101–110 of 147 posts
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I am weird enough to see an optimalization problem in the video. How many dogs are too many? Obviously, two are better than one, but fifty isn't better than twenty. Just saying. Also, the comment saying "that is why dogs like squeaking toys" is spot on, though the idea is probably uncomfortable to regular dog owners.
Do deaf dogs not like squeaky toys?
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> "The way they do it is the dog grabs the rat in it's mouth and shakes its head wildly." my dog is a terrier/spitz mix and shows this behavior in play (from the terrier side, the spitz side just makes her pretty =). she'll grab a stick or other small item and shake it wildly while bucking about. most people think it's hilarious until i tell them why she does it. =D
My dog is similar and caught a rat once in the garden. Ever heard a rat scream ? I ran around the corner to see what the commotion was and he had it in his jaws shaking his head violently. Snapped the rats back, then dropped it and walked away. I put the rat out of its misery with a spade then buried it. Talk about adrenaline! But yeah rats scream like a little girl screams. It’s fucking horrifying.
Which was a bit of a shocking realization.
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In Australia feral cats are culled since they kill the native animals. There's even a guy that skins them and turns then into stubby holders. https://youtu.be/VaB9J8JHVxI
I'm always surprised that cats are able to dominate ecosystems like this. You'd think a local apex predator would have filled that niche and been better adapted to the environment.
Their skill set is absurd.
Absolutely silent, leap multiple times their body length, jaws & claws, climb, extremely agile / flexible and fast.
This is one of the result of climate crisis. As complex environments get disrupted over time they become less and less diverse allowing for more booms and busts of single species. The wildfires last year probably wiped out a lot of the mice predators.
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I'm always surprised that cats are able to dominate ecosystems like this. You'd think a local apex predator would have filled that niche and been better adapted to the environment.
Pound for pound, it's hard to think of a more effective hunter than a cat. Their skill set is absurd. Absolutely silent, leap multiple times their body length, jaws & claws, climb, extremely agile / flexible and fast.
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I'm always surprised that cats are able to dominate ecosystems like this. You'd think a local apex predator would have filled that niche and been better adapted to the environment.
Pound for pound, it's hard to think of a more effective hunter than a cat. Their skill set is absurd. Absolutely silent, leap multiple times their body length, jaws & claws, climb, extremely agile / flexible and fast.
Owls. The larger ones will kill even cats.
When I read that article, all I could think of was this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2Pyu-Cj0gg (In case you're sensitive, it's farmers using pitchforks to turn soil in a fallow or recently harvested field that is ridden with rats, which flushes the rats. There are a handful of ratting dogs milling about which immediately chase and kill the rats. The way they do it is the dog grabs the rat in it's mouth an…
That was an incredibly interesting watch, I had no idea this was a thing. Is there something special about where they're digging for it to be plagued with such a large amount of rats? It looks like it would take weeks to cover all of their land with this digging + dog method.
That building you can see at about 30 seconds in is on skids, it is a barn/coop for chickens (or perhaps some other similarly small and light animal).
The bottom of the building is slatted to allow waste and other debris to fall through.
Because it's warm, and there's a constant sufficient supply of food it's an attractive home for rats and mice.
On some kind of regular schedule, the barn will be pulled along to a new location to allow the droppings/waste to be cleaned up, and the rats to be killed off.
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That was an incredibly interesting watch, I had no idea this was a thing. Is there something special about where they're digging for it to be plagued with such a large amount of rats? It looks like it would take weeks to cover all of their land with this digging + dog method.
It's not a regular field. That building you can see at about 30 seconds in is on skids, it is a barn/coop for chickens (or perhaps some other similarly small and light animal). The bottom of the building is slatted to allow waste and other debris to fall through. Because it's warm, and there's a constant sufficient supply of food it's an attractive home for rats and mice. On some kind of regular schedule, the barn wi…
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I’m Turkish and I find it interesting that the US and European cities are dealing with mouse / rat issues. We have tons of cats roaming the streets. I guess that’s the reason but I have ever seen one or maybe 2 live rats in my entire life.
When I visited Athens, the massive colonies of feral cats were very notable. They could take over parks. American culture is specifically oriented toward preventing this kind of thing from happening. A feral cat is judged to be in need of a home. And there is a very widespread popular effort to say that you are doing something immoral if you don't spay your cat -- if a fertile cat did go feral, it might have children…
Keeping someone captive and ending their ability to reproduce seems more like abuse than love.
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“Bait” means poison, right?
I'd assume so. Which means the first application would kill 80% of the mice, maybe more. That'd would leave a whole bunch of rotting mice bodies to putrify and smell and provide a poisonous feast to birds and other scavangers. A second application might knock off 60%. Then, with each application and multiple generations of mice, you'd end up with mice that are immune. Ultimately, you end up with totally ineffective b…
The biggest issue with poisoning operations is when the animals become bait shy, then it dramatically reduces kills, hence the popularity of warfarin for rodents - they don't associate the poisoning with ingesting the bait, so don't become bait shy.
I suspect in smarter social animals, bait shyness could be passed along as communal knowledge. In NZ we also use "pre-feeding" where the baits, without poison, are dropped for some time to teach the target species that they're good eating.
Predator by-kill can be a real issue though, and I guess it depends on whether the predators are pests also - like foxes and cats in Australia, mustelids in NZ. There's a reason NZ is the biggest user of 1080, there's no carnivorous mammals in our forests that we want to stay there, so if they eat a poisoned possum or rodent, bonus.
That said, Australia has carnivorous marsupials that are highly endangered, so it'll be a different ballgame over there.