[Speaker 4] (0:07 - 4:09)
The Conservancy is an all-volunteer, non-profit organization dedicated to supporting Swampscots, the town of Swampscot, in the preservation of conservation land and open space through education, research, and active stewardship. Over our five-year history, it's hard to believe but five years have passed since we first formed. We've opened new hiking trails, we've installed native plant gardens in town, hosted hiking and biking events, and cleaned up beaches.

We've also very concerned about wildlife in our neighborhood, and we've hosted presentations in the past on coyotes, turkeys, birds of prey, and now tonight we're going to have Dan talk to us about human interaction with wildlife. If you want to learn more about the Conservancy, please do check out our website, swampscotconservancy.org, and to help us continue our efforts, please, we invite you to become members, and if you are already a member, please renew your membership for 2023. One thing I will mention, we do have an upcoming presentation on how to rid your life of plastics that was originally scheduled for December 5th, that has now been changed to December 12th, so please check our website, I hope we'll see you there, we're doing that in conjunction with the UU Church of Greater Lynn.

And now a few words about our speaker. Dan Prowl grew up in Somerville and currently resides in Marblehead. Before helping with animals, Dan served in the U.S. Army for five years. He was the first full-time animal control officer in Swampscot, he served in that capacity for over three years, and we certainly do miss him in his expertise, especially now that we've had an increase in wildlife activity, both in the region and in our town. One of Dan's passions is working on rehabbing birds of prey. He has worked within our region and in New Hampshire with staff from the On the Wing Rehabbing Birds of Prey.

Dan has a Massachusetts wildlife rehabilitation license and has enough working hours with birds of prey to apply for his federal wildlife rehabilitation license. In the past, he has helped local animal control officers, environmental police, mass wildlife, and local police departments with various wildlife issues. Dan currently holds a problem animal control agent license, usually called a PAC or pack agent or trapper.

He has been a volunteer at the Marblehead shelter for over six years and is currently animal inspector for Marblehead and assists their animal control department as needed. In his spare time, Dan volunteers at Wolf Hollow up in Ipswich to advocate for gray timber and arctic wolves. Tonight's topic is everything you need to know about your local wildlife.

I'd ask you to please hold your questions to the end so Dan can get through his presentation. And this presentation is being videoed and it will be posted both on the town website as well as the Swampscot Conservancy's website so you can pass that along to folks who aren't here in person and want to hear him. So please help me now give an enthusiastic welcome to Dan Pratt.

[Speaker 1] (4:12 - 55:29)
Thank you. I appreciate that. I'm mic'd up.

Makes me sound good, huh? I appreciate Swampscot, the Conservancy, for arranging this. I feel that I owe Swampscot due to them helping me with the animals over the years.

Technically, animal control officers really don't deal with wildlife. Only if it's in, I'll go over this stuff, but it's only if it's in your living quarters of your home. Like if you have a raccoon in your living room or your kitchen or something of that nature.

If you've got an injured rabbit or an injured bird, usually animal control does not respond, okay? Technically. It all goes by the different municipalities and Swampscot's still working on theirs.

Before I start, I had an upper palate expansion done four years ago. When I was a kid, I should have got the expander done, but I didn't do it. I fought my parents and I won, but they were right all along.

So as an adult, you have to have it broken. So it was really painful the first year. Two months ago, the braces were supposed to come off.

There was a problem. I had a gap like this. I looked like I was missing a tooth in the middle, but it was actually just my two teeth spread apart.

What it did was they broke it and they bring it together like that. It helps with, I didn't realize I had migraines. I didn't realize that I had sleep apnea symptoms because of it.

I did a bunch of sleep studies and just kept coming up negative, but I still had the symptoms. Ever since I've had the surgery, after about a year, year and a half, those symptoms kind of faded away. So if you have a small child that's having a whole bunch of mental health issues, ADHD, can't sleep, all that stuff, sometimes it's not mental, it's dental.

So have them checked out. Always check out your teeth. Get them fine-tuned as much as you can.

So as it shifts and closes, it opens and closes, sometimes it's hard for me to say some words. So I try to articulate a little bit more, but if I mispronounce some words, it's because of that. But next month, maybe two months from now, the braces will come off and it'll be well worth it.

Okay? Alright. So, like they said, I was an animal control officer for three years, about maybe a year and a half ago, maybe two years ago, I lost track.

I left due to wanting to work with wildlife exclusively. I was able to go up to New Hampshire two to three days a week for the last seven months and work with the Birds of Prey with Jane Kelly. I appreciate the hard work she's given me.

She actually moved to Wisconsin, so on the wing, moved to Wisconsin and is no longer in New Hampshire. So, with that said, this spring I'll be moving to New Hampshire to restart Birds of Prey in New Hampshire. I'll still be helping down here because everybody has my phone number.

My cell phone number is my number. It's online. I've had the same number forever and all you have to do to find me is Google my name and you'll get my phone number.

Okay? If you ever find an animal, text me. Text me is the best way to alert me.

A lot of times I won't answer the phone if I don't know the number and just get the voicemail. So, if you text me, that's the fastest way to reach me. Okay?

The reason why I'm moving up to New Hampshire is every time I go up there, the blood pressure goes down. It's beautiful up there. It is absolutely beautiful.

There's no potholes. There's no traffic. There's lots and lots of birds flying all around.

Here, it's been extremely difficult helping with the birds of prey due to the rodenticides. I'll be going over that at the end. There's a special treat for you guys at the end.

You'll find out what it is, but it has to do with birds of prey. Okay? I'll just tell you that.

All right. With that being said, let me start. This is actually one of my favorite photos.

This is a Japanese maple with a raccoon inside of it. Someone opened up their pool cover. There was a cascading waterfall, and there was a whole bunch of raccoons living in there.

So, what we did is we just simply turned on the water slowly. They all came out. One climbed up the tree, and I said, that's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen, and I took a picture.

So, I actually got a nice canvas made of it and stuff, and it looks really good. This is what I've been up to. My favorite bird, other than a red-tailed hawk, is a Harris hawk.

That's wrong. He's a falconary hawk, and he's trained to go hunting for rabbits. He had to retire due to going after rocks, so that's why he ended up on the wing.

This is magoo. Magoo is my favorite little owl. He's like 11 years old, and he's a pleasant to hold.

We were releasing a great horned owl that was actually picked up here in Gloucester. It was on the news about a year ago to where a whole family of great horned owls, the parents were deceased, and the three siblings were on the verge of death. KPN Wildlife brought them back to life and sent them up to New Hampshire to be fed every day and handled every day, and there they are being released.

That's one of them being released. They allowed me to release it because I was the one that transported them up here from Massachusetts. I'll tell you what, it's scary transporting birds that people have been taking care of an hour, hour and a half, because when you get there you're like, please, please be alive.

You don't want anything to do with anything when it comes to their lives. That is musetta. She's a red-tailed hawk.

She's one of my favorites because I love red-tailed hawks. Those are the first birds I ever worked with in animal patrol when I would get calls for birds down. I remember my first red-tailed hawk.

I walked up to it, and it spread its wings, and I thought, what the heck is it doing? And as I walked up to it, I fell on its back, and I was like, oh my goodness, it must be hurt or something to that nature. That's what they do, is they lift up their talons to get you.

So it makes it easy to be able to grab them, but back then I didn't know. I threw a towel on them. I was all handling it completely wrong, but now I'm very good at handling red-tailed.

And that's one thing I want to do up in New Hampshire, is help the population of red-tailed hawks, especially down here. You get a lot of bird strikes, especially along the highways. You get a lot of owls, but red-tailed hawks you also see on the side of the roads.

That is a turkey vulture. I had no clue what a turkey vulture was until I went up to New Hampshire. There's three of them, and they were being trained to be educational birds.

I absolutely love turkey vultures now. If you do this to them, if they're nice, they'll put their beak inside and wiggle it around. That's kind of them saying hello.

However, if they're being a little sassy, they will bite you and draw blood. Pretty much everybody on the wing has a little scar from the turkey vultures. But, that's solo.

That's me releasing one of the barred owls. I didn't realize how many photographers showed up for these things. We're talking a whole array of large cameras, and I had no clue that that was the case.

But, they got a good shot of me. I got my braces in there. But, I learned that when you do release them, you got to do them low so it doesn't block your face.

