Animal damage control is a fascinating field.  This month, I thought it might be enjoyable to review some of the things that we hear will keep critters out of our vineyards, houses, work shops, wineries and so on.  Rather than concentrating on birds only, which is usually what I do here, let’s spread the wealth a little.

I spoke with a gentleman this week that wanted to know why the mothballs he put up weren’t keeping the bats from his house.  In addition, he plans to install a bat house somewhere on his property so they’ll just move there, right?  Make no mistake, this guy is not a bat hater, he just doesn’t want them in the same room with him in the house at dinnertime -  kind of hard on the guests you know. 

So, why don’t they work?  Bottom line is that because you and I think something smells bad, it doesn’t mean that it has the same effect on animals.  Most times they don’t care.  They’re used to worse smells.  Next time someone tells you to “just spray some pepper spray in there” think about this one before you waste your time and money.   This fellow is on the right track with the bat house, although the success rate is very limited, and they will not move right out of his house to get to the bat house.  He’s going to have to exclude them and fix the entry-exit problem in his house before the bat house becomes an option.

I wish I had a dollar for every time I’ve been told that a gopher problem has been cured forever by putting chewing or bubble gum in the gopher hole.  Think about that one for a second.  Do their jaws get tired?  They must use up all the oxygen in the hole blowing bubbles and die of carbon dioxide poisoning.  Maybe it seals their jaws closed.  Well, anyway it was worth a try right?  Yep, now go get some bait or traps…Traps, wait a minute, did everyone vote for Prop 4 (The Initiative to Ban Cruel Traps) in California?  Guess what, you just made, among other things, gopher trapsillegal. It seems that we can now vote on what is too cruel for pest management. Excuse me, I got caught up there for a moment.

So, you’ve got a bird problem and you’ve heard that there is this new electronic unit that broadcasts a signal or vibration thatonly birds can hear.  It only costs $795.00 per unit and each box covers 10 acres.  Man what a great deal.  Those of you who have older brothers and sisters, think back with me to when you were about 4 years old.  Remember when they did something wrong and you saw it so they said “Don’t say anything to anyone because only little kids can see it”.  Guess what, same deal.  Birds hear at the same frequencies you and I do.  A good rule of thumb is that if you can’t hear it, neither can the birds.  Another rule to apply here is that if the noise irritates you terribly, it will probably have the same effect on your neighbors and tasting room customers.

I mentioned in an earlier column that coyote and mountain lion urine were being considered as a deer deterrent for vineyards.  Without getting too carried away here… it doesn’t work.  Nobody has studied what it does to your Merlot wine grapes though, so maybe some enterprising winemaker out there would consider releasing a really interesting reserve label focused on a very small and brave niche market.

Rock and roll music for bird control, no.  Plastic owls on roof