night and they can get a permit to hunt beavers at night if that would help them some. Probably the most effective is a good trapping program and game and fish can recommend people to assist you with that and animal damage control folks have some excellent personnel that deal with beaver damage control and we can get the proper advice to the landowners. Let's take a few minutes for Frank Boyd to see just how you might go about setting traps to remove beaver from the problem area. Well, once you've evaluated the problem and you decided that you do need to remove some of the beaver, the next step would be to get the proper equipment and head out to the field and initiate your trapping or beaver removal program. Probably the most widely used tool here in Alabama is the 330 Connor Bear. This is a lethal trap. It's a trap designed to kill the animal relatively quickly. It's one of the more easily mastered techniques, although somewhat difficult to set. They can be typically mastered by most landowners to where they can be fairly effective removing the beaver. Setting the trap is a problem if you're not used to it. Each spring individually must be set. As you can see, they're setting one spring here with a setting tool. This is well worth the effort to get a tool like this to help as these springs are fairly strong, you can tell. They can also be set with the rope, but setting two like this is the way to go for most folks, I would think. You'll notice they're squeezing the spring in and then placing the safety hook on to hold the spring closed until they finish setting the trap. Now both springs are set. They've still got to finish the procedure though, which would be to pick it up and open the jaws and set the actual trigger mechanism on. These sets can be placed in a run or a damn crawl over such as we're seeing here in beaver runs or crawl outs in a wide variety of sets. The jaws are then compressed and the trigger placed in. On the 330, there'll be two small indentions on the trigger dog. Either one of these positions work fine for our area, particularly for the beaver. It's not that critical how it's set. The thing to remember with beaver trapping with the kind of bear, this is not a selective tool. Remember it's a lethal device and if you're concerned about non-targets, you should maybe opt for another technique such as a snare or where the animal can be released if you capture a non-target. By your selective placement of this trap in runs where you know beaver are using the beaver signs there and there's no signs of other non-targets, you can be fairly selective in your placement. In Alabama, they must be set in water such as this set you're seeing now and not set up on dry land. Again, this is to reduce non-target catches. Once the trap set, it should be secured with trap wire or bailing wire to either a tree nearby or by just simply placing a wooden stake or beaver stick into the mud and then attaching your trap wire to that. This can save your traps if you get high water and washes out a variety of reasons. It's always good to secure your traps. These sets can be made not only in and around the dam and the runs which we talked about but in the beaver lodge itself. As you can see, you walk around the lodge and the entrance will be a lot deeper than the rest of the water. As you walk off down into the run going into the lodge set, you can feel with your feet and feel the bottom of this run locate that entrance into the lodge. Specifically, it could be three or four feet underwater and set your trap all the way down on the ground at the bottom of this run. A little more difficult than the set we saw earlier but by using long poles such as you see here, you can get the trap secured to these long poles and then you can slide right down the sides where that trap will be placed right in the bottom of the run. There's a lot more careful in this set because you're dealing with the trap underwater and this 330-cona bear, it can be pretty painful if you get caught in it so you want to be careful. As you see here, run your hands down the side of the sticks to reach the jaw springs. You want to handle these traps by the springs and not by the jaws itself. That's the advantage of leaving these sticks exposed. You can run your hand down those sides and grab up with the trap directly. Another good technique is the snare. This is a good option if you're worried about non-targets, the snare as opposed to the cona bear, the snare being a live catch device. It's designed to capture the animal alive and hold it until you get there. A little different technique involving some different management. You must remember to run these snares every day. You need to get out first thing in the morning and run these snares because the animal will be alive in there and you've got a little longer trap check regulation on the cona bear. But basically it's set in the same manner such that the beaver attempts to move through it as it walks through. The snare closes down on it, squeezes down and holds him until you can get there. A couple other advantages to the snare. They're a lot lighter, particularly carrying back in the deeper sections of the woods and they're a lot safer for the novice user. They do require a little more skill though and if you're planning on using snares I recommend that you take a little time to get the technique down. There's chip typically suspended by some trap wire attached to a small stake such as you see right here held out over the run so that the beaver attempts to go right through the snare. This particular one is a washer lock. There's a variety of snare locks available on the market. All of them work very well for beaver in our area. But you can see here the completed set of the snare on the damn crawl over. Frank, let me ask you. I was noticing you mentioned that you might need to set release a non-target animal out of that snare. What are some techniques that you would recommend for releasing a non-target animal? Well, typically we're using a choke pole that's called a restraining device that's got a long pole with a cable that pulls down over it to restrain that animal. In Alabama the trap regulations require that trappers carry these. It's a device that most trappers have readily available. And you can slip it down over animal, tighten down, and it just holds animal down, restrains them until you can get out and release it from the snare and then let it go. Thanks, Frank. I might also add that it's not always necessary to remove the beaver from an area. Depending on what your objectives are, the water control structures may be installed that allow you to control water levels in the pond. This may have several advantages as far as wildlife management, especially for waterfowl. Now it's time to answer some of your questions on beaver damage and control measures. Maybe you've had a problem with beaver damage where you live. If so, give us a call. Our program is interactive and your questions are certainly important to us. Our toll-free number is 1-800-258-2237. That's 1-800-258-ASIS. Let me ask you a question. If you don't mind, maybe both of you can respond to this. I mentioned the water control structures. What are some of the situations where a person might have a beaver pond where they wanted to keep the water on the area for the wildlife management benefits but needed to remove the beaver so that they could manage the water? What are some ways that they could be done and what are some of the benefits? Well, there's a variety of ways. You're just trying to