The other two shots, the birds right here are blocking my face. Usually, up in New Hampshire, they would invite people to see the releases. There's plenty of room.

There's plenty of distance for the birds to fly away from everybody and go into the trees. Everybody really appreciates doing it. A lot of pictures are taken.

They're shared online. If you go to On The Wing Facebook, you'll see that there's a whole bunch of releases on there. Like they said, I volunteer at Wolf Hollow in Ipswich.

If you haven't been there, you should go. It is a really cool experience. That is Scully, one of my favorite wolves there.

He's the first wolf that you see when you walk in. There's a total of nine wolves there. Three are still cubs or pups.

We got them when they were like two months old. They're like seven months old now. That's them there when we first got them.

That's how fast they grow. That's only like five months old. They grow super quick.

They advocate for the wolves. It's the only wolves in Massachusetts. I just got into animals of prey so much.

I've been helping all these little raccoons, all these squirrels, all these rabbits. Those poor things get attacked all the time. That's why I'm going to try to help those little guys out today.

I'm going to try to bump up the population of them. I went there and I asked if I could volunteer. I've been volunteering for the last six months every Saturday.

I really enjoy it. It's like being a kid again. You wake up and you think, it's like Saturday morning cartoons.

That feeling of being able to go and stuff. It does take a good six months to eight months before you're allowed to go inside with the wolves. They were all raised in captivity.

A lot of them are older and used to people. They're really cool. It helps me see coyotes in a different way now.

Learning about the packs, the alpha male and the alpha female. Which is just the mom and the dad. There's no rough and tough alpha male going and beating up others to take over.

It's usually the mom and dad having pups. It's a family unit just like we have here with the coyotes. I'll be going over coyotes.

I know that there's an issue here. I'm going to figure out some stuff. This is Scully and that's Kintaka.

Akila actually. I'm still learning the names. Beautiful.

Like I said, just go online. We'll follow and get some tickets. Come on out.

It's only Saturday and Sunday I have presentations. I'm there on Saturdays. Feel free to come out.

Scully, my favorite. Before I start, I want to thank Caping Wildlife up in Gloucester. They're the ones that gave me the first chance to truly work with birds of prey.

I've been kind of a runner with Linda Amato to go check on birds. That people would call about. I'll be going over that in a little bit.

I want to thank Jody Swanson and Aaron Hutchins for their help. They're educating me on how to handle the birds and how to examine them and figure out what's wrong with them. We've been through a lot, especially this summer with the rodenticide issue.

There's a lot of burnt out rehabbers because it takes a lot out of you. A bird needs a vitamin K shot every 4 hours 24-7 for a while before it can regain its strength. They really do a good job.

If it wasn't for them I would have never been up to New Hampshire and met Jane on the wing. They're the ones that introduced me and gave me the thumbs up saying he's a good guy. It is a little hard to get in working with birds of prey.

A lot of times when you volunteer with birds of prey, wolves you show up and you're all hands on. You're picking up poop you're scrubbing this, you're cleaning that you're feeding, you're doing waters and it takes a long time before the birds start trusting you and you start trusting yourself around these types of birds because all the birds that are up in New Hampshire they're all healthy especially the educational ones and a healthy hawk or healthy falcon will get you really good. Snowy owls, I've got a couple little scars from snowy owls.

They're probably the most aggressive when you go to capture them. Great horned owls I have a high respect for. Their clench is the same strength as a wolf's bite.

500 pounds of square pressure If you're not careful with the great horned owl it will hurt you. Something else you may get away with a little scrape here and there but a great horned owl you may put you in an emergency room. So here we go.

Eastern cottontail. These guys have it the worst on everybody. Everybody wants to eat them.

