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Animals such as the skunk, opossum, raccoon, squirrels, coyote, rattlesnake, fox, etc. are labeled as nuisance animals or vermin, when in fact they are very important to our ecosystem. They rid our neighborhoods of mice, rats, harmful garden pests (gophers, snails, plant-destroying grubs, beetles, etc.), creepy things that people don't want around their homes (cockroaches, black widow spiders, scorpions).

Solutions and remedies are covered in another section of our website HUMANE TRAPPING INSTRUCTIONS

BATS are useful predators and help to control insects. A single little brown bat can consume up to 3,000 mosquitoes every night. Many species of bats are endangered. They do not chew holes or electrical wiring if they should get in your attic.

COYOTES could benefit the community by reducing the numbers of rats, mice, and other small mammals, if residents would stop providing them with even more convenient meals - intentionally left out food or by leaving small pets outdoors without supervision. They are often blamed for garbage damage done by loose dogs, especially for taking livestock which are mostly taken by packs of domestic dogs.

MICE AND RATS are gnawers and can cause damage to buildings, especially when they chew through insulation and wiring. Rodents are drawn to stored food, and can contaminate it with their feces and urine. They are drawn to bird feeding stations and pet food. Even though you can learn to coexist with these animals, if you have taken all measures to rodent-proof your house, it is much easier to let the local wildlife keep these populations down and away from your home.

OPOSSUM do not dig holes. They are transient, so never stay in one place for more than 2-3 days. They are placid and docile, except to the real vermin that they eat - rats, mice, snails, and other garden pests.

RACCOONS are a comical neighborhood clean-up crew. Like the skunk, coyote and opossum they keep down the populations of REAL pests. As long as you don't leave your pet door open at night, and holes to your attic they shouldn't be a problem.

SKUNKS are another very misunderstood and maligned creature. Many myths were created to justify killing this animal instead of risk getting sprayed. Once you know what their body language means and how to act around them, they are very easy to coexist with - provided you keep your dogs inside from dusk to dawn. Watching them from afar can be a wondrous means of entertainment! They too rid your neighborhoods of rodents and harmful garden pests. They have been known to kill and eat rattlesnakes, black widow spiders, scorpions, and centipedes, being immune to the venom.

OTHER LARGER CARNIVORES such as the bear (omnivore), mountain lion, wolves, etc. can be a safer coexistence if you take certain precautions.

If you are camping, hiking, jogging or bicycling in an area that is known to have any of these animals, you should educate yourself about bear boxes and other proper containment of food, and REAL facts about these local animals. For instance, if you should ever find yourself being chased by a mountain lion or encounter a bear, DO NOT RUN. You will become a toy to them, and more enticing to chase. Remember, stop, make yourself larger (put your child on your shoulders, bicycle or jacket over your head, make threatening movements). They will stop in their tracks and run away.

You can contact your local Humane Society to get tips on how to coexist with your problem wild animals, or how to get in contact with wildlife groups who are more specialized in the animal you have questions about. Again, do not trap. Take the time to find out more about this animal and the simple things you can do to improve your relationship with nature.

All of these animals would prefer to live as far away from humans as possible. Even though people are encroaching on the homes of these animals, many learn to adapt. A skunk, opossum or raccoon are perfectly happy to live under your home. But the real reason they are there is because people lure them there. They create their own problems by leaving a steady supply of pet food outside (95% reason); improper storage of pet food in their garage; leaving their pet door open during the hours that these animals forage for food; improper garbage storage; not closing off holes in attic, under homes or in fences; even unprotected compost heaps.

There is a great availability of room and board. A downtown environment is almost ideally suited for nuisance critters. Trees, old houses, and abundance of edible trash make downtown a prime spot for warm-blooded creatures great and small. Raccoons can grow to 30 pounds on a feral gourmet diet of pet food and human leftovers. Downtown is also home to legions of opossums, rats, and other animals.