control some of the excessive damage but keep the beaver around and utilize the benefits of that beaver complex. There's a variety of things you can do. One of the best ways is through use of water control structures. Several devices that you can get plans for. The Clemson leveler is a real popular one. There's several other designs very similar to that. The whole idea is that the dam, a small portion is removed. These devices are placed into the dam and the pipes basically extend out into the pond and allow the water to drain out at a slow rate so that the beaver don't try to plug it. And they all basically work fine other than the beaver building a dam above or below it. So a lot of the benefits of that are dependent on the specific physical conditions of your pond. And you need to look at this but quite often it's possible to utilize these, control those water levels to the point where you can maintain all the positive benefits and reduce that damage to a minimum. One thing I might want to throw in here if I can is that we need to think more about the positive benefits before we jump into a strong control mechanism. Right now I just think of what's happened in Alabama over the past few months with all the drought we've had especially in certain parts of the state. Beaver ponds have been one of the saviors for a lot of wildlife that may be out there. They might have made it anyway but it certainly made it a lot easier. Some of the only water holes that was there. A lot of reptiles and amphibians depend on these and a lot of birds use them heavily and not just our wood ducks which we know utilize them and other waterfowl. But it's just a whole variety of animals that depend on this fish and other assorted aquatic wildlife depend on these. So certainly beavers can be a problem, water level can be a problem. But before you think about just reducing and getting rid of it all together, think about some of the advantages and see if there's some medium or middle ground there that you might can live with rather than just getting rid of the beaver all together. I want to remind you that you can call on our toll-free numbers. This is an excellent opportunity to call in. We've got two people that are very familiar with wildlife damage problems in Alabama. Call 1-800-258-2237 or 1-800-258-ASIS and we'll be glad to field your questions. We mentioned a little earlier that at one time beaver pelts were a very valuable commodity on the fur market. What do y'all foresee as the future market for beaver pelts and other beaver products as well? Well, I think the market probably we have seen a bottom I hope anyway in the market. I don't think that it'll be a tremendous rebound but I'm hopeful that we have seen the bottom. Most prices either stabilized or were slightly up some over the last couple of seasons. This is a world market now. It's not just the United States market. It's dependent on ranch fur production in European countries, the international market. Efforts to close the fur trade down through the European community now. A lot of things happening in the world market that influence it but I think probably we've seen the bottom and would expect it to either stay where it is stabilized or slightly increase. Karen? I think we agree with that. Our perspective is that the market has changed quite considerably over the past few years and y'all it's really ashamed because this country was a lot of this country was opened up by the fur trapper trapping beavers and following the beaver and the population of beavers and we've seen cycles in that but we don't see any rapid growth in the price of fur right now. Thanks. We have a call coming in from North Carolina. Go ahead please, North Carolina. Yes, we have a group that's watching the program on satellite and if we do capture and it's live, where do we release the beaver? Are we supposed to call the wildlife service to release it or what? Well, that's one of the issues right now that makes it so difficult with beaver management because beaver populations have expanded to the point that it's very difficult these days to get somebody to volunteer to have beaver released on their property. Of course, if you're working with a professional trapper and involved in live trapping, most of the time they would have some information on where these beaver might be released. Let me throw that out the off if you don't mind. You really need to contact your local game and fish agency there to be sure that the laws in your state are such that you could relocate them. Every state is different and that'd be your first starting point with your local game and fish officials. Okay, so in other words, sometimes you have to destroy them. Well, sometimes that's necessary and sometimes that's the best thing for the overall population and that may sound a little cruel but that's sometimes the few are not as important as the whole population. Okay, thank you. Thanks. If you do have a call, please feel free to call us 1-800-258-2237, 1-800-258-ASIS. Frank, let me ask you, as far as the castor glands and beaver, what are some of the products that can be utilized from that? Well, the castor glands are a product that's traditionally been used in the perfume industry and those are the large scent glands located up behind either the rear legs. They're also used a lot in the lure making industry for a wide variety of lures but traditionally it's been the perfume industry. The castorium in these casters actually holds scent very well and that's why it's used in the perfume marketing area. It fluctuates widely just like the fur market, maybe a little bit more so than the fur market but it's been up as high as $100 a pound and I've seen it down as low as $10 a pound. It's going to vary along with the market but from year to year it could be a very valuable portion. We have a call coming in from Montana right now. It's certainly turning out to be a nationwide teleconference. Go ahead, Montana. Yes, I have commonly worked with beaver here and there are lots of people around that have covert problems with beaver that they tend to dam up culverts and wondered if there's any way that you can suggest for people to control the beaver that are blocking up culverts without actually taking them out or removing them that there's some technique, some management technique that you can suggest. Okay, yes, covert problems can certainly be a major issue with beaver. The backing up of the water there can do some tremendous damage as far as controlling beaver damage without removing the beaver in a covert. Frank, what would you recommend on that? Well, quite often the leveler devices such as the Clemson leveler or other modified plans work well at a covert situation if the physical conditions are such that the beaver cannot build a dam just above it or just below it and maintain that flooded condition over the road. But probably 50% of the cases involving culverts are potential locations for these leveler devices just depending on your part of the country. I know here in the flatlands it's not nearly as effective as in some of the hillier country. Maybe in your area that it works a lot better. But we've probably used them here on about 10% of the highway problems. Thank you. We have a call coming in right now from Shelby County, Alabama. So go ahead, Shelby County. Jim, this is Henry Durer. How are you doing? Just fine, Henry. Listen, Mr. Moody mentioned earlier that before draining a beaver pond that some wetland restrictions may apply and that the landowner should contact the appropriate