When these guys start having little bunnies I start getting calls all the time they get hit by cars cats, dogs, all that stuff everything goes after. I'll go over that stuff These poor guys everybody does really want to eat the rabbits. They're herbivores they don't get that big some of them do get pretty big 2.5 pounds is pretty big. I've gotten some really big ones but to be honest they really don't live that long to get that big from what I've noticed. This year it's been kind of rough there hasn't been as many and I know this through the amount of calls. I've probably got 50% less calls about injured rabbits As you know they're found in bushy areas they're found in your yards they love to eat your grass and poop all over your lawn you'll be able to see all those little round balls in your yard that's usually from the rabbits Breeding starts mid-February into September that's important and they give birth under a month so around October March it's twice that they have their babies it's early spring and then mid-summer March they start coming out and if you have issues with your dog or your cat if you do let your cat out some cats you just can't contain inside they kill a lot of wildlife but if you do have a cat that goes out or a dog in the yard and you've had past experiences with your dog coming home or your cat coming home with a little rabbit in its mouth you need to prepare and get ready for the pre-season of rabbits I'll show you how to prevent them from making nests in your yard if they don't dig a nest in your yard your dog and cat will not get them which will bring up the population for these little guys mothers will feed the babies just at dusk and dawn just twice a day early early in the morning and just at night as soon as the sun goes down they do that out of defense so the predators don't know where their nest is what they do is they'll dig a 4 to 5 inch hole put their babies inside get a whole bunch of dead grass and a whole bunch of animal fur or sometimes dog fur if you see let me see if I have a picture of it if you see a patch of dead grass in your yard make sure that it's not a rabbit's nest that's how you can detect them if you see a little brown spot it might be from where your dog pees but a lot of times that's where a rabbit will lay its nest you cannot relocate a rabbit's nest if you find one in your yard and your yard is fenced in you cannot dig a hole on the outside of the fence put the bunnies in there and say hey there you go mom I took care of your rabbits she's going to think that her rabbits are gone she's not going to trust she's not going to come back that hole is filled in and her babies are gone so if you relocate the babies you're killing them so do not relocate any nest if your pet does disturb it if your dog does find them and you're like oh my goodness I didn't realize I was going to have a bunny's nest inside my yard a good thing to do is you can take an old laundry basket cut a hole big enough just for a rabbit to get in put it on top of the nest and put a large boulder or bricks on top of the laundry basket that way the mom can come back and forth and feed the babies as soon as your dog finds it that's it it's not going to stay away from it even if you tell it I've had people go out of their way and barricade the whole area and allow the bunnies to get old enough and go as soon as their eyes are open and they come out they're going to scramble they're going to go off into the bushes it doesn't take long for them to get big if you are weed whacking or mowing your lawn a lot of times that's how people discover that they have babies living in their front lawn a lot of times the lawnmower will get them the weed whacker will get them I know this is tough but this is nature and this is what's going on in this town and all other towns I'm trying to prevent it from happening if you disturb the nest put some gloves on put the babies back and cover it back up hopefully the mom doesn't realize that her babies were touched won't notice maybe one or two is gone because something happened to them you never know if the mother thinks that it's been abandoned it will not come back the best strategy to use to see if the mom comes and goes after it's been disturbed and you've arranged whatever is to tic-tac-toe with strings before I go into that a bunny's major defense is to freeze or run when they're tiny and little a lot of people walk up on a little one and think that there's something wrong that it's sick or ill because it's just sitting there and it's been sitting there for hours that thing will sit there frozen for hours until it gets dark and then it'll run off a lot of times I'd get calls and I'd go up to it especially when I was new at it I'd go up to it to make sure it was okay and it'd just run right off so if it is out in the open and you're worried about predators getting it just scurry it along and it'll run off and hide but that is one of their major defenses is to freeze and a lot of times especially early in the morning especially around the Swampscot Plaza I've had a lot of stores call and say there's a little baby bunny just sitting in front of the store and a lot of times it's just because they were out there and cars just started rolling in and they just froze because they were scared I'd go there and it'd just run right off so always double check before you call a rehabber I will be giving out the phone numbers and the website to contact the rehabber this is the tic-tac-toe method you're going to put four pieces of string make a tic-tac-toe you see the hair? that's fur in the grass so this would be in your lawn this patch and you can see how it looks like a dead patch of grass you do this, take a picture because I've had so many people say oh I set it up but I can't tell if it moved or not so the best thing to do if you use the tic-tac-toe method is to take a picture like this person this happened earlier this year and it was perfect so this is the next day see how the strings are buried in with the bunnies so the bunnies are under there the woman's dog actually found the nest and pulled one out she realized that the dog had them it was a little island near her driveway so what she did she was one of those people that put a big barricade around it she loved bunnies and she didn't want anything to happen I told her to do this she did this, sent me the pictures and said the mom's coming back and forth ok if the mother does not return and that tic-tac-toe is still there give it a good three times a dawn and dusk and a dawn if it hasn't changed in three periods call a rehabber most likely the mom's not coming back the mom's just not going to abandon the bunnies a lot of times you get hit by cars you get birds of prey you get foxes, coyotes, all sorts of things you snag a mom, run off and the babies are left sometimes a coyote or a fox will come, find a nest grab a whole bunch and run off and the rest may have little injuries but usually I'll take the rest if a predator has gotten into the nest always wear gloves you're not licensed wildlife rehabbers however they are not rabies vector animals with any animal, never put your fingers near its mouth never ever put your fingers near its mouth because it will bite you regardless of what it is little baby bunnies, they're harmless you just have to watch out with pretty much all wildlife not getting any of their feces or pee in your mouth that is the number one rule because that's the way you get sick if they have any kind of condition is to get their feces or pee in your mouth so if you use gloves put them in a box the best thing to do is if you don't have any kind of hand warmer heaters is get a bottle like this, empty it out put a bunch of hot water in there wrap it with a little towel put it with the bunnies that'll keep it warm for a good hour or so until you contact a rehabber rehabber pick them up and take care of them raise them and release them it is a lot of work raising baby animals it's a lot of work especially birds but it is a lot of work you have some people that feel so bad for these animals and want you to take them but at the same time you need to give them the opportunity to live the opportunity for the mom to come back and take care of them because it's a lot of work when you do take them in do not touch them cover them up leave them alone don't try to give them water, don't try to give them food nothing technically, legally, I'm not supposed to tell you to feed anything to them it's against the law for me to tell you what they actually eat they drink a certain formula and they need a certain formula when their eyes open up when their eyes open up their mom will poop inside the hole and they'll eat it and it gives them that thing that they need I can't tell you what it is, but just don't feed them we can tell if you fed them we can tell if you fed them the wrong thing we can tell if you fed them cow's milk their stomach gets massive they got diarrhea and many times they do pass away because their bellies are sensitive and they can't digest cow's milk so just don't feed them anything they can go a couple of days without food if you found them right away and it's only been three feedings, they can go a long time so just take them in, keep them warm, dry covered up, don't show anybody don't play with them and that's it and again, it's illegal to keep and raise wildlife without a license environmental police find out that you have a bunch of cottontail rabbits and you raise them and now they're your pets and they're going to come and take them and euthanize them that's what happens when you take home a pet a squirrel, rabbit, any wildlife you take it home, you feed it, and you keep it as a pet someone's going to find out a neighbor, all they have to do is call and say hey, they got a pet squirrel, they got a pet raccoon yada yada yada, they're coming, they're taking it there's no sanctuary for whatever it's being put down and if you become attached to this animal you're going to be really upset so the best bet is just don't raise them, don't keep them call a wildlife rehabber, let us come pick them up if the rehabbers in your area are full, can't take them I'll show you a map at the end to show you how many rehabbers there are and you can just keep making calls early in the spring the best thing to do is call far out west because the squirrels seem to be born first on the north shore and then slowly through the state so if you call rehabbers to take a squirrel or bunnies and they're full, your best bet is to call out west somebody out there, as long as you want to drive them out there they usually take them as soon as they get full, that's it they can't take them it's like a hospital, if you have too many patients the care for those patients isn't the greatest, the more you have the less care you can give them and it's tough but there's facilities, there's Tufts Wildlife there's a whole lot of places I'll show you a list of them that you can call now we're talking about the proactive part, early February before they decide to make a little nest inside your grass lawn there last year you had your dog tear up a couple and your cat find some or whatever you want to be proactive your best bet is to buy reflective pinwheels the type that when the sun shines on them they're not the same color and the same design anymore, and when they spin if the rabbit runs up to it, they'll see itself and be scared off you can buy a 10 pack online for $23 and set them all around the perimeter of your yard if you do it early enough in February they're not going to want to come in there but the big thing is you've got to move them around you can't leave, like if you buy a fake owl I'll show you fake owls and stuff like that if you buy something that's fake and it's a prop to scare something you can't just leave it there and three months later say it's not working you've got to be proactive you've got to do it every day for a couple of days maybe once a week at least, move it around they sell stuff that is actually pretty good a lot of things contain peppermint oil a lot of things don't like peppermint oil that's dried blood from worms I forgot to delete that that's dried blood worms it's not dried human blood or anything like that I looked online and even though you may have tried something it may work for somebody else wildlife is very unpredictable they're all not the same sometimes they respond to things sometimes they don't you can make your own peppermint oil you can plant peppermint plants everywhere all around your house to keep them out of there you can go online and buy a fake owl I would say buy the bobble head one the head that moves around that way it doesn't stay the same it's just not frozen the thing is you have to put them up high if this is your yard here you don't want to put it down low you want to put it high because the first thing that rabbits and animals look for is that silhouette of that predator looking for them so if you take one of those and you get it, move it every day move it every day off your porch looking over your yard you move it every day you're not going to have much stuff come in there I've had people that I went to their house to pick up a rabbit or something like that and they said I have one of those owls it'll be all sun damaged there'll be bird poop on top of it there'll be squirrels running up past it like it's not even there they become blind and just don't even notice it anymore so if you do get an owl with a bobble head they also make hawks they're cheap, you can get them for like $23-$25 online switch them up, get a hawk and an owl switch it up every other day you just got to be proactive it'll scare away the mom rabbits and they won't have bunnies in your yard and the population should go up if everybody were to do that ok snakes people aren't big on snakes but if you've got snakes living on your property you probably don't have many mice or many rats they will devour them they'll go down into their holes and eat a rat and use their rat hole as their new home so the last thing you want to do is take a shovel and hit it we live in an area where there's not venomous snakes out west there may be some timber rattlesnakes but they're endangered that means that there's not that many of them so the chances of you running into a poisonous snake on the north shore is very very slim not going to say it's not going to happen but it's extremely slim I'm not worried about it when I first started I thought this thing was poisonous I was like oh my goodness this thing is going to bite me but then when I did more research I realized it's just a milk snake you've got common garter snakes milk snakes and black racers are the most popular snakes on the north shore if you have a garden and you see a black snake going by you can jump back and say oh my goodness but at the same time I'm not going to have to worry about many rodents hardly any mice they will eat them the bigger they get the bigger the mouse or rat they will eat I actually brought my pet snake beetlejuice he is a black and white ringed California kingsnake he's very tame I got him when he was tiny he's called a kingsnake because he eats other snakes I don't feed him other snakes he eats mice that are already deceased on farms he eats about once a week every two weeks I've had this little guy for the last couple of years there's a black racer that's what they look like that's a garter snake they usually have a green line running down their back see a black snake most likely a black racer this is beetlejuice that's how small he was that's actually a picture I took that was probably a year after I got him I got some pictures I couldn't find probably this big the reason why I got him is for presentations I knew that when I go to a presentation there's going to be people saying why don't you have any animals it's an animal presentation so I got this guy and played with him all the time so he would be calm and gentle I was actually scared of snakes when I first got him but I've learned to not be scared and actually appreciate snakes because when you have something you actually learn about their behaviors and you realize that as long as you're not rough with them as long as you don't have super cold hands you don't mess with their tail their tail's a little bit sensitive so don't be grabbing and pulling on it and their head's a little sensitive but other than that I got this guy for this reason to pull it out and say hey look I've got a live animal I didn't name him for a year I couldn't decide what name because I'm really big on naming stuff and I'm a little picky and I like the perfect name sometimes it was Halloween time and Beetlejuice the movie came on and that sandworm came out of the ground and he was black and white striped just like this and I said hey Beetlejuice so that's Beetlejuice at the end if anybody would like to touch or hold him that's fine he's not going to bite you he's very gentle and he loves to come out when they eat they don't want to be bothered for a couple of days but after a few days he'll start popping back out in his aquarium I got a big 40 gallon I'm going to upgrade the bigger the environment you have for your snake the larger it gets if I kept them in a small container he wouldn't be as big right now so those people that have those big massive snakes it's because they have those big massive aquariums for them you know it is it's not easy having a snake the reason being is because they always need a heat source you at least have to have one heat source I have a heating pad here and I have those hand warmer heater pads on this side so I give him the opportunity to go around move around whatever he likes because this is actually the first time he's out in public but I trust him so much to where he's perfectly fine he's not going to hurt anybody they shed once every maybe once or two months every time they shed they grow a little bit bigger but this is I've actually been collecting them I'm eventually going to make a little board and have the different sizes I take a picture to see what day he shed and that way when I make my board it's going to show the day and I'll be able to see how fast he grows this is beetle juice but if anybody would like to touch him at the end feel free to it's been a problem I know I live next to the golf course I've had a couple come after some little dogs that I've been walking and stuff like that me I'm used to them if I see one I will go running after them deep into the woods as far as I can possibly chase it when I did animal control anybody who had coyotes in the yard this is way back when the turkeys were the issue coyotes weren't that big of a deal it was around when Vinny was around everybody remembers that but if you have a mom leaving her pups inside your backyard you want to scare them as soon as you possibly can you want to teach those pups this is a yard you don't come into the mom will start teaching the pups this is a yard you don't want to come into this person is nuts you want to act as super crazy as possible as we know they thrive in suburban areas rural areas and urban areas their average weight isn't that much a coyote looks big because of their fur especially in the winter time they look like these big huge wolves or big beasts it's mostly fur 30-50 pounds my dog weighs 50 pounds my dog is only this big a little chubby mother coyotes can produce 3-8 pups per year they go by how much land they have to raise them and they go by how much food is in the area I do believe that there is a lack of food and that's why a lot of them are getting bold the pups are born in April and May they come out of the den in 6 weeks so around July-ish that's when the mom starts bringing the pups with her she'll find the yard or an area to leave the pups she'll go hunt after she's done hunting she'll run back get the pups and the pups will all go back to the den they slowly venture out more and more as time goes on the older they get the further they go out so by the end of the summer in the fall time when the mom starts pushing some of the coyotes out that's when you'll start seeing the juveniles the ones that are just like tiny but they look like a large adult coyote but they're smaller it's a juvenile that's born earlier in the year they don't stay they're the alpha male and female like I said before it's just the mom and dad there's no rough and tough mean alpha male that goes around and beats everybody else up and mates it's not like tigers and lions and stuff like that it's a mom and a dad they have offspring and the offspring respects the hierarchy they respect that the mom and dad are the only ones that mate if they want to mate and have their own dens and their own families that's when they'll go off on their own and the moms and dads will push them out why do coyotes howl?

