Ground Squirrel Hasn’t Met a Plant--Except Daffodils--It Didn’t Like
Question: We back on to a wildlife corridor. Our backyard is landscaped primarily with perennials. We have several bird feeders. All of these factors attract ground squirrels. We built an 8-foot waterfall, and a pair of squirrels immediately decided to make their home under it. We now have about 10 squirrels and they are eating many of the perennials (rudbeckia, coreopsis, cosmos, blanket flowers, etc.). They also eat my annuals such as poppies, sweet peas and nasturtium. Is there a list of perennials and annuals that squirrels do not like?
--S.T.
Yorba Linda
Answer: Lists of unpalatable plants are available for deer, gopher, jack rabbits, cottontails and rats, but I have never seen one for ground squirrels. Suffice it to say, they’ll eat almost anything, perhaps with the exception of daffodils, which contain a toxic alkaloid strong enough to keep even gophers from eating them.
Mammals may reject certain plants for any number of reasons, including spines, thorns, prickly leaves or the presence of secondary chemical compounds. These compounds give off a bad taste, but can have wider-ranging effects than just tasting badly. They can also be toxic, cause intestinal distress or prevent normal digestion. These defenses protect the plant.
But a plant’s resistance isn’t always foolproof. Obvious examples include periods of food shortage or when a preferred food has been removed, leaving only less palatable foods available. Unlike birds, which will move to another area for better food, some mammals such as deer are likely to eat highly unpalatable foods for some time before leaving an area and finding a new home range.
In their natural habitat, ground squirrels have two distinct appetites, both of which hinge on seasonality.
In the early months of the year after they emerge from hibernation, the squirrels munch on green, leafy plants. Then, when the weather heats up and the plants dry out, their preference changes--sometimes in as short as a two-week period--and they’ll begin eating seeds and nuts.
As can happen when we create unnaturally abundant environments, the squirrels have trumped you. Instead of going for acorns as they might otherwise do, they obviously prefer your little bit of paradise.
Nocturnal Ring-Tail Cats Remain Elusive
Q: Years ago, I used to see civet cats coming out from underneath our house, but I haven’t seen any for more than a decade, and they seem to have disappeared. What’s happened to all the civet cats that used to live in Orange County?
--J.V.
Fountain Valley
A: Close relatives of raccoons--ring tails are in the same family, Procyonidae, as the Asian lesser pandas and our native coatis. As such, they are hardly cats as the colloquial terms civet cat, miner’s cat and cacomistle would suggest.
Part of why they’re rarely seen is their extremely nocturnal behavior. More elusive than a raccoon, they’re seldom seen even at dawn or dusk. They prefer broken, rocky areas near water where they rest in cracks, ledges, hollow logs and other animals’ burrows, and feed on rodents, rabbits, grasshoppers, crickets and fruit, including prickly pear. Their presence under your house is a curiosity because they’re rarely considered a “nuisance animal.”
For the uninitiated, ring tails are smaller and more slender than raccoons with big, bat-like ears and white rings around their disproportionately large eyes. The tail has six to nine black bands alternating with white and a black tip.
Ring tails walk on tiptoe and are agile runners and climbers, often ricocheting themselves from one perch to another or along cliffs and ledges. They have the reputation of being excellent “mousers,” and early settlers often kept them around the house as pets, and for rodent control.
Because their fur is so thin and there’s not much meat on them, they make neither good fur-bearing nor game mammals, and are protected in California.
In the late ‘70s, population studies estimated there was roughly one ring tail to every five square miles in Southern California, which is a pretty low density. It may well be lower today.
Because ring tails eat much the same food as other small mammals such as raccoons, bobcats, foxes and coyotes that move in and out of our neighborhoods, it’s conceivable the group under your house moved due to pressure from these other animals, a lack of prey, new construction or even excessive disturbance from neighborhood pets.
With Ants, Know Your Opponent
Q: We need help. Ants make an annual pilgrimage back indoors even after we scrub the place squeaky clean. Our procedure has been to let them congregate in sufficient numbers so we can locate the itsy-bitsy hole they are pouring through. We then throw caution to the wind and fill the hole with Diazanon, later filling the top of the hole with Fixall. But wouldn’t you know it, they find another small hole to worm themselves into--not just in the kitchen, but in our bathrooms as well, all of which are scrupulously clean. We are relentless when spotting ants outside our home and bombing them with Diazanon, which works well. But they recoup, regroup and otherwise come back to life anywhere from two weeks to the next summer or fall. How do we obliterate their nests? Must we fumigate and kill the good bugs, too?
--B.A.
South Pasadena
A: There are literally dozens of ant species that can invade your home and yard, all of which have their own particular nesting and feeding strategies. To control them, you’ll need to know which ants are mounting the incursions.
But before you panic at the thought of trying to identify the invaders, you should know that a large percentage of ant problems in low-lying cities of Southern California involve the Argentine ant.
According to Stoy Hedges, manager of technical services at Terminix Worldwide and author of “Field Guide for Management of Structure Infesting Ants” (GIE Media, 1998), Argentine ants are by far the most difficult to manage.
They’ll take control of any structure, including tree holes, carpets, walls, rocks, landscape timbers and mulch. They’re often the ants you’ll find heading up citrus trees. They build ant cities in which satellite colonies link by trails to other satellite colonies and to the main nest. These ant cities are made up of hundreds of thousands of ants, so killing a few where they come into the house just won’t do the trick.
To make matters worse, ants can travel up to 600 feet from the nest for food and water, which means the colonies could be originating from a neighbor’s yard or other adjacent area.
Most homeowners experience this problem between July and September, the months pest control operators refer to as the “ergonomic growth period.” During winter, the colonies shrink considerably, and most people forget about them.
To get rid of the ants’ annual pilgrimage into your home, mount your own counterattack where you can eliminate the greatest number of ants--at their nest site. Liquid ant control products will work fine, but don’t expect to eliminate the bugs completely.
Follow the trail from your house to their nests, and spray the colonies. To find a suitable liquid ant control, check home improvement or hardware stores. Be sure to follow the labeled instructions, which include keeping pets and kids off the area you’ve sprayed while it’s wet. And try to keep wildlife off too, if possible.
If you can’t find the nests, call a professional pest control company. Be sure they get at the nests and aren’t just repeating your previous efforts at controlling the ants.
As far as bait stations go, they alone won’t work on Argentine ants because the colonies can get so large. They are a good local solution inside the kitchen and bathroom, though, so long as they’re used in conjunction with control at the nest.
Though we’re in the new millennium, ant control isn’t much different than it ever was. The trick is still in finding and destroying the colony.
*
Got critter conflicts? Send your queries to wildlife biologist Andrea Kitay at P.O. Box 2489, Camarillo, CA 93011, or via e-mail to andrea@livingwithwildlife.com. Please include your name and city. Questions cannot be answered individually. Visit https://www.livingwithwildlife.com to see answers to frequently asked questions.