agency to find out if any restrictions apply. There's a lot of confusion. And the county agents know a lot of landowners and they don't know who they're supposed to call. A lot of agencies have had control over that in the past and the wetland regulations have changed so much in the recent past. Which agency should a landowner start with to find out about wetland regulations? I agree with it. It certainly has been a good bit of confusion about the wetlands issue. Gary, would you mind taking a little stab at that? Sure. You know, wetland is one that's with us now and they're going to continue to be with us and we're going to have to live with wetlands and all the implications that wetlands have. They're vitally important to us, but there is a lot of misunderstanding and there's been some things that's gone on in the past that probably shouldn't have. We would recommend you contact the Natural Resource Conservation Service officials. That's your old SES office. They've changed the name to your SES officials. And get their input as to definition of what it is. And we don't feel like you've got a problem with removing the dam and the water flow that was created by that dam. But prior to doing anything, you'd be on the safe side. Contact your NRCS folks and let Tim have some input into it too. That's right. The other part, I guess, is that some bee repons have been around for a long, long time and I guess they would determine that some people call them a jurisdictional wetland. Yeah, that's one of the reasons you need to contact these folks and you don't need to just rely on a PAT statement and let them have a look at it and they'll give you some guidance there and if we can be of any assistance after you've talked with them we'll be glad to come and meet with you as well. So Natural Resource Conservation Service supposed to make that determination? Yeah, I think that'd be your first place to start. Okay, that's what we need to know. Thanks, bud. Let me remind you one more time, call 1-800-258-2237 with your calls. We're certainly getting quite a few calls coming in now. Our next call will be from Kentucky. Go ahead, Kentucky. I would like to know if a beaver could build their home in a pond. In a farm pond you're talking about? Yeah. Sure, they can and beavers don't always live in lodges like you see. Earlier in that video that you looked at you saw a beaver lodge that beavers can bury into the bank and have den banks and that's one of the reasons that they can be very damaging in a farm pond because they can weaken the dam and cause the dam to wash away. So you really need to manage those things real quickly when you find them in a farm pond situation. Thank you. I might add that farm ponds can be one of the more difficult areas to control beaver damage. Understand we have a call coming in right now from Michigan. Go ahead, please, Michigan. Yes, sir. Say, very interested in your thing, but what bothers me is all of these DNRs, nobody will come out and say, kill them beaver. Everybody's so afraid to bat around it and that we've got a coon problem and a beaver problem here in Michigan and I look at it, these people don't call up and say, what am I going to do with this mouse and my cupboard? Where do I release it? They just got to realize this beaver is a 60-pound mouse or a coon's a 30-pound rat. And God, you've just got to get across to people and have the DNRs when somebody calls and says, what am I going to do with it? Shoot the sucker and get it over with. We're paying people $30,000 a year in Michigan to trap beavers. They take them away alive, drive out in the country, whack them in the head and bury them so people won't see them do it. And I think you just got to get across to people that, vermin's vermin. How's that sound? Well, it sounds very direct and, of course, I can certainly sympathize that it can be a delicate public issue. I think most state agencies, and I'll let Gary address this in just a minute, but most state agencies have to be sensitive to the concerns of everybody. I agree that lethal control certainly does seem to be a very viable alternative in many of the situations, and a lot of times it's the situation on the way to actually solve the problem. Gary in Alabama. Well, can I say something? Sure, go ahead. People right now, we've got a situation going on in Bosnia. You've got more people with a beaver problem that are worried about that little beaver. I spent some time in Asia. Nobody worried about them little beavers. They got them with everything they could, but now we've got a coon in your house and we've got beaver-tipping trees over on cars and everybody's worried about that beaver. Well, God let them tip one of them suckers over on their Jaguar and see them what they think of that beaver. That does tend to change people's opinions when something directly affects them, I think, but we do use lethal control and we do believe in lethal control and you've already seen that earlier in this show that we've demonstrated some methods for that to be utilized and in the southeast there's no way to... there's nobody that's going to let you release beavers on their property that lethal control is the only mechanism that we've got. I think the main point here is that you want to utilize non-lethal controls when they're feasible. If they work, they're going to solve the problem, you want to utilize them, but if they're not, certainly you'll want to go on and consider other techniques such as your lethal control. One of the reasons that you would look at non-lethal control was here in Alabama too for beaver pond management is because you want to keep the beaver there and you want to keep a certain level of water there, but you don't want to remove everything. So everything is different and it depends on the landowner's objectives and what they're managing for and how they're managing this to how extensive and what type of control mechanism she would attempt to apply. Okay. Thank you very much for the calls that came in relative to the beaver. We're going to be taking more of the calls in just a little while on the program. We're going to take a short break right now when we return. We're going to discuss what's a very hot topic for landowners in Alabama. That is what to do about coyotes. So stand up, take a stretch. We'll be right back. Welcome back. If you just joined us, our program is When Good Animals Go Bad, a discussion of wildlife damage management from Auburn University. I'm Jim Armstrong, extension wildlife scientist along with Frank Boyd from USDA Animal Damage Control and Gary Moody from Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources. So far we've discussed beaver damage and beaver control. We're going to focus our discussion now for a little while on what's a very hot topic and that is damage from coyotes. We'll then take more of your phone calls in just a little while. One of the hottest wildlife damage topics in the southeast involves the coyote. These predators are characterized by a salt and pepper gray coat color, pointy ears that stand upright, a tail that hangs down and a white upper lip. It should be noted, however, that coat color is highly variable. Records of coyotes being killed in Alabama date as far back as the late 1920s. Whether these coyotes were native to the area or introduced is not clear. However, we do know that coyotes were born in Alabama in the 1930s by fox hunters. These introductions, coupled with a natural eastward expansion of their range, has led to an increasing coyote population in the state. Evidence