I'm sure you've heard them howl and it scares the heck out of you because it seems like there's a million of them howling but that's just how they sound their voices are pitching high and low and they're not like wolves wolves will give a howl like a woooo the wolves that will howl do it every morning around 9.30 and then later in the day they do it once or twice they're just communicating with each other that's all they're doing they don't do it to announce a kill they don't howl and say hey we got something everybody come in and get it because they don't want to tell other animals that they have food so they communicate with other pack members they're kind of like hey where are you at hey I'm over here the reason why they sound so weird sometimes is a lot of the young pups are learning how to howl they're trying to mimic their parents so that's how they do it it also tells other coyotes saying hey this is our territory don't come here and that's why they howl so loud it can travel up to 5 miles coyotes range is 5 to 30 miles now swanscots what like 3 miles by 3 miles so the problems we have up in the hunt the problems we have all around are most likely the same coyotes the bold ones the ones that are not afraid of people I've been trying to get Mass. Wildlife to paint the bold ones to be able to say hey we're having all these bold ones come around the hunt and all of a sudden those disappear and all of a sudden there's a whole bunch of bold ones and swanscots and then marblehead like we've had a coyote going after little dogs and leashes even with the people there but it's usually on an average after 8 o'clock at night after it's dark or 6 o'clock in the morning 7 o'clock in the morning and I forgot to bring it some dog tags the smaller your dog is the smaller their little jingle is and that little jingle is just telling the coyote hey we're over here we're going for a walk we're trying to mind our business so if you go to pet smart or petco they sell little rubber band things that wrap around the tags to make them silent that's one way to protect yourself and your dog is to have silences on your tags that will also keep the other dogs from barking when you walk by their houses you hear those dogs start barking they can hear the dog tags keeping coyotes out of your yard it's actually pretty simple it's like you just have to be proactive if you were to go home tonight and you know without a doubt that you have coyotes coming in your yard every single night if you were to go home and rearrange a bunch of furniture or put something in the middle of the yard chairs or what not those coyotes will go and say what is that and not go in there that night they'll come back the next night and be like hey everything is still the same I don't see any kind of threats but I'm still not going in there by the third night they're like hey that stuff is still here if you were to rearrange it all the time especially if you have coyotes in your yard and if you have pets I'm really big on motion activated props and this is my marita head if you have coyotes coming in your front yard that's why Halloween time when people have all these things going on the coyotes scatter usually I'll hear about the coyotes I'll hear about calls on the model animal inspector I know about bites I'll get all the reports for the bites everything died down around Halloween a lot of people are scared kids are walking around they're scared to death you get all these little monsters walking around with all these lights running around they're scared to death but emotion activated and this is waterproof that's why I like it it's made of rubber anything that passes in front of it something like this isn't expensive they actually it's motion activated so if anything is coming up by it it's going to jump back and run so you can get all sorts of props it'll turn off after this one but they sell if you drop $150 on something really big and nice it'll tear the living daylights out of a coyote especially if you put it on the side of the yard if you know you have a coyote that comes through the yard if you hide it in the bushes not put it in the middle where it sees it as soon as it walks up it's going to jump what I suggest everybody do and I think everybody should have a trail cam a trail cam is simply those cameras that you see that the hunters will use they put them in the woods they'll have straps you can strap it to a tree I love to use the screw part you get a tripod port where I just set it up like this if you were to put this in your backyard leave it all night in the morning you go and you take the SD card out put an SD card in there it's a little data card that you put in your computer and you'll be able to view everything that comes across the path of this you can do photos or you can do video the video will take up a lot especially if you leave during the day and you have a lot of squirrels coming through I have a whole bunch of videos of squirrels birds flying down and stuff like that so my advice is if you do get one to stick with the pictures at least the first time that way you're able to see what comes in and out of your yard this will tell you exactly what you got you can buy like a three pack this one's about maybe $7 if you were to I think I have a hang on here yeah there it is that SD card the more money you spend the better quality they sell ones that for like $130 you can have a built in screen so you don't have to worry about downloading on your computer and looking at it they also sell ones for like $300-$400 that will alert your phone you pick up your phone and it will show you kind of like a ring doorbell those are pretty pricey and they use batteries a lot of the dog rescue groups that set traps in the middle of the night usually use those I have one at my house to where Massachusetts missing dogs if there's a dog in the area they'll call me and say hey can you set up that camera in this area and I'm more than happy to to help them out let me back up here ok do not leave any food or water out for any animal I know people are passionate and they're like oh these poor little animals let me leave some food out the only problem is just not the food alone attracts the predators but the small little mammals you'll have rats and mice coming up in there that you don't even know about but if you do have a trail cam you're able to see exactly what's coming up your feeder if you have a trail cam you put it at the bottom of your feeder you'll be able to see all the rats coming coming and going if you have a bird feeder use waste free food that's the less that's the type of food where it doesn't have a shell a lot of it's broken up that way there's less waste that drops to the ground because you don't want any food on the ground to attract anything else if you're going to have a bird feeder keep it away from your house and put a catch pan underneath it good thing is if someone's getting rid of a big hamster cage those are perfect to put underneath just dump it out everyday and you shouldn't have that many rodents or rats coming around because there is no food you can also sprinkle some cayenne pepper inside the bird feeder the birds don't mind it the squirrels and the other animals do when it falls to the ground when it falls to the ground a lot of them hey can you tell her that I'll be finishing up what time is it now I have a surprise for you guys for the people who showed up tonight it was a big surprise for you this is the number one thing to have for your yard if you want to keep everything out of your yard they're on Amazon you get a $35 one and a $75 one what you do is you put it in the middle of your yard you plug a host to it has a sensor on there anything that comes within the sensor sprays it nothing's going to come in there only problem is you can't do it in the winter time it'll freeze so early spring get it out there and get it going weasels these guys are getting pretty popular I've gotten probably five calls this year asking what the heck is this thing in my yard it's a stout it's a short-tailed weasel and there's short-tailed and long-tailed weasels these guys are relentless they will go after rabbits they will ambush mice and rats things bigger than them kill them, bring them back to their den and store it they store their food so even if they're not hungry and they kill something they'll bring it back if it's in your wood pile like this one is or somewhere on your property that's fine but if you've got one living in your basement or in your walls you're storing food inside of there you don't want that but if you have one of those living on your property you ain't got no rat I'll tell you that if you have a porch or a shed and don't want anything going underneath it best thing to do is throw some lattice on there you can put the lattice a little bit in the ground but your best bet is to take wire and to put wire underneath about a foot down that way nothing can dig a hole underneath the lattice this will keep out most animals if you use just wood a lot of things will chew through it your best bet is to use 14 gauge wire and when you do put it in there and you put it into the ground say this is a sheet that you're putting into the ground you're going to want to bend a foot at the bottom dig a foot deep and then bury it like this that way there's a good foot of fencing there so if something starts to dig down they hit that fence squirrels you don't have a problem with squirrels there's tons of them we have to get calls so many times for baby squirrels because as you know when you drive down the street you see a whole bunch of squirrels they have babies the babies get hungry they climb out of their nest and they'll actually climb up to you that's how you know that a squirrel has not eaten in a long time it's so bold and just wants something to take it that it'll just go up to anything and a lot of times it'll go up to the wrong thing squirrels they go to sleep at night they're out cold as soon as the sun goes down they're out cold so they're only out during the day flying squirrels actually really don't fly they're like Buzz Lightyear they fall with style they have a membrane from the front leg to the back leg and they just glide down to the next tree they're actually nocturnal that's why you really don't see many they come out at night that's why their eyes are so big there's baby squirrels cute little buggers they're born hairless very vulnerable same thing with rabbits if you have some or if you stumble upon a squirrel at the base of a tree we ask that you put it in a box with a heat source fill the bottle up with hot water don't put it directly on the animal wrap a towel or t-shirt around it so it's not directly on the animal and leave it at the base of the tree I've had so much success this year it was unbelievable I had people call me and say oh my goodness the mom came down and got them we had more success with people going on YouTube and playing a screeching sound that a baby squirrel makes and put it in the box the mom squirrel would be like hey my baby squirrel is calling for me because a lot of times they're out gathering nuts and not there and they didn't realize that their squirrel fell they'll come down, grab their squirrel and go right back up the tree they're really good moms thing is if you have it out there and say it's only been a couple hours and it's already starting to get dark put it in your garage or something because it's not coming in the middle of the night a predator will come and eat it first thing in the early morning put it out there before the sun even comes out put it out there the mom will come looking for it if not then call a rehabber don't feed it, don't touch it don't play with it, don't show people keep it dark, quiet, don't mess with it that's all preventing squirrels from getting in your house chimney cap cover can't tell you how many times people had bats seagulls, raccoons raccoons with babies inside their fireplace you know how like there's the fireplace and then there's the flue where you can open it up they're living right up in there the mom will climb up and go back down and they love it because the sun heats up that chimney during the day and warms it right up so a lot of things will live in there so you want a chimney cap you don't want ones with big holes because juvenile squirrels tend to go through the little holes and bats can go through there I've noticed that there's a lot of birds that go into chimneys of people who have all wood everything's wood it's almost like a log cabin inside their house that was the first thing I noticed people have stuff inside their chimney they're just drawn to that I personally think they're just drawn to that smell it's like a hollowed out tree you know believe it or not always cut down limbs if you have any tree limbs hanging over your house cut them down alright that way they can't just climb over don't use a bird feeder we already went over that also if you sprinkle a whole bunch of raccoons and stuff they hate cayenne pepper if you have a tree that a squirrel or a raccoon keeps climbing up and going into your house sprinkle a whole bunch of cayenne pepper around the tree they'll stop coming they should stop coming you try different things but don't do it when it's about to rain because they'll walk away

