permaculture

[lbsaltzman@aol.com]

Barn owls are possibly the best possible natural predator and barn owl homes 
are easy to build or buy. There are many plans for building them that can be 
downloaded from the Internet.  

I attended an interesting lecture by a joint team of Israeli and Palestinian 
scientists ( that was a story in itself), who had as an experiment set up 
barn owl homes complete with video cameras.  They had video of the chicks 
swallowing a whole vole like a snake. They were educating farmers in their 
respectives countries on the benefits of the barn owls. They found that a 
nesting pairs of barn owls were taking at least a thousand rodents a year for 
themselves and their chicks.  I have seen other estimates that are higher.  

I personally don't hestitate to humanely trap rats either. It was coming down 
to the fact that I was growing fruit for the rats not for us.  Often some 
critter makes a meal of the rat before I can even empty the trap. So I have 
provided skunks, raccoons and other creatures with fresh rat steak.

-----Original Message-----
From: Laurence Gaffney <lgaffney@bigpond.com>
To: permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
Sent: Tue, 26 Jun 2007 4:41 pm
Subject: [permaculture] PERMACULTURE & RODENTS



As the Fruit & Nut Trees we have planted as part of the Implementation of a 
ermaculture Design start to commence producing we are finding that Rodents 
mice/rats)  have increased their numbers significantly.
Most of the Nuts ( particularly Macadamia & Pistachio) are taken by them 
before 
e get to them. Most of the fruit they seem to like too though we still get 
ome.
egetables also (particularly Pumpkins) are on their menu too.
They seem to like making homes in mulch. 
e have been told that we have a Snake deficiency; perhaps even an Eagle 
eficiency also.  (We do have both)
e do not have a cat and are not all that keen on getting one

he proportion of produce going to Rodents is currently probably about 50/50 
but 
s trending rapidly in their favour.
t is a question of Balance I guess.
Any thoughts out their on:-
.   The role of Rodents in the Permaculture System.
.   Assessment of Ecological Balance.
.   Mitigation.
Laurence Gaffney
oolish Temperate Australia

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ist contacts: Lawrence London  lfl@intrex.net and
oren Davidson  listmail@lorendavidson.com 



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