of this expansion is supported by an increase in incidental coyote kills, ranging from over 5,000 kills from 1965 to 1986 to more than 13,000 kills from 1987 to 1988. A survey of county extension agents in Alabama indicated more than 1,100 complaints about coyotes in one year. One way to determine the presence of coyotes in an area is to look for scat or droppings. Coyote scat are very similar to those left by dogs. However, the free-ranging nature and omnivorous food habits of coyotes will generally be evidenced in the scat. Depending on the time of year, coyote scats may contain rodent hair, deer hair, persimmons, and a host of other food items. In addition to wild foods, coyotes may feed on cattle, sheep, watermelons, sweet corn, and many other domestic or cultivated food items. The presence of coyotes may also be verified by locating dens. Coyotes will den up under old brush piles, trash, hollowed stumps, or any other available protective site. Presence of tracks can also verify coyotes are in the area. As a general rule, coyote tracks are longer than they are wide. The inner two toenails will turn in toward each other. We understand what's legal and what's not legal with any wildlife damage problem, but especially when it comes to controlling coyotes. Here's Gary Moody as he explains the legal aspects of coyote control. Coyote populations are very high across the state. Coyotes are found in all counties now, and we do get numerous complaints from landowners on how to deal with coyotes. They may be hunted or trapped at any time at some cost because they are such an efficient predator and they are not in any danger by their numbers. Our human pressure is not going to do anything to diminish those numbers right now because they're very, very adaptable animals and seem to just grow in spite of everything we try to do for them. We would encourage landowners to work with the local game officials and biologists to design a program to minimize problems that they may have on their deposits of animals that they may have disposal problems that they may have anything that would attract the predator to their land and be as clean and efficient as they could be and we can also provide advice on control mechanisms and we appreciate them contacting us and will help them set up a control program. That is about an ounce of prevention being worth a pound of cure applies in almost any animal damage control situation and coyote damage is certainly an option. This damage may be minimized through a sound preventive program. I recommend that you try to anticipate conditions and times when damage is likely to occur and ensure that your preventive practices are in use at those times. Frank Boyd took the opportunity to show how to trap for coyotes and discuss in detail some of the control measures that are proven to be effective. We're here at the Golden Goat Producers place today where they've been experiencing some coyote damage. We've been out and looked over the area and we found coyotes sign traveling through these old roadways and we're going to make our first set here. We're going to be doing a scent post set which will be imitating the coyotes coming through urinating the marked territory and we'll be using a coyote urine. We'll put that out within ten of coyote traps. We've laid our ground cloth out first. This is to put our dirt on and kind of keep our scent away as we get started. We've selected this road here where it comes in intersects with another road they've been traveling and we're going to make our set right off the edge of that. First of all we'll just scoop us out a hole about the size of our trap putting our excess dirt on our kneeling cloth. I usually set the trap first. Then we'll just stake it. They're putting a underpanned device on. Keep the dirt and rocks from getting up under that pan. Then we'll bed the trap next. This is the most important part. You've got to have a good firmly bedded trap. If there's any movement at all coyote can feel that and it'll try to back out of it. Working with that free jaw up I want it down into the position there at the end and bedding real well around that. Next we're going to fill in around that with some loose dirt making sure we're not getting any pebbles or anything around that. We've got it bedded well. Now we do as the final. In sandy soil like this it doesn't take a whole lot of sifting. This is a really nice soil for wrapping in. All this will do is keep the pebbles out of it, keep it from fouling up the firing mechanism. Then with this loose soil you can just take a leaf and kind of fill in that area around there to level it out. I'm going to leave it as natural looking as possible. With the sip post set we're just going to utilize this old piece of log we found and we'll apply some urine to the log to the ground right around there. Now as the coyote travels the roadway he'll come by, smell the scent come in to investigate it and hopefully get into our trap. We could have done the same thing here and done a dirt hole set instead of using urine we could have used a lure they make commercial lures or we could have ground our own. This is some ground cotton rat with glycerin and there's several different recipes for making your own bait. We could have dug a small hole put some bait down in the hole covered it up with leaves and simulated the coyote burying some food to come back for it later. All variations on this we set the trap the same way it's just a matter of the difference in the lure we're using. Now it's time for some more questions from you, our audience have been experiencing coyote problems and it's certainly a major topic of discussion among a lot of landowners. If you have a question please call us or toll free number is 1-800-258-2237 it's 1-800-258-ASIS Let me ask you Frank we mentioned on there the trapping as far as a lethal control measure and also shooting as far as lethal control what are some non-lethal techniques that would be effective for coyote control? Well first we generally try to work with producers with livestock damage to utilize different husbandry techniques that would help with the problem. Night pinning with small fox is an excellent technique to put the livestock up at night where most of the damage occurs we do have situations where we even get losses and additional techniques such as herders or guard animals our agency has been looking at guard animals over the last several years and finding pretty good success in small flocks with guard dogs a couple of different breeds the key to that is getting a good animal utilizing them properly learning about it beforehand we have heard stories of individuals just picking up a dog out and not getting very good success there's other scare devices that are available, electronic guard that's available through our agency as well as a variety of other different scare devices these typically are limited in duration they're good for two or three weeks and then the animals become acclimated like most wildlife do but they can't have a place within an overall strategy probably the best fencing, particularly electric fencing okay I want to thank everybody that has called in so far and continue to encourage you to call in to 1-800-258-2237 if you have a question we'd be glad to try to help you out understand we have a call coming in right now from Kentucky go ahead Kentucky I'd like to know if I got a big German Shepherd would a coyote get together with it well coyotes and dogs will certainly hybridize it doesn't seem to be a major problem in the southeast