[Speaker 8] (55:31 - 55:31)
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[Speaker 1] (55:35 - 1:24:02)
if you hire a pest person to get rid of an animal inside your house technically legally they're supposed to dispatch it means kill it it is illegal to capture something on your property and move it off your property so if someone comes and says hey I'll take this squirrel what are you going to do with it? oh don't worry about it it'll be fine they're going to kill it so you always want to hire a humane animal control pack agent there's a whole bunch out there pesky pests is who I recommend they're strictly no trapping one way doors only a one way door is let me see this is a one way door here if you know that there's a squirrel living inside your house and you know what hole it's coming out of you simply place that where the hole is they can go out but they can't come back in okay thing is you have to make sure that it doesn't have any babies you will hear them screaming and screeching if they do have babies and then you have a problem because you've got babies in your house and a mom that's trying to get back in call a rehab or call a humane pest person see what they can do raccoons and squirrels are notorious for coming back and getting their babies so if you remove a raccoon and it has babies in there you put the babies outside in a warm box the raccoon mom will come get it they have secondary locations to bring the babies this is also all the stuff that you can buy online amazon say if you had a skunk living underneath your porch you see that metal wire I was talking about it should go underneath under the ground that way if something digs it hits wire again that's where a trail cam will come in where you want to know if something came out of it you set your trail cam up in front of it you'll see it coming in and not be able to go out if you don't have a trail cam you can simply take a little stick like this stick I would take this stick and I'd just pop up the door and if I came back the next day and that stick was pushed over something came through there skunks they're cute little buggers but they will spray you they love to live under sheds I can't tell you how many times people have families living underneath their sheds get a one way door place it on there set up the camera just check the season where they have babies if it's way before that you're good to go if it's way after it the babies will come out with it the little babies will always follow the skunk moms around if you see babies wandering around by themselves little guys they're moms call it what you have there's people who raise and love skunks it's crazy they love them I love those people because they take the skunks I don't do skunks the thing is even if you have a skunk you don't scare it they don't waste it on you possums they are weird looking but they love to eat ticks they come late out at night you may not even notice them because they freeze if you do walk up to one it will play dead you give off a bad scent you don't want to be around them they're great to have I personally feel if Salem Woods or behind the cemetery if you go into those bushes you're coming out with 5 or 6 ticks on you guaranteed there's ticks in there if there was an overpopulation inside there I do believe we'd take care of a lot of that problem possums and turkeys eat ticks the possums are marsupials and the babies are born inside their pouches they carry them around until they're old enough to come out they will carry them around on their back just like that thing is though when they drop them they'll keep going a lot of times and they'll come back for their baby turkeys swamp scouts are an official animal next runner up is coyotes we really don't have any problems with turkeys these days remember the old days when turkeys were the problem and now nobody really complains about turkeys anymore unless someone's feeding them a neighbor or something like that some people will throw up food in their own yard and a whole bunch will come in and it just causes a whole bunch of problems just avoid them let them be if they have a leg injury let them be they don't rehab turkeys with busted legs so they can fly roost if they can eat and get around just let them be if not 95% of the time they'll be fine raccoons are my favorite they are a rabies vector though and don't touch them babies don't touch call somebody pest person or rehabber if you ever run into a raccoon issue or problem breeding starts January-March give birth in about two months so April and May if you have a raccoon problem in your house in April and May and something's living in there you probably have babies living in there you gotta hire someone to get them out get the babies out put the babies so they can take them properly and clean it out you don't want urine and feces from the animals in your house raccoon cubs stay with their mom for a year so if you see a little one it's not going to make it call a rehabber if you have a raccoon in your home in your living space animal control will come and get it but it has to be in your living space can't be in your attic, can't be in your wall, can't be in your unfinished basement if it's running around your house and you're screaming because you left the door open the best thing to do is open up the front back door you give wildlife a way around you or to go all you gotta do is make a whole bunch of noise you'll scare it on and off if that thing won't leave animal control should come out and get it technically legally it's dangerous to the public it is the living space it's pretty much like that with most animal controls but if it's in your attic or your walls or whatever don't even bother with animal control don't call the police department call pest control it's going to cost you a good amount but hey you just have to make sure you plug up the holes and prevent it from happening next year turtles if you see one crossing the road it's just trying to get to the other side seriously a lot of times they get hit if you see one with a cracked shell a little bit of blood it needs help their shell is actually their bone structure they don't leave their shell and they'll get a new shell like snails and stuff like that if you see one on the road and nobody's coming and it's super safe and it's just sitting there and it's going really slow and you're on a back road or something like that get out help it along the road if it's a big snapper turtle leave it alone the snapper thing are pretty bad too but the thing is just leave it alone unless it needs help if it needs help call a rehabber don't call animal control they're busy with domestic stuff dogs and cats it is a hard job it is a difficult job you're called all the time dogs are in particular just like wildlife so it is a busy job these things I can't stand these window whales they're a death trap to small animals especially possum skunks and rabbits they're constantly falling inside and if you have no clue that one fell inside it's going to die if you do see one in there all you're going to do is get a board 2x4 lay it in there at an angle if it's a rabbit it's not going to climb out itself get a box or a bucket put gloves on scoop it out give it a good toss go to the hardware store they sell covers that are super cheap that are super cheap and you just put a cover on there it also helps if you have the green cage over and they're running around the house you don't want them falling inside some of them are pretty deep if you put a board in there and it's a skunk or a possum they're not going to leave until it's dark they're not going to be like let me run up there during the day they're scared to death put the board in there go to sleep next morning check it out should be gone rabies is a serious thing these animals can have it it's pretty rare I've only seen it a few times in the past few years or several years rabies vector animal you shouldn't touch it go near it mass wildlife would be really upset if I was telling you how to handle a raccoon or skunk because it is a rabies vector animal they can bite you I've only been bitten by a raccoon and that's it no dogs or anything like that I've had a couple pit bulls almost tried to bite me this guy I don't think it's going to play this is a video usually people say I saw a raccoon during the day I think it has rabies it doesn't most likely it's tree fell over something happened to it's home or it's got babies if it's walking around in circles like this thing is there's something wrong with it if it's walking in a straight line running across the fence it doesn't have rabies it may be super early on but they're uncoordinated they fall over they're not going to be able to walk in a straight line a lot of them act like they're blind and they'll paw they have a lot of senses in their hands so you just see them going like this call animal control if you see that because it is a danger to the public it'll be put down the only way to test for rabies is brain tissue if your dog gets bit or something it has to go to a vet heads cut off sent off to get tested you can't shoot it because you have to test the brain animals with rabies tend to bite stuff they gnaw on things it's not a great picture but this is the only bat that I really got that had the symptoms of rabies and actually died so they might have rabies I've been an animal inspector for a long time anytime there's a bat inside your house if anybody thinks that they got bit or there's a baby in the house or someone who's elderly that can't talk or anything of that nature the bat has to be put down and tested I've had probably 15-20 bats tested and all come back negative if you walk into your house and see a bat flying around just open the door if I were to take a fishing line and hang it all around here and release the bat that bat would go around it no problem back in the day we used to think they'd get tangled up in here but it's just because you're acting crazy flanneling your arms if you were to walk into a room with bats flying around if you were to stand still that thing would fly around open up the doors and watch it leave because the worst thing to do is not know if a bat left or not people don't sleep for days we all have titers in our blood if you're between a 6 and a 12 usually that helps you prevent from getting rabies if you get bit by something that's a rabies vector go to your doctor you're most likely going to get a rabies vaccination just in case this guy had rabies see what I mean about chewing on stuff his nose is all mangled up his mouth's all mangled up that's all he was doing was chewing on stuff dog ran around the corner he was there went after him they fought dog had rabies vaccination got some boosters was perfectly fine that's why we have them get a rabies vaccination that's why they would like for you to get your cat's rabies vaccinated it's because your cat may run into a rabies vector animal and it may fight it and if your cat hasn't been to the vet in 10 years and never got rabies shots you might have the cat inside your house with rabies so if you have a cat especially outdoor you're going to want to get rabies vaccination get all the shots it needs try to keep it indoors bats I'm a big bat lover see this one's all mangled up he can go to rehab he's fine if you find a bat in the middle of winter and it's in your house you release it if it doesn't fly up and go back into your house it's going to die big brown bat's the most popular bat a lot of the other bats are endangered it's because of white noise syndrome there's a fungus that was growing causing them to leave the caves early from hibernation because bats hibernate they'd go out and they would die but they actually found a way to reverse it and take care of it so the numbers are going back up see those teeth that's to crack the shell of those really strong armored bugs they're not for you they're not going to come after you and bite you if you grab one he's going to bite you but if you just let it fly around he's not going to bother with you because you're a king kong to it so just let the bat fly around your house open up the door and let it go unless you have a wound or if you wake up in the middle of the night and the bat's flying around your house we don't know if you got bit or not we don't know if you rolled onto it bats will live in your attic whenever it gets super hot super cold they tend to come down like when we had the heat wave come we probably had like 6 or 7 people with bats in our house because it gets way too hot in the attic so they come down just open up the door and let it out not a problem get your roof checked they can climb into a little bit of a hole if you had a bat in your house hire somebody and have them caulk up all the holes make sure there's no way to get in that's all you gotta do and if you're not sure there's a bat inside your attic get a trail cam and set it up in your attic you can be pitch black and still record or take pictures of things flying around bat removal hire somebody if you got a whole bunch of bats in your house it's a big job it's just too much for do it yourself don't do it yourself hire someone and have them do it that's a one way door just like the animals they can climb out of there seals on the beach if you see a seal on the beach leave it alone especially the little baby ones leave them alone they're just resting mom's out not too far away and it's resting that's all they don't want to be approached they don't like people that's why if you do go near a seal it just goes right back into the water people that see a little baby seal on the beach say oh my god it's orphaned it's just resting because it's tired from swimming and all you're doing is forcing it to go back into the water and swim when it's tired and it's just trying to heat up in the sun you'll know an animal is injured like a seal or something if it's there all day and people are walking up and past it and it's not doing anything something's wrong with it we call NOAA they take care of any injured or entangled wildlife right here's the number you can write it down we had a problem with a seal on the beach that was injured a few years ago it was probably the worst call I ever had the museum of science used to take care of it they stopped doing it they were supposed to do it everybody was saying you take care of it it was a big mess and it took forever to get out there it was like there for a day and a half I learned a lesson I got a whole bunch of cell phone numbers I'll wake somebody up to help me out seabirds same thing if there's a seabird on the rocks or the beach most likely it's about to pass they spend all their time out in the ocean if they're on the beach they're going to pass like a 98% success rate on rescuing things like this eiters secure all your trash if you see trash on the beach pick it up especially plastic bags and plastic stuff we had a seal entangled in a balloon and a string not too long ago was on the internet I went down there, I didn't see it Noah came out, couldn't find it hopefully it untangled itself and carried on a lot of things are dying if you pick up a balloon with a string on the beach you save a life bird feeders we already went over that use cayenne pepper inside the feeder if you have to have one tons of birds hit windows all the time they get chased by hawks most of the time they're stunned if I come and get it most likely I put it in a box a few hours later it flies out that's all you have to do leave it on your porch or if something is going to get it get some gloves put it in a box leave the box open in a few hours if it didn't fly away birds all birds fledge and branch meaning they get too big for the nest they fall out someone is walking by poor little thing I gotta take you home they call me did you see the mom and dad come down and feed it no I force them to put it back it's an old wives tale they can't smell really well it's time if you ever see a baby bird chirping on the ground give it plenty of room after a while the mom and dad will come and feed it most mother and father birds feed it the chances of a mother and father being deceased is really low don't burden that it is a lot of work raising a little baby bird they eat all day you gotta train it to eat off the ground you gotta train it to hunt stuff if not it will die when you release it even birds of prey branch and fledge that's what I did mostly this summer I was getting all the calls for all the baby birds to go check on them make sure they weren't injured or sick his mom was flying all around it came down and fed him so I left give it plenty of space give it some time and watch for the mom or dad to come if it's in the middle of the road move it off to the side other than that let nature do what it has to do these are two that I ran a great horned owl I didn't want to leave this guy because it was a children's playground but I have to leave it same thing with that guy foxes I don't hunt too much on foxes foxes are actually kind of cool you hardly see them they don't cause much problems they are getting a lot of mange so we've been seeing a lot of foxes running around with no hair they are just too fast you can't trap them it's just unfortunate their babies are cute as heck there are two types of foxes gray and red the gray you will hardly ever see because they are more elusive than the red the red fox you may see during the day doesn't have rabies it's just out hunting unless it's running in the walls falling over growling, biting mange is pretty bad it's a mite that goes on and burrows on the skin hair falls off it gets so bad that the elements kill the animal coyotes and foxes have it terrible this year really bad that's why I do believe that the coyote pups a lot of them are going to die off because of it so the numbers will go back down this is one that I rescued in Linfield it had severe mange I rescued it got it healthy and then I released it it was in an area where I felt comfortable releasing it back into the wild because it's very rural and there was lots of restaurants along the highway so I know there's lots of rats so it needed it they got tags and all that stuff I ended up calling the police saying hey I just released back a coyote call me if something happens and I was scared for like a week I was afraid something bad was going to happen and they'd be like hey these tag numbers lead back to me but it was fine it's been like 6, 7, 8 months now come to school Tufts Wildlife Clinic write this number down these guys will pretty much take anything you have they'll take everything it's a university that trains veterinarian physicians to North Grafton it's exactly one hour one minute you good?