Picture a wildlife haven in someone's backyard, only the customer doesn't want the deer to eat his beautiful roses, or the skunks, raccoons and opossums to drink from his lily pond, waterfalls, or live under the open decks. But he complains that they are turning up his flowers and lawn. If he had a better fence, and a closed off deck, they wouldn't be able to get in. These aren't easy solutions and are costly, but there are simple solutions. Rather than trap every animal and relocate them elsewhere (better than having them killed!), he could mix a solution of 8 oz. of castor oil, 8 oz. of dish soap (mix well), then add to 1 gallon of water, and spray around the yard to ward off these animals. This solution conditions the soil and doesn't damage the lawn or flowers.

There have been extensive studies that proves that trapping and removing wildlife never works. You are wasting your time and money. More of these animals will move in to the abandoned territory. As long as the unnatural food supply remains, they will have larger litters, more females, and more litters. This unique reproductive strategy is a safeguard against extermination. It is not fair to these animals to lure them there and then kill or disrupt their lives, most of the time making orphans of their offspring that are left behind.

The average person doesn't know when mating or baby season is, nor do many of them care. People in the business of trapping and extermination are in the business to make money, so they give you the option to trap. There are some that care about animals and just want to do what you ask, so they relocate or transport to wildlife rehabilitation facilities or to a wilderness area. But a responsible wildlife consultant will not give you this option. It does not work!

I have been helping people locally, nationally and in Canada for six years and almost always when people are having problems with skunks, it is because pet food is left on or near the ground. Once the food is removed, they relocate themselves (usually to another home that leaves food out for them, but then maybe I'll get a call from them as well).

More and more people are looking for more humane solutions. This is why I receive approximately an average of 100 calls a week. When people are looking for help, they call Animal Control and Humane Societies, where they many times turn people away and tell them that they don't go out on these calls any more, and to call a trapper or borrow one of their traps. They even refer calls to me because they know I will recommend practical humane solutions. But when they do come out in response to your call, since many callers don't think or care to ask what will happen to this trapped animal, they find out the hard way that they are destroyed (shot, gassed, drowned and worse). Do not assume that they will be delivered to Shangri-La.

Well-meaning people often create problems by giving handouts to wild animals. What they don't realize is that they are really killing them. It should not be done for these reasons:

1) It teaches them unnatural behavior. A skunk used to finding food on this person's porch will beg at the neighbor's porch. The neighbor then calls to have the animal removed and then it is destroyed most of the time.

2) Even high-quality cat food causes obesity, liver failure, and metabolic bone disease in most of these animals.

3) It keeps them from doing their important job of ridding our neighborhoods of real pests.

What it really boils down to is that, according to nature, humans are really the nuisance animal!

Wildlife "conservation" agencies often play upon the public fear of rabies and other diseases to justify and promote their self-serving hunting and trapping programs. Like most of their other claims, their claim that trapping keeps wildlife diseases in check has absolutely no basis in reality.

Their public statements are simple ones: by reducing the population of a given species, fewer animals will remain to spread disease and kill your children. Game agencies also try to appeal to the "animal lovers" by making the false claim that nature is "cruel" and without recreational trapping, the animals will die a slow and agonizing death as disease ravages each and every one of them, until there are no animals left. State game agencies must be applauded for their fine use of hyperbole and fiction, but their deliberate dissemination of false information is nothing to praise. When the truth is told, it proves unequivocally that not only does trapping not keep the number of diseased animals in check; the practice is actually responsible for the growth rate and the spread of diseases such as rabies and mange.

How can this be so? As far back as we can remember we have been told that killing some animals is necessary, because without our "help" they will starve or die of disease. Aside from the fact that the animals survived very well on their own before Homo Sapiens started managing them, there is much evidence that proves the misinformation spewed by game agencies. In fact, much evidence proves the contrary is true.

The state of Virginia recently implemented a program that very nicely counters the arguments of trappers. Virginia, in cooperation with the states of New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, West Virginia and Vermont, began a program to halt the spread of disease by vaccinating the wild raccoon, coyote and fox population. Officials distributed more than 400,000 ice cube-sized fish meal baits containing the rabies vaccine across a 2,000 square-mile area in southwest Virginia. The baits were distributed by hand and by low-flying planes. Given that the program cost several hundred thousand dollars, it would have been far less expensive to send trappers into the woods to "cull" the diseased animals. That seven states chose the vaccination program over using trappers indicates a belief on the part of the state that there are more effective ways to control disease than by using traps. Since trapping is a well established practice in Virginia, it does not seem to be halting the spread of the disease.