has been in some other areas of course anytime you have animals out there there is that possibility but the things that we've looked at as far as skull characteristics on one of these coyotes that we've taken don't indicate a tremendous amount of hybridization with dogs probably a greater problem would be that maybe the coyote and the dog would in some way tangle in the coyotes can be pretty rough on pets from time to time understand we have a call coming in from Mississippi at this time go ahead Mississippi oh good evening how y'all doing just fine how are you alright oh I'm kind of in new coyote country over here in Mississippi we live along the Mississippi river and I raise them old game chickens like some of us Mississippi boys do and them coyotes are really attracted to stuff like poultry but we've got a new thing going on around here we've got a lot of fox hunters and I think fox hunters they run their hounds in sporting pens they call them now and it's kind of opened up opportunities for us to trap coyotes and not have to destroy them but offer them to the guys that run those expensive hound dogs in them fox pens and they are very glad to have them most time they'll pay you a little bit for your trouble and that's a real good idea and as it gets more popular possibly the trapping incentive for keeping on the coyote control would take off with it that is certainly one of the options right now especially with the price of pelts and furbearer animals declining I'm going to let Frank discuss that a little bit Frank spent several years in Mississippi working with animal damage control Frank you got any comments on that well I think this is it certainly got some potential for helping out the situation this is a relatively new thing and most states are working with regulations right now to come up with ways that they're going to regulate that within their state it's going to vary from state to state the main concern that's been expressed among the wildlife area right now is bringing in out of state coyotes for these pens and certainly that's something that we do not want to encourage because of transfer of disease and a wide variety of other problems I think it's probably going to be expanded some as the states come up with regulations on how they're going to manage that across but I think they're throughout the south expanding right now or at least stable okay thanks Frank Gary what Frank was saying reminded me a little bit about seems to be a lot of discussion about the impact of coyotes on wildlife populations and from your perspective with the state agency what's been your observation in Alabama our experience with coyotes goes back several years and when they first started becoming repopulated or plentiful in Alabama in the 70's and early 80's we had a lot of concern about what a growing population of coyotes might do to native wildlife populations and we've done several studies and all the studies indicate that they're not a threat and certainly they're going to take occasional individuals they are a predator and they're going to feed on individual animals usually the weaker of the animal but as far as damage in entire populations we don't see that as a problem they're here we've got to learn to live with them there are ways to control the situation but we're not going to eliminate them so we've got to recognize that and go forward with what we got okay thank you Gary I understand we have a call coming in right now from Arizona go ahead Arizona I thought they had outlawed poison bait traps for coyotes because my dog got out a couple weeks ago and went out and ate them apparently and came back home and was dead in about four days okay certainly we're dealing with coyotes in Alabama and you would want to contact local wildlife authorities relative to that issue poison baits are still used in some areas in certain forms they're not legal in Alabama due to a variety of problems associated with the non-selectivity also with our our higher human density that we have in Alabama Frank what's the current situation that you're aware of as far as poison baits in terms of poison poison drop baits the classic thing when you're talking about baits you envision a piece of meat or some type of material with a toxic agent on it dropped out on the ground there's nothing like that currently registered so anything used like that would have to be legal there are some toxicants registered that are delivered through in some states they're delivered through an M44 device it's a cyanide injector that's a very strictly regulated device and there are a few registrations for a toxic collar where a collar is placed around the neck of a sheep or goat so that when the coyote attacks the sheep it punctures that particular collar and they ingest the toxic material but I'm not aware of any registration that would be a legal use of the toxicant on a drop bait right well that was really a heart break for me to have my dog dig out from one of the fans you know I might have eaten another animal I don't know for sure but I was under the impression that that kind of poison was illegal because kids get out in the forest you know other critters are out there and we've had coyotes around here a lot and I've never lost any chickens or had any of my other dogs that I've had over the years I've also never heard of any other contact between humans coyotes but I do know that my dog ate something that was poison and it was put up by our cattle rancher out here I would assume but I'm not sure well you know just because it's not legal doesn't mean it's not being used and that's one of the main points we want to get out today is there are problems with unregistered chemicals and that's the reason they're unregistered it's not to be as safe when using as long as you're using a registered product typically those products have been tested and looked at to where they don't feel like they're a big problem but certainly we do have problems with illegal pesticides being used here in Alabama too it's not restricted just to Arizona. Yeah my daughter gets out of here and we walk in the forest and that scares me that she might find something you know maybe stick it in her mouth or ingest it or something because she's only my dog died and that bothers me too but I thank you much for your time okay thank you for your call let me remind you the number to call if you have a question 1-800-258-2237 or 1-800-258-ASIS one of the misconceptions in Alabama is that cots are a new species in the state actually cots have been around Alabama since at least the early 1920s we have photographs and records of cots being killed in several counties in Alabama at that time but populations really seem to explode probably about the mid 70s and I'd like to throw this question out to our two experts here as far as some reasons that coyote populations seem to expand during that time I think it was just a combination of things you probably had more introductions going on you had increasing population in neighboring states moving in from both the east and the west and they're very adaptable animals and once they got here that our environment is very hospitable to increase in wildlife populations of that type they're an efficient predator and they were the niche here far in the field and they moved in and took advantage of it okay I understand we have a call coming in right now from Michigan go ahead Michigan yeah what I wanted to ask about is we've seen as many as 18, 20 coyotes in a pack and that was in 8 well it might have been February is that