North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Sam Franc <franc@oregonfast.net>]

HDessureault wrote:

>  
> ----- Original Message -----
> *From:* HDessureault <mailto:inter.verbis@videotron.ca>
> *To:* nafex@ibiblio.org <mailto:nafex@ibiblio.org>
> *Sent:* Wednesday, March 26, 2003 8:38 PM
> *Subject:* Keeping deers away
>
> Dear members,
> I have been reading with growing dismay the deployment of fencing 
> material and work involved in keeping those crafty cervidaes from 
> destroying the fruits of our labour.
> I usually get the odd deer wandering through and taking a bite here 
> and there, now that my trees are beginning to look like trees, but 
> last year I had a particularly destructive specimen eating all but a 
> few apples that I was able to save before there was none left by 
> fencing the tree temporarily AND stringing baling twine accross, which 
> finally discouraged the animal from jumping directly into the 
> enclosure where there was hardly any room for me. Deers apparently 
> don't like to get tangled up. He left all kinds of broken branches 
> from rubbing antlers, though, and made a genuine mess over the course 
> of the summer. He was not a glut, mind you, and didn't eat all the 
> apples the same day. No, only a few every day, keeping some for later. 
> I must add that he was not afraid of dogs, it was more like the other 
> way around.
> I can now appreciate that they can be a real nuisance.
> However, I have a plan.
> I will set up a radio tuned to the most commercial busy station I can 
> find featuring rap music all night, if there is one, and I will set it 
> up on a timer on multiple setting with on-off  at various time during 
> the night. I can even change the cycle forward a little here and then 
> so the noise will occur at different times, so the deer cannot get use 
> to a pattern.
> Someone mentioned that the deers learn quickly. I wonder if they are 
> smarter than bears. I know of a beekeeper that managed to save all his 
> beehive sites with radios while another local beekeeper shot three 
> bears in a matter of a few weeks during that same period, one year 
> where the bears were particularly hungry at the end of a bad summer.
> As any of you tried the radio strategy?

Yes, I have tried it and it did not work.
They become acclimated after a few days time.
I also have tried a infra red eye siren, which only scared them momentarily.
They just moved a few trees away.
They are very persistant.
It takes a pack of dogs to move them away for any length of time.
These dogs will run them for miles, sometimes.
Sam