injured sick birds you got to watch out for avian flu this year was really bad we had avian flu really bad a lot of birds died North Grafton was the only place to take them I hated having to tell people I can't touch them because I was going up to New Hampshire so much working with birds of prey and educational birds the last thing I wanted was to bring avian flu into there so it didn't help many birds other than birds of prey this year Tufts took them though avian flu if you have a seagull that's just sitting in your yard and deceased or dies it most likely has maybe avian flu they usually have a head tick just watch where you step if it's on your property it's your problem animal control won't come and take a dead animal out of your yard best thing to do is wear gloves if it's a bird and you suspect avian flu wear little covers tie little bags on your shoes like shopping bags wear a mouth cover and put it in a trash bag put that in a trash bag and put it in a trash bag again three times or go to the dump this is also a video this is avian flu symptoms red-tailed hawk that I picked up a young one it turned out it had avian flu anything with avian flu doesn't last long it was deceased the next day came back positive I just went over this triple bag stuff it's summertime and your trash doesn't come for a while it's going to stink so figure out a way to get it to a dump or somewhere else we're about to bring the surprises in I'm going to go run it through our genocides another slide and then bring them in this is what's inside those black boxes you ever see around poison in there the rats will eat them mice will eat them they'll go out they'll die or just sit there and comatose and the birds of prey will come foxes, coyotes will come and eat them this is a new generation where only one dose will kill a rat the other poison they got used to in their immune system so they were eating plenty of poison but not dying so they came out with something a little bit more powerful my problem is that it killed so much wildlife if your pest control person is putting this there and he says it doesn't harm any other wildlife except rodents he's lying he's lying I hate that stuff there's room to set a live trap the only problem is what pest person wants to go check a trap everyday or every other day you can only set up one so that stuff's about to go out the window the only problem is the multi-million dollar thing and people make a lot of money there's other ways which are this is a great horned owl pick up in Marblehead where the tail of the mouth is they pretty much just get sick and die that guy made it that was on top of the VFW in Marblehead I do believe there's a lot of rat bait poisons near the dump okay if you have a rat problem the most humane thing to do is use a live trap if you use a have a heart if you forget that thing dies it goes crazy it dies inside so have a heart traps aren't the best all the time I've seen a lot of people call me and say I have a dead animal and I had a have a heart trap best thing to do is take one of these snap traps put it in even a container like this set it, cut a hole big enough for a rat to go inside put it outside that way raccoons can't reach all the way in because they use their hands a lot if you just set a trap like that outside a raccoon is going to come and touch it I've helped so many raccoons with broken arms from rat traps skunks as well that run around with a rat trap on their face or a squirrel best thing to do is remember how I told you squirrels go to sleep at night set this out at night first thing in the morning take it out that way squirrels don't go in there this guy and I'm happy with swamp scott because they're about to do it where this guy it's called a smart box and what happens is the rodents are lured in there they're zapped with electricity they go up in a conveyor belt and into a pan inside there and then it resets the smart thing about it is whoever is in charge of those boxes it tells their phone how many rats it's in there and it's very successful Somerville, the city I grew up in did it and I talked to the guy who was running the program and he said it's very successful Peabody just started doing it this is the wave of the future, smart boxes to where it's going to replace all rodenticides a lot of money because it's new Peabody just set out like 50 of them yeah yeah yeah it's pretty nasty they even make ones that are made designed for the source those are really pricey Sean Fitzgerald is a really good guy to me, I appreciate him he's always helped me whenever it came to animals he's always returned my calls helped me when I did animal control we're working on this he thinks it's a good idea we're trying to work on stuff this is how many rehabbers are in the area each one represents like a squirrel it's a mammal person rather than a bird so as you can see there's tons of people this is where you can log on and find them mass.gov mass.org or just google Mass Wildlife Rehabber it'll show you the list you can zoom in remember how I said that if someone doesn't take something start going west Jane Newhouse I have a lot of respect for her she's one of the first people next to Linda Amato that taught me the basic things about animals and allowed me to see her facility and stuff and she inspired me to be a rehabber so Jane Newhouse is a really good person she's blowing up too she's becoming like the king of rehabbers which she deserves it thank you for coming out tonight and we've got a surprise for you it is a great horned owl this is Wendy by the way I've got a slide for her oh sorry sorry