the usual number or are they usually a lot thinner than that well coyotes as far as their their group behavior tend to be highly variable we hear everything from solitary animals to family units I would think that a group of 18 would certainly be a large number seems to be fairly unusual I'm not knowing the specifics of the situation it would be hard to make an exact determination but do y'all have any indication on groups that large well our southern coyote certainly it's not real common to have that situation most of our animals here are singular or impairs except during the puffin season when they're typically grouped up in a family group but you know the beaver are a lot different here too they don't cash food they don't have to tend to live under the ice like in the northern states so I would assume that there'll be some differences in the biology of the animal between the northern states and the deep south we had an experience with the bow hunter attacked by a couple of coyotes which seems to be very unusual and I guess he had to ward him off with a arrow and that was just a few miles away typically coyotes will not become aggressive towards humans so of course there are always instances and we did have at least one that I know of in Alabama of a coyote attacking a hunter and his dog let me move on and understand we have a call coming in from Kansas before we take that call let me remind you we appreciate your calls and if you've got your television on which obviously you do please turn it down during the time so we won't get back over the speakers go ahead Kansas yeah we got a sheep dog here that looks kind of like a sheep dog and a German shepherd he looks an awful lot like that fella in the middle he's just wondering what we should do about that I think as that other guy said shoot the sucker we're going to take another break now when we come back we'll discuss the damage and control measures of one more animal that's particularly abundant in the southeast that's the whitetail deer plus we'll have one more round of your phone calls so please stay with us we're going to discuss an animal that can cause damage to plants and crops it's also an important game animal in Alabama we're going to discuss this because of its increasing numbers particularly in our part of the country deer populations have expanded in the southeast these high populations coupled with their feeding habits have resulted in an increased potential for damage to plants or crops deer prefer to browse on the leaves stems and buds of woody plants they particularly like young highly nutritious fertilized ornamental plants, row crops and seedlings browsing damage by deer is easy to identify the difference of distinctive deer track and their characteristic pattern of nipping the plant since deer have no upper front teeth they tear the vegetation from the plant leaving a jagged end on the plant bucks may also rub trees with their antlers during the rutting season damage due to antler rubbing will appear as an area where bark has been scraped off of the tree trunk or a game animal and as such they're protected throughout the southeast here's Gary Moody with Alabama Game and Fish Division to talk about the legal aspects of deer control Whitetail deer is our most popular game animal and one of the most numerous game animals we've gotten in the state with populations reaching well over a million animals across the state and although we have a heavy harvest of whitetails every year there are some areas of the state with crops landowners that are having these problems need to contact the local conservation officer or biologist and they will come and look at the problem with you and if it's extensive damage or damage is occurring you can get a permit to harvest animals and get a permit to harvest on antler deer at night we'd also encourage landowners to get on to a more aggressive hunting or harvest program and one of the things where we have the most common problem perhaps landowner is leasing the farming rights of one person and the hunting rights of someone else and those two groups need to get together and try to help resolve the issue of the overpopulation rather than the farmer having to take things out of season and get the hunting group to take more advantage of them during the hunting season so there are management implications management things you can do sometimes you can eliminate your problem by certain management strategies that you might employ on another part of the track to improve a habitat quality wildlife habitat to minimize a problem on the crop there are a lot of things you can do that the wildlife biologist can give you advice on the conservation officer can give you advice on and that's the place to start with them there are many techniques that are being used for deer control my advice is that if you're using a legal technique and it's working keep using it don't change based on my suggestion there are very scaring devices such as noise makers and propane cannons they'll be effective for a short period of time but deer very soon become acclimated to these repellents tend to be most appropriating garden situations or on ornamentals and generally they're not feasible in a large scale nursery or agricultural operation their effectiveness is highly variable it depends on the rainfall deer's hunger and several other factors there are a wide variety of commercial formulas of repellent available generally they can be placed into two categories your area of repellents which are applied near the plants to be protected and repell the deer by smell the other category are the contact repellents which are applied directly to plants to be protected and these repell by taste repellents are most effective if they're applied when the trees or the shrubs are dormant now it cost you to read the label carefully because many of these repellents should not be used on plant parts that are destined for human consumption here at Auburn we're currently involved in testing a new repellent that shows very promising results for use in ornamental situations and hopefully that'll be on the market before long the most effective long term control measure is probably going to be exclusion of the deer from the area with John Owen who is the superintendent of the Piedmont substation of the Alabama agricultural experiment station and looked at some deer fencing to exclude deer one of the electric fence designs that we've been working on for excluding deer is this poly-tape wire I think there's several advantages to this John you've worked a lot with this here at the Piedmont substation Jim, we have of course, as you say, evaluated several designs of fences and materials this poly-tape wire which is a plastic or nylon ribbon with stainless steel wires in it we've used it extensively and it is used a great deal by people controlling animals now one of the main reasons is it's fairly cheap to put up the biggest reason is how easy it is to put it up, it can be put up quickly and easily a plot like this this is about an acre and a quarter garden plot, this is a research plot for us but many home gardens are about this size can be fenced in an hour to two hours depending on one's skill and abilities and how much material they have on hand it's about $200 worth of materials so about $200 for an acre to an acre and a half and then an hour to two hours worth of labor for a fence, that's pretty cheap and easy, the other thing is when you get through with it, you can take it down you can roll it right back up the electric