The effect trapping does have on wildlife is that by reducing the number of strong, healthy animals in a given population, it leaves sick and diseased animals behind and pollutes the gene pool.

Trappers are successful in their craft because they know the habits of wild animals. They know what scents they are attracted to, and they know where they live and how they travel. When an animal is sick from a disease such as rabies, that animal will not behave in the same manner that a healthy member of his species will. During the advanced stages of rabies, the infected animal will not be hungry, and therefore will not be attracted to trap sets like their healthy brethren will be. This is precisely the stage when rabid animals try to spread their disease. The result is that the sick animals who pose the greatest risk to the health of wildlife populations are seldom caught in traps. The traps themselves are non-selective. They will catch any animals that triggers them, be that animal sick or healthy, a raccoon or a domestic cat. Traps simply cannot distinguish one animal from another. It is folly to attempt to explain how traps can target sick animals.

When healthy animals are killed and removed from the population, the sick and diseased animals are free to spread out and cover a wider area. In this way, trappers actually help to spread the very diseases that they are telling us trapping will contain. The World Health Organization confirms this fact in an article discussed in the August 7, 2001 edition of the Hartford Courant. The Courant reports that it is the opinion of "the World Health Organization and the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that trapping not be used to control rabies because it eliminates a healthy buffer population that impedes the spread of the disease".

Catch a trapper in a moment of weakness and you'll be surprised to hear what they say. Taxidermist and trapper Troy Hall said that he has never trapped to suppress or eradicate disease, and he thinks it is odd to claim that trapping will prevent animals from suffering from disease.

In his book "Jaws of Steel", Ph.D. and former trapper Thomas Eveland explains that many claims made by trappers are simply not supported by scientific literature. Eveland tells his readers that over a period of more than a decade, a large-scale trapping campaign instituted by the State of Virginia failed to demonstrate any reduction in the incidence of rabies. Adding insult to the trappers' injuries, some researchers felt trapping had caused a definite increase in the number of rabies cases. Perhaps this explains why Virginia is now using bait drops to control the spread of rabies.

Eveland also speaks of a 1973 report entitled "Control of Rabies" by the National Academy of Science. The report consisted of many things, including a list of recommendations. Recommendation Number 10 reads: "Persistent trapping or poisoning campaigns as a means to rabies control should be abolished. There is no evidence that these costly and politically-attractive programs reduce either wildlife reservoirs or rabies incidence. The money can be better spent on research, vaccination, compensation to stockmen for losses, education or warning systems."

Ten years later, Fromm Laboratories issued a report entitled "Report on Rabies". The report reads in part: "Trapping to control rabies is considered to be an exercise in futility in the face of a rabies outbreak, because the disease itself will limit the population, and clinically-rabid animals are rarely caught in traps."

Gee, that's not what the trappers have been telling us for so many years.

When the evidence is examined, it clearly indicates that trapping fails to stop the spread of rabies, and in certain circumstances, it may actually increase the number and percentage of rabid animals in a given population.

Rabies spreads faster where there is trapping than where there is no trapping at all.

You don't have to just take Eveland's word for it because other experts echo his assertions. Gary Suhowatsky is a research analyst who was employed by the New York State Department of Health. In 1977 Suhowatsky testified before the New York State Assembly Subcommittee on Wildlife. What he had to say made every trapper within 1000 miles wince. Suhowatsky provided testimony which indicated that not only is there no evidence to support the claim that trapping reduces the incidence of contagious diseases in wildlife, but "that trapping selectively kills the healthiest and most mobile animals in the population and leaves behind the most sickly and sedentary members to perpetuate the spread of, and elevate the incidence in, the diseases in wildlife populations".

Suhowatsky testifies that in un-trapped, natural ecosystems, there is virtually no incidence of disease. Natural selection ensures that only the strong, healthy and most resistant to disease will survive to breed the new generation. Sarcoptic mange had never been known in a red fox in New York State, until after 1945 when the effects of trapping began to show. The same is true for rabies. The first reported case of wildlife rabies ever recorded in New York occurred in 1941. By 1943, only one additional case of wildlife rabies had been reported. But soon after, the effects of wide spread trapping began to show its ugly head. Now, an average of 119 cases of rabies are reported annually in New York's foxes. It is sad to learn that once rabies free, foxes have had this terrible plague inflicted upon them because of increased trapping pressure.

