To: North American Fruit Explorers <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
Subject: Re: [NAFEX] groundhog - beaver recipes
Date: Fri, 6 Feb 2004 11:22:23 -0600
On Feb 5, 2004, at 11:01 PM, Peter Knop wrote:
We have a dreadful problem with beavers here in suburban N. VA...we
now have to fence everything we
plant - looks bad and costs...
...We hate killing anything we don't use, so a recipe would be
welcome.
We have a similar problem with deer - real pests here in SE Texas where
they roam by the hundreds. We have to fence every fruit tree
individually. This doesn't look that good, is costly, and takes a lot
of time and energy.
The females move through all year, eating off the branches and leaves
until there is nothing left but the vertical trunk. Then, during
rutting season, the males come through and scrape all of the bark off
the entire circumference of the trunk with their antlers, gouging the
underlying wood, and break off any remaining limbs, thus killing the
tree.
The joke is on the deer however, because the gophers often kill the
trees by eating the roots before the deer can get to them. I'm about
ready to just set piles of money on fire rather than continue to buy
fruit trees to feed the vermin. It accomplishes about the same thing.