[Speaker 8] (1:24:04 - 1:24:12)
I was surprised

[Speaker 2] (1:24:12 - 1:32:46)
everyone didn't keep looking out in the hall hi everybody my name is Wendy Pavlicek this is my wonderful friend Kim Miners by day I'm the director of the Burlington Science Center which is in Massachusetts we're part of Burlington Public Schools I manage the K-5 science classrooms 107 classrooms and we have a large animal collection that we do educational programs in Burlington schools and then by hobby and trade I'm a licensed falconer I'm the president of the Massachusetts Falconry and Hawk Trust I'm also a resource that animal control officers and other wildlife people use just as a wealth of knowledge just as Dane is a wealth of knowledge here my friend Kim here is also a licensed falconer we've been falconers for over 10 years she's also volunteered at World Bird Sanctuary which is one of a very world renowned bird of prey rehab and breeding facility and this handsome beast here is Edison the Great Horned Owl Edison was found on the ground as a nestling in Burlington, Massachusetts and he was found in the road by a post office worker the police officers called me at the science center and I went to go see if we could re-nest him because his mom was up in the tree in the nest right on the side of a road and after the post office worker tried to put him back he ended up in the road again he was probably kicked out by his siblings and then I made the hard choice I called Kim and my other friend Diane and we stood there at the base of the tree going what do we do and they were like you need to call someone to see if you can raise and keep this owl, you do education you're a falconer and I called and they gave me permission and I've had him for 8 years I raised him like he was my child I don't have any children all my children are furry and feathery and scaly and all of the above so he's going to be turning 8 this year and he does education like I said in classrooms at conservation talks all over the state and most recently over the past 5 years we've been hunting regularly together as a team it's a relationship of trust and his first catch unfortunately was a skunk he got sprayed I got sprayed I got rabies shots it was a whole long story I can tell it to you later if you want to hear it and then he caught an opossum as his second catch and as a young great horned owl that's perfectly common to be catching slow large prey and he's just a great guy they're magnificent creatures and if you guys are okay with it I was going to fly him a little bit tonight across the room just so you could experience I just ask that you keep your arms down and if he happens to land on a desk or your shoulder or something hopefully it won't hurt too bad no I'm just kidding but just be calm he will come back but I'll just fly him around the room a little bit and then instead of me telling you another hour's worth of owl natural history if you have questions about great horned owls or him I'll let you ask me some questions but just wanted to give you a little background about him and meet him when I'm done you can come up and take pictures and see him closer he unfortunately doesn't like to be touched because touch is foreign to an owl they don't have hands they don't shake they greet each other in different ways and then my friend Kim after we fly the owl she also brought one of her birds and she'll introduce her bird to you guys and tell you a little bit about him here we go we'll do a little bit of flying training birds of prey in falconry birds has to do with weight management positive reinforcement routine and trust he is hungry right now he ate yesterday it's not like I'm not feeding him but his weight is lowered enough to the point where he is hungry his drive is there and I have little tidbits of quail which is a type of bird it's a frozen thawed quail and I'll be putting them on my glove and calling him with a whistle and he'll be going back and forth from Kim to I we're only allowed to take immature species of certain birds because most of them die from rodenticide and other things we are not allowed to touch the adult population of birds and a lot of them spend their own time being conservation pups and volunteering for different organizations so just as much as they're out there to hunt and work with the birds they also love the birds and the conservation as well Edison