As trappers continue to shout that their ugly trade contains the spread of disease, the animals they do not trap continue to spread the disease faster than they could have if the trappers would have just sat on their sofa and watched football on a Sunday afternoon instead of combing the woods for animals to kill. We agree with Mr. Suhowatsky that "nothing short of a total ban on trapping will ever restore health to our wild animal populations".

It can also be shown that the incidence and spread of rabies can be directly correlated to the number of trapping licenses sold. Since the mid 1940's, statistics for the number of trapping licenses sold and the number of cases of wildlife rabies have been recorded. Using a statistical analysis tool known as the "product-moment-correlation-coefficient," we are able to mathematically and irrefutably determine relationship between trapping license sales and the number of cases of rabies in wildlife. If what the trappers say is true, the number of rabies cases should decrease when more animals are trapped. But if the opposite is true and trapping causes the spread of rabies, the "product-moment-correlation-coefficient" will indicate this. But when examining the data generated during the period from 1945 to 1975, the evidence shows conclusively that trapping not only does not control the spread of rabies, but trapping actually promotes and artificially sustains its continuation and spread.

The facts speak for themselves. The experts have done the research and have come to a conclusion that every trapper hates to hear and refuses to believe. Trapping for disease prevention is nothing but a terrible myth perpetrated upon an uninformed populace. Unfortunately for the animals, the spread of this myth is as lethal to them as the spread of disease.

Animal cruelty is a very serious crime, and individuals who perpetrate heinous acts of cruelty should not go unpunished or unrecognized by the criminal justice system. There is a well-established link between animal cruelty and human violence, and exhibitions of animal cruelty are indicators of a loss in empathy in individuals, according to an overwhelming body of sociological and scientific research. In one study of American households, it was determined that animals are abused in 88% of families in which children are abused (DeViney, Dickert, Lockwood, 1983). In a separate study, researchers found that 62% of women who were battered indicated their children had witnessed animal abuse (Ascione, Weber, 1997). A survey of sexual homicide perpetrators revealed that 36% of the offenders had abused animals in childhood, 46% in adolescence, and 36% in adulthood (Ressler, Burgess, Douglas, 1988).

Animal cruelty is a problem all over the world, but in America as well. In the past few years, several incidents involving extreme animal cruelty have come to light: horses brutally stabbed and slashed, a kitten thrown from a moving truck, a dog strangled and hung from a mailbox, a cat dropped from an overpass through the windshield of a moving car, and puppies doused with gasoline and set on fire, as well as cruelty to wild animals.

While a misdemeanor classification may be appropriate for certain lesser offenses of neglect or mistreatment, a "misdemeanor-only" law does not provide a sufficient deterrent or penalty for the more extreme acts of cruelty. In Arkansas, a Class A misdemeanor only allows a maximum of one year of detention or court supervision. Twelve months does not provide the courts or mental health professionals enough time to evaluate and treat a violent perpetrator whose already extreme behavior could ultimately take a much more dangerous and tragic turn toward fellow human beings.

Felony cruelty provisions for the most severe forms of animal abuse have already been adopted in 36 states. The Arkansas state legislature has had several opportunities to enact felony cruelty legislation, most recently in the 1999 and 2001 sessions. But each time these measures were introduced, corporate agriculture groups unleashed massive lobbying campaigns based on fear and misinformation at the Capitol, and the bills ultimately went down in defeat. The Arkansas Animal Cruelty Act will allow the people of Arkansas to decide whether they want strong anti-cruelty laws.

We not only must constantly upgrade our animal cruelty statutes, but make sure that they are enforced! We need more team players in Animal Control/Humane Society departments, more media attention and animal rights/protection investigations. Changing the law alone will not stop the offenses.

We need to clean up our act in America before we can hope to change animal cruelty in other countries!! Hopefully, they will follow our lead.