fence companies make reels that it goes on, we've been buying garden hose reels from Walmart and other discount places where we can roll up much more of it on a reel for just a few dollars, get a reel and roll the whole fence up but it's cheap and easy the other thing is it works it does work these little silver stainless steel threads are highly conductive and the animals get in contact with it it will shock them the other thing is with the tape being as large as it is they can see it they can see it as well and we seem to think that many people tell us that as they see it, fluttering in the wind that that adds to its visual repellency we've certainly not been able to substantiate that claim of research but many people seem to think that adds to the visual repellency much more visible than the smaller single strand electric wire so many of us were used to it's tough so it does hold up you having any trouble with it, deer running through it or anything? the nice thing about it is you bend it, stretch it down and then it comes back something gets in it they generally can get out of it and it doesn't leave you a mess it's not like a wire that they get hung in and if they break it they string it halfway across the field or something like that this is a portable charger that will power this poly tape and max flex fence and one of the advantages of these is that it doesn't have to be used in an area where you've got a source of electricity on this one here we have it hooked up to a battery John, about how long will it run on a battery like that? it depends on loads you've got on the fence how much of it is how often and frequently it's being discharged how many weeds are up on the fence that type of thing Jim but normally on a regular 12 volt deep cycle marine battery and one of these small chargers on a plot this size, a garden size plot we're getting 6 to 8 weeks per charge on it these are the New Zealand type voltage, high amperage type chargers these running from 4 to 5 to 7,000 volts on the line the chargers additionally come as alternating current chargers and not battery powered and where you're close to a source of electricity if you're close to your house close to a barn or shop with electricity that's a far more dependable source, easier deeper source of power than the battery powered charger it doesn't take as much maintenance to keep the weeds off the line and you don't have to keep checking to see if your battery is still hot enough to power a charger and works real well commonly would vary up to 300 or 400 feet of underground cable or run up along the fence, run on an electric wire from a charger in a garage or in a shop and then run a wire out 3 to 400 feet here we've run on a half a mile, three quarters of a mile to an area that we're fencing the alternating electricity the AC electric charge the fence charger is a much more efficient, easier to use source more dependable the battery powered ones can go places that have electricity and you can also include solar panels with these battery powered ones that you have out in remote areas that will help keep your battery charged and help keep it charged up for a longer period of time this is a typical installation for a battery powered charger with battery connected to the fence charger and here the fence charger is just hanging up an electric fence is connected by a wire then to the fence and then all the wires on the fence are tied together the charger is also hooked here to the ground rod the reason that the ground is so important is that with an electric fence what we're trying to do is make a complete circuit from the charger through the fence through the animal in this case a deer to the ground and then back to the ground to the ground rod and back to the charger to make a complete circuit so then that shock that impulse, electric impulse will go through the animal that's trying to go through the fence the better the ground the better a shock that we're going to have just an 18 inch 2 foot piece of rod stuck in the ground is often inadequate if you don't want to buy a code rod these are $8 to $10 at most supply stores a steel T-post will work well if you use an adequate ground clamp they're painted and that's where you need a good ground clamp but a good ground is essential this is a more permanent electric deer fence design it's one I know that you've been working on out here to try to perfect since you have quite a bit of deer damage on the substation tell us a little bit about this one if you don't mind John Jim this is the design that through our evolution and designs that we've settled on that gives us our what we feel is our optimum control of deer to keep deer out of deer from our research plots and research areas this is an 8 wire fence the top wire is at 73 inches the wires are spaced starting from the top about 15 inches apart go to about an 8 inch spacing in the middle and then as we go down to the ground they're about 6 inches apart the bottom wire we try to keep from 4 to 6 inches off the ground if it's more than that the deer will go underneath the fence this design a fence works well and it's fairly economical can be put up from 75 cents to a dollar per foot for materials we're talking about wire and posts and hardware the fence of course is electric so we have insulators here to insulate keep the charge from bleeding off at the fence our line posts then are fiberglass stays and occasionally with a wood post for a line post that post also has insulators on it this post here is a 6 by 6 pressure treated in a pine it's 12 feet long there's 6 feet of the post in the ground 6 feet above ground and we have concrete also around the post and the post is braced a floating brace over here this brace is attached to the post goes down to the ground it's just sitting on top of the ground on the board and then there is a wire and with ratchet that holds it tight and pulls it back to do this properly we have since learned that this brace with maximum strength should be about half of the height of the post not to the top but to write about half of the of the height that the force is being applied by the fence and that gives you a much longer brace out that way and then you can pull back and get it tighter and stronger how far apart do you have your spacer from wires? this fence for the appearance for the aesthetics our stays about 100 feet apart with our line post our wood post about 200 feet apart to do this practically around a field or a farm the line post only need to be either at low places or high places on hills where you have a change in the direction of the wire and I have used the stays, these fiberglass stays as far as 300 feet apart so that in a farm situation you would not need them as close as we have them here it could be much further apart one of the essential components of the electric fence that we found particularly these large installations are these fairly simple inexpensive knife switches that we use to cut the section of fence or fence off and on we open it like this, the fence is off we close it back, it's on depending upon the source this switch costs $6, $7 or $8 but in this case where we've got several miles of fences leading up to this fence and then we want to work on this fence do maintenance on it working around the fence we can simply come up cut this fence off without having to cut our entire fence so it cuts off just this section so we're just cutting off this section of fence with this switch here I hope that the video gave you some information to use when you go to put up