Raccoon, squirrel or opossum damage?

This year, I have noticed more damage of my fruit from animals. I have seen squirrels. I know it does not feed at night.

I saw this extensive damage of my pears esp. Asian pears this morning. There were 50 pears damaged. I have a feeling that it was done at night. I also saw bunnies nibbled on these fruit this morning but they probably just bystanders.

I put cayenne peper on the fruit just to spite squirrels that likely come by during the day.

Please tell me again what bait you use to trap raccoons and opossums.

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Is the three limbs high enough to put a temporary metal guard around it?

Raccoons can do a lot of damage in one night. I need to break down and attempt to trap them. I’m just not sure if I have the stomach to properly dispose when caught.

No. My trees branch out very low. I need to trap them. My neighbor can get rid of them for me.

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I need a neighbor like yours.

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Here, raccoons only like ripe or nearly ripe fruit. Only squirrels and chipmunks do what your photos show. I’d assume your villain is a squirrel- or squirrels. Here they’ve been especially ravenous this season. I’m getting sick of killing them and designing ever more complicated and higher baffles to protect the fruit of clients
I’m hoping they will focus on acorns very soon.

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Well, if they are squirrels and chipmunks, I will try to set up a trap during the day. They are really vicio7s this year.

throw the trap in a pond. wait a few minutes. remove trap. dump contents in the woods. works great with skunks too.

My helpful neighbor moved away this summer

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I’m thinking the varmints are thirsty and after the juice in the fruit. The county just got into the D0 section of the drought map

Now that @alan got me tninking, I am ready to blame groundhogs. We have very fat, well fed groundhogs. They climb trees. Squirrels usually do not have 50 half eaten fruit on the ground like that in one days. They tend to steal fruit and run away with them. I saw bags with apples in them in the front yard. That’s definitely squirrels’s work.

@ltilton, we have had rain up the creek. No way, these vermints are thirsty. They just want sweet fruit instead of acorns or grass,

My groundhogs sdo not get in a trap. They are so smart.

never failed to catch a coon with a marshmallow, ymmv, they love them.

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This time of year Raccoons are running in large family groups, usually a mother and 2 to 5 half grown offspring from last Spring. I’ve had trouble with them in the past, and they left a mess just like that. They come in and feed quick and messy, tearing off all the fruit they can reach, eat fast and move on. I used a Hav-a-Heart wire live trap and to be sure they triggered it I’d sprinkle a small handful of dry cat food in the back. If you have any pets close instead of cat or dog chow, put a teaspoon of peanut butter down, it’s irresistible to Raccoons and Groundhogs. I’m sure you were heartbroken to find all those pears taken, hang in there!

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I have squirrels running around all over the place but they tend to not bother my fruit. Sure hope it stays that way. Most of my fruit is in Ziploc bags but many of you have reported that they find the bags ripped apart. The only thing I’m doing that might be helping is that I keep a big bowl of water in my orchard that I mostly see birds using. My muscadine are a different story. Last year as they were approaching picking time I had a midnight raid and I was amazed at how many were eaten. My guess is that a pack of raccoons payed me a visit.

ripe fruit or green fruit? squirrels and munks are the only thing I’ve seen leave shredded green fruit which looks exactly like the photos. They don’t always run away with fruit either- it all depends on how threatened they feel. More often than not they leave some shredded fruit when it’s small, green and hard- ripe fruit they often grab and take elsewhere and sometimes green.

Anyway, coons are easier to trap out than squirrels. They always prefer marshmallows to ripe fruit. It’s the higher brix.

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Sorry @Auburn I accidentally flagged your post. Can’t figure out how to remove it. Anybody?

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So sorry about your pears @mamuang. Looks just like what the squirrels did to my big peach tree - they cleaned it out when the fruit was still tiny. They weren’t working overnight, granted, but they would come out as soon as it started to get light in the morning, and I’d often find a mess of half-chewed mini peaches right around sunrise. There was no question of who was doing it - the squirrels were very visible and very persistent until they had eaten every single fruit. Some they did run away with, but a lot were only nibbled, like what you have there.

Nothing dissuaded them. Garlic, hot pepper spray, flashy and noisy stuff hung on the tree, running out of the house screaming at them… Next year, I may try to net the whole stinking tree (it’s a big tree). I’m afraid the netting will just get chewed up, but it’s got too short a trunk and it’s too close to other trees to use a baffle.

Not sure what else to try. My kids forbid kill traps, trap-and-relocate is an absurd nuisance, and shooting at them with children around seems dangerous (also not sure about the legality of any of those). So frustrating… And don’t get me started on what they’ve done to my blueberries… :angry:

I come out to the garden and find ziplocks on the ground, the squirrels have pulled off the pears, bags and all. Sometimes they get the fruit out, sometimes they just mess it up

Good to hear from everyone. I feel like we can commiserate. The battle continues.

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It took me 23 days to catch this. From my original post, I did not think it’s squirrels. The damage was different from what I have seen squirrels have done.

I tried using all kinds of bait members here suggested. Guess what I got a skunk 7 times, the last five times in six days. I got one groundhog, a juvenile one. There is at least one more groundhog roaming my yard.

I have a feeling that there are more raccoons out there. I hope I can catch more but I am not that confident. I don’t know how I caught this one last night. I thought I close the trap so I would not get another skunk. Obvoiusly, I did not close the trap.

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