[Speaker 3] (1:33:12 - 1:33:13)
Edison Edison

[Speaker 6] (1:33:13 - 1:33:19)
look I have his hand out

[Speaker 2] (1:33:42 - 1:34:37)
so owls do hunt by sound and it's a type of almost triangulation they call it so one ear hole is higher than the other on the head so when they're doing this and kind of dancing they're locating by sound and then we have the cream of the crop in his mouth and he has large enclosure in my house and he's always a big kid it's calm owls this afternoon it's very unique it's not something that a lot of people do most people leave the bathroom and talk

[Speaker 9] (1:34:37 - 1:34:44)
but they also get great pet food keepers and I love the way they hang out here but not a day goes by

[Speaker 7] (1:34:44 - 1:34:54)
that we don't worry about rodenticide and stuff like that it breaks our hearts when we see it but we also spend our time to help out as well

[Speaker 6] (1:34:54 - 1:35:00)
I hope you enjoyed seeing Edison you'll get to meet him too my friend Tim is going to take out her bird

[Speaker 7] (1:35:00 - 1:35:03)
and put it out in the water no problem

[Speaker 1] (1:35:03 - 1:35:13)
it would mean a lot to me if you donate to the Burlington Science Center or to the Falconry and Hawk Trust it would mean a lot to me

[Speaker 3] (1:35:28 - 1:39:15)
so this is Klaus he is a Harris's Hawk we do not have them in the northeast they are found in the desert southwest this is one of the few species of hawks that hunt in social groups they call these guys the wolves of the sky and the reason they hunt in social groups is because this little guy here he weighs just over a pound so he doesn't weigh that much but where he lives in the desert southwest his prey can weigh up to 14 pounds kind of hard for one bird to hold that they eat the big jackrabbits and so these guys hunt in groups and you'll have the females that will flush an item out whether it's a jackrabbit or a rat or a pack rat and then you'll have a pack of four, five, seven birds chasing that one item and the reason they do this is because it increases their success rate and it means that they will have a better chance of surviving in an area that doesn't have a lot of resources these birds in the wild have been seen sitting on cacti and what's interesting about these guys is there's not a lot of perches in the desert so you'll get one hawk that will land on the top of the saguaro cactus and the next thing you know another one will land right on his shoulders they've been seen stacked in the wild up to five birds on top of each other so kind of stinks to be the one on the lower on the totem pole right so this is my personal falconry bird, I do hunt with this bird he was actually captive raised which means there are people that breed these in captivity and you know I have permits and he's my hunting partner his name is Klaus he's part of the genus of Parabuteo we have some buteos that live around here and probably one of the most common large hawks that you see are the red-tailed hawks, kind of a cousin to this thing and the thing is I wish I could have brought a red-tailed today but I couldn't so you'll have to deal with seeing something that's not native here but all it takes is one poisoned mouse to kill this bird and what's worse is if they're nesting and they bring that mouse back and then they feed it to three or four or five babies depending on the species and then it kills all the birds in the nest I don't know if he talked about this but I know Tufts did research with rodenticide and they found that every raptor that came in that they did blood work on that came into their facility had rodenticide levels in their blood every one and it makes sense because something that's poisoned is slow it's easy to catch free meal of course the bird of prey is going to go for that so it's really made a rehabbers are seeing this everywhere and it's not just hawks, it's bobcats and coyotes and even family pets, cats, dogs anything that eats a poisoned rodent is at risk for bleeding out and dying from the rodenticide as I said if you could find other means of snap traps or live traps if you don't have the heart to kill a mouse just please don't use poison if you guys have questions about either one of these birds we'll be happy to answer your questions

[Speaker 2] (1:39:27 - 1:39:53)
great horns are known for pretty much going after everything and anything perfect example is the skunks because they don't have a strong sense of smell although his eyes were kind of like he knew he got sprayed although he didn't let go of that skunk he would definitely be opportunistic the snakes covered and stuff but if he's hungry enough he would absolutely go after that snake yes

[Speaker 3] (1:40:06 - 1:40:35)
so if you drug a bird to a distance and you feel the muscle that's on the other side of the field and that lets you know how fat and how thin the bird is and it's out of the net he's over favorited he doesn't really love it most of these raptors would like if you tried this with my falcon he'd be missing a jaw out of his hand and probably going to the ER to get stitches

[Speaker 2] (1:40:35 - 1:40:39)
and some people do like stroke their birds

[Speaker 3] (1:40:39 - 1:40:40)
that's right

[Speaker 2] (1:40:40 - 1:41:50)
and they usually do it on the chest typically and when you work with a falconry bird when your bird catches something it takes a long time for that prey to expire so you as the falconer dispatch the prey to be kinder because it's already caught and it's not getting away so you have to reach your hands in when the bird has that I'm sure you have a picture up there of a bird mantling saying stay away so you build that relationship to the point where you can go in and touch their feet and grab their food because they know you're going to feed them part of that. We let them eat part of the meal that they catch, but then after they start to get full you bring out a little piece of food that you have and you kind of transfer them to your food so in order to do that and to put the leash on you have to reach in while they're eating so you build that trust some falconers regularly touch their feet and stroke their chest to kind of build that relationship, but he does not like to be touched at all it's just like us too, some of us don't mind being hugged some are like, just give me a pat on the back, so they're all different but in general they don't typically like to be touched

[Speaker 3] (1:41:51 - 1:42:12)
yeah, they're usually being in the water these guys will kill each other fighting on the territory, mates protecting the nest, stuff like that they're not above eating each other they're not at all yeah yeah

[Speaker 2] (1:42:13 - 1:42:27)
he talks with his humans he's raised with human beings he just talks all the time so imprinted animals tend to call a lot I don't know, Kim, if you can extend on that, on why they're always so vocal but they're just constantly calling

[Speaker 3] (1:42:29 - 1:42:50)
even non-imprinted birds will sometimes do contact calls, like this guy's doing a contact call, he's not an imprint he was raised by his parents in captivity but I don't know if you hear him go eh, eh yeah, he's doing that I'm his hunting partner, so he's like, okay, where's everybody this is where I'm at

[Speaker 2] (1:42:51 - 1:43:22)
and I'll regularly hear young great ones in the family structure making this noise back and forth he talks to the wild ones it's not that classic hooting has a different meaning it could be territorial, it could be love is in the air, but the one you're hearing now is like, hey, you over there yep, I'm over here okay, how's everything good, stay away from that rodent, that's poison they're just chatting he's not hunting, he's not resting, so he's just talking

[Speaker 6] (1:43:22 - 1:43:25)
he's chattering is it a male?

[Speaker 2] (1:43:25 - 1:43:39)
he is a male based off his weight his weight and size I do not have DNA evidence but based off his full-grown adult weight the males are smaller than the females

[Speaker 5] (1:43:39 - 1:43:56)
what we understand is that males have a less call than the females and that if you run spectrograms on them you can actually ID a specific rate on the owl from year to year

[Speaker 2] (1:43:56 - 1:43:57)
that's awesome

[Speaker 3] (1:43:57 - 1:44:02)
I think the male has like 3 calls and the female has 5

[Speaker 5] (1:44:03 - 1:44:14)
in the case that I did it was 5 for the male and 8 for the female so the males have less but you can visually see it on a spectrogram

[Speaker 2] (1:44:15 - 1:44:31)
so Kim's bird's head is called a hood it's like a big box that they travel in and Edison doesn't like those so he just travels on a perch in my car and on the way here he was hooting and making his noises I always feel like people behind me must be like

[Speaker 8] (1:44:31 - 1:44:33)
what the heck is that in her car?

[Speaker 2] (1:44:34 - 1:45:04)
but he'd rather watch the world go by than be in the box he does okay in the box, he can go in there but after a while he's like nope so I have him on a perch he's tethered I tell my students this is no different than a dog having a collar and a leash they just have them on their ankles and this is the leash it's state law and federal law that we have to have them restrained and leashed it's not really restrained but controlled at all times so that's why we have this gear or equipment on them

[Speaker 1] (1:45:05 - 1:45:07)
I appreciate you coming out

[Speaker 8] (1:45:07 - 1:45:08)
and please donate