an electric fence for controlling deer not only in constructing the fence but also in how to manage and maintain the fence as well should be noted that sport hunting in the area may also help in controlling population expansion if you have a question or comment about anything we've discussed today we'd like to hear from your toll free numbers 1-800-258-2237 that's 1-800-258 ASIS Gary I know one thing that the game fish division has been involved in excellent program that has gone a long way in helping landowners reduce deer damage has been the deer management assistance program tell us a little bit about that if you don't mind that program really has been extremely popular in Alabama you know our population has grown from somewhere in the middle of the 60s from about 40,000 to well over a million animals now and through the 70s and into the early 80s our population was ever increasing our seasons and back limits got more liberal and for people in other parts of the country they may not even appreciate what we have as far as bag limits but we generally begin our gun deer season right before Thanksgiving on all the way through January without a break with an antler deer per day bag limit and in some during either sex days an antler deer and an unantler deer per day bag limit and we still were not able to control the population so we had to come up with some more effective mechanism to control our population and I think if we have time we need to talk a little bit more about that program we may come back to that I understand we have a call coming in at this time from Delaware go ahead Delaware Hi we just up an electric fence how do you test it to see if it's working because I don't think it is it's making a clicking sound on a box that we have and we don't have a tester is there any other way to test it well the most reliable way to test it is going to be with a voltmeter and you should be able to test that every morning is what I would recommend to make sure that it is staying hot a critical thing with electric fence is that you do keep it keep it hot because if that fence goes down and it's not hot the deer will learn that they can get through it I would recommend that you do get a voltmeter to test it that's the most reliable way I understand that we have another call coming in at this time from Maine go ahead Maine Hi I'm calling from Maine I was wondering how are we going to control coyotes in the future when they have no predator we have very few trappers because there's no value for the hide and they're getting to be quite a problem up here they can be a major problem just about anywhere of course coyotes have always occupied the position once they get grown pretty close to the top of the food chain haven't been a lot of major predators on grown coyotes I don't necessarily think that they will continue to be a growing problem I think eventually it will reach some level of stabilization of course there are state and federal programs that will continue to be involved in wildlife damage control such as USDA animal damage control in state wildlife agencies I asked Frank if you don't mind since you are involved in one of those agencies your comments on that well I think definitely the lack of trapping is probably playing a bigger role in anything in this mid-level predator range I think you're seeing a lot of increasing problems with coyotes raccoons fox bobcat all of those mid-level predators that have traditionally been under trapping pressure the surplus individuals have been removed through the sport trapping season with the decline in this trapping these populations are enjoying quite a good success right now and the problems are up I think that's going to stay the road as well as long as trapping pressure is down the populations will be up and the corresponding problems will be up but I think you're right too it's probably going to level out it won't continue to increase forever they'll reach a saturation level but definitely we're seeing the increase now particularly in our part of the country we're just having a good bit to do with the increase in rabies as it moves up through our state let me remind you of the phone number one more time that's 1-800-258-2237 1-800-258-ASIS I encourage you to call in about deer damage beaver damage or coyote damage that you may be experiencing or if you have questions about those species in general let me ask one more question of our group here we're getting more and more complaints about deer damage to gardens to ornamental situations and what do you think is causing that in these residential more urban areas you know I think a lot of the things that's really causing that is not so much an increase in a deer herd because a deer herd has been high for several years but it's probably a fact that we're getting a re-ruralization if there is such a word a lot of the people that are moving from the heavy dense urban areas to the suburb the far out suburb maybe where they've got a little larger estates and maybe small traction land where they've got a lot of gardens that are close together but they're moving in a deer country and deer habitat and the deer are still there so they just automatically assume that population of deer and they take on the problems associated with it and I think that's probably what we're seeing more than perhaps a sudden increase in the number of deer in an area okay as we close out I'd like to ask each of you to start with Frank if you had any final words of advice on wildlife damage management in general for our callers what would you recommend which is the one thing Frank if you go first well I don't know about the one thing but I think probably the key to a successful control program would be to evaluate the problem sufficiently to begin with too often landowners just jump into some type of control without fully evaluating exactly what the problem is making sure you've got a good identification as to what species is causing that problem is critical if you've got damage to the side of your house and you're trapping squirrels and it turns out to have been a raccoon that chewed in there you're not going to do very good about controlling your damage so a good evaluation is critical look at all your options an integrated control strategy always much more successful than just one single technique so I guess I would say focus on evaluating it properly and utilizing an integrated program with a variety of techniques and you'll have a much more success Gary, any closing comments? I think Frank's right on target if you don't know what your problem is it's real hard to find a solution to it and I would also just throw in there to remind everybody to contact the appropriate state and federal agencies to be sure that whatever you're doing is within the laws of that jurisdiction and you've got whatever permits you need and then you can get started on your proper control program Thanks, we hope you've enjoyed this program related to beaver coyotes and deer and specifically their damage problems I want to remind you that when they're not in conflict with human activities all three of these species are very valuable parts of our environment hopefully some of the information you've gathered tonight and help ensure that your encounters of these species stay positive ones Thanks Frank Boyd, Gary Moody for all your help Thanks also to John Owen and the Peabody Month Substation and thanks to each of you for joining us I'm Jim Armstrong, so long The preceding program was produced by the Alabama Cooperative Extension Service