Last night we were sitting on the deck at Timothy's cabin (a most bucolic spot on the Loudoun farm, one among many, but certainly a premium location far from most humans) and having dinner, just the two of us. I looked up at the scraggly mulberry tree that is growing through and over the deck and I saw an animal perched on a branch, about ten feet above the ground. It looked familiar even though it was facing away from me and I couldn't see anything but its furry back. "Is that a groundhog?" Jon went to look more closely from under the tree. "Sure looks like one." It was small and completely still. It couldn't be dead since it was balancing so nicely on that branch but it was completely unmoving. I kept looking at it while we ate our hamburgers and salad and it just didn't move. I think it was stuck up there, just waiting for us to go away.
Every day we encounter wildlife here on these farms. The workers in Vienna spend an inordinate amount of time trying to coax black snakes out of the hayshed so they can get the bales out for mulching. They tell stories of getting the snake to slide into a bucket, then picking up the bucket only to have the snake pop back out. Of course. What would you expect?
Jon traps raccoons and groundhogs as they are entering under the deer fence. There are clear paths made by these vegetable marauders -- you can see where they slide under the fence and often the paths head straight to their holes. Twice this spring he has caught foxes but we always let them go because we like it that they eat rabbits. The foxes are heartbreaking because they try so hard to escape that cage that they bloody their noses and feet. Raccoons have a different temperament -- they assess the situation quickly and save their energy. They often look bored and relaxed while curled up in the Havahart trap, waiting for release. Jon has a few favorite spots that he takes the groundhogs and raccoons to release (it is illegal to move these animals and legal to kill them, but we would rather just have them start a new life somewhere else). He puts the trap in the back of the pickup truck and drives a few miles away to a stream valley and unloads the trap, carefully stands to the side as he opens the door and watches the (usually chubby) animal hustle into the woods. Once he caught two small raccoons at the same time, presumably siblings. When he let them go, they immediately ran off in opposite directions, never looking back.
The other day I got a text from a past worker who lives nearby. He said, "Hey I have a deer that looks to be injured and is hanging around at my place do you have a good vets number someone that could take care of an issue like that?" I assumed he didn't mean he wanted someone to come and euthanize the deer and I said "I don't think vets treat wild animals." He persisted: "Other than a police officer, is there animal control or localized care taker of animals that you know of? Like if we had horses that were able to walk free and one got injured who could treat it. A company. Something like a vet." I said I doubted anyone would come for a deer. He persisted some more: "Do you have know anyone that knows how to take care of an animal." So I answered more clearly. "My sister is a vet so I do know people who take care of animals but I can guarantee you she would not treat a deer...this is a wild animal and will need to heal or not heal on its own. Not safe to handle it. You will freak it out and it could die of panic. I have seen it happen." I tried to imagine what he was thinking -- someone comes and treats the deer (you would have to tranquilize it first), fixes its ailment, maybe sets a bone. Then the Good Samaritan Wild Animal Vet says to the deer, "Now take this medicine every day and don't walk on that leg. Come back and see me next Tuesday and we will take a look at that wound." I mean, deer don't do appointments and they don't have anyone to make sure they take their meds.
A few years ago a deer got its head stuck through our deer fence and there were so many concerned workers gathered around trying to free it that it just got so frantic and upset that it died. It was a tragic end. Then a few of them felt compelled to not waste that meat and they spent the rest of the day butchering that little deer.
With wildlife, you have to assume they don't want you to intervene. They do get hurt and they do end up in the wrong place, but most of these animals are managing (THRIVING) on the edges and in the midst of this area. As we all know, deer are in their element in the suburbs, wandering through any yard or garden, jumping over gates, completely at home on the fringes. In the last few months, the deer population has shifted away from the Vienna farm and I think it has everything to do with the massive road widening project with huge earthmovers ripping down trees and rearranging the landscape. Where there was once a hillside across the road from the stand, with tall White Pines and underbrush and a daily parade of deer, there is now a mound of subsoil getting scraped and carried away. Deer are staying away from that mess.
A few years ago I started a campaign to encourage groundhogs to move off the farm in Vienna. There were a couple of condos established on hillsides on the edges of fields and I made a regular practice of dumping garbage down their holes and stuffing those holes with sticks so it would be a lot of trouble to come back out. Day in day out, I made those holes disgusting and inaccessible. Once I even buried the bones of a boiled soup chicken (knowing that a fox would find it and dig it up and maybe it would get interested in those groundhog holes and make them even less enticing). I am happy to report that both of those condos are still unoccupied. I go and check from time to time. Apparently groundhogs like a very clean hole and maybe it just got to be too much, having to clean up every day. Also I have heard that they move to empty holes when they find them and the biggest, most dominant groundhog gets the best real estate. So far I have managed to make that excellent real estate seem like a terrible dump. No one got hurt, and the nearby lettuce and bean patches are uneaten.
In fact we have no real interest in killing these animals that are living their best lives. We just want them to move to a place that isn't trying to grow food for humans. There is plenty to eat everywhere. They don't have to be so opportunistic and lazy. I do hate raccoons, all raccoons. They have proven over time that their best life includes randomly killing chickens. Not even eating them, just killing them. Even though that is their nature, I can't tolerate that. Minks and weasels are the same, but we don't have those around anymore.
Anyway, I have been telling stories about wildlife forever because those interactions never stop. I see how inexperienced most people are when they encounter a wild animal, and I watch people try to rescue and raise baby rabbits all the time. They just die. It never works.
Dad always said he wanted to breed a big cat, a really big cat, that could patrol the farm and keep the inappropriate wildlife down. He wanted a cross between a puma and a house cat. That would probably do it.
When Jon and I came back to Timothy's from doing our computer homework after dinner, I looked up in the tree and that little groundhog was gone. It had been pretending to be asleep, waiting for those bothersome humans to get out of the way. It lives in a hole right under the cabin. You wouldn't think I would let that happen but the nearest vegetable fields are a long way away. If they are mowing our lawn, I don't mind.
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