Nice
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Ask him if he needs a job. I’ll pay in Korean Giants to guard my property from deer.
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Best watchdog ever! I saw one on my property last night. They’re starting to hunt very actively to pack on a few pounds before the winter. Beautiful animal!
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A bear snapped a Korean Giant pear at the base in an orchard I manage in highly populated Bedford NY. I believe that the strip (20%) of unbroken wood, bark and cambium may be enough to save the tree. It snapped high enough that I could attach a crutch to the base and work my way up to resecure the trunk. Leaves weren’t wilting so I expect survival, but we lost the crop of pears that were over a month from ripe. The tree lost a year or two in its development.
On my own property I killed a coon this morning who had destroyed a lot of peaches before deciding on something sweeter- the marshmallows in my trap. The peaches weren’t ripe either so many just had a few bites- still plenty left in the tree. I’m moving the trap to its base.
Hard work to defend a relatively sparse crop during drought. The natives are restless… and desperate. Coyotes do enjoy their fruit but haven’t made it to my property yet for some reason. Ours look like they have a lot more wolf in them than yours, but yours still looks like a larger animal than the ones I used to know on the west coast.
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Killing animals for the sake of eating fruit takes all the pleasure out of the whole thing.
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Hybrids… nahualcoyotl is now the apex predator here.
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I got used to killing animals and I fully enjoy harvesting my fruit and eating it. I kill on average, 20 coons a year on my little 3 acres. I am happy to do my bit to restore some kind of relative ecological balance- coons thrive on human waste. They also carry disease when they are in excess. The ones I’m killing now would likely starve instead over winter if they can’t get their paws into human garbage. I’m giving them a quick and merciful death preceding a starvation winter due to another failed mast crop and drought. .
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Just gave my neighbor across the street from me a Fuju Persimmon, she said she planted one tree 8 years ago and never able to harvested a single fruit. Some animal the size of a cat or large rat ate them all. So I went googling for raccoons and sure enough we have them near the university nearby. I hope they don’t discover my fruit trees. I’ve heard they like avocados too, one tree I have in a corner of my front yard.
I began eradicating racoons and now I count 4 species of turtles in or near my pond. I downed a tree into th pond to provide a platform for sunning, and have counted over 4 Blandings juvenile turtles. They see a little glimpse of me and bail.
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Coons and ground squirrels were certainly regular fruit pests at the home I was raised in- Topanga Canyon. Been at war with them for about 55 years- although the squirrels are now grey, bigger and live in trees. Actually, I wasn’t exactly at war with them in Topanga, more just a victim. I became a warrior in the last 30 years here in NYS. Feels a lot better than being a victim.
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I’m envious of those states that have wild predators to keep all the orchard pest down. All we have are fat lazy bears only interested in fruits.
Don’t worry, I don’t believe such states exist and all have some kinds of orchard pests predators don’t adequately control. Just not necessarily the same pests throughout the state.
Actually, if you grow fruit trees in a courtyard in NYC, you may not have any pests. I once picked perfect cherries from a terrace in Manhattan from such a tree, and it’s unlikely anything was done to control pests besides keeping the rat population down.
We’re not even allowed to trap them here, it’s illegal to trap without a license.
Is that a town or state rule?
I think it’s state law.
There is nothing there about exterminating raccoons, only trapping them without a word about what to do after trapping them, at least nothing specific. It almost seems as if they are encouraging people to trap and move them which is what is illegal in NY. If you live trap them you are supposed to kill them. However, animal cruelty laws are mostly based on not offending neighbors and creating conflict with people who are upset by the killing of wild animals, it only becomes cruelty if your neighbor complains about it. It’s rather a grey area in this state, but it is legal to kill them until someone else complains from how I understand it.
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I remember we had to trap a rabbit and moved it farther away from us, animal control in our city told us so. No killing. I think it would apply to raccoons, maybe that’s why we have so many at the university. When I had to take a class at night, I rattled my keys really loud to scare them because they scare me when I first saw them, especially at night.
That is a super healthy looking coyote. Here, they always look way to thin, their coats are always very poor looking, and lot of them have limps or other issues. Apparently you and your Korean Giants are keeping your coyotes well fed! ha
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The way that I understand NYC is that if there are no major pests then they are finding something else to eat, like in some parts of NYC there are so many nut trees in an area that the squirrels are rarely a problem, yet in other parts of NYC squirrels take lots of figs, or other fruits like pomegranates, there is this one guy in NYC that has a producing pomegranate bush in the ground, at first no pest problems, then years later squirrels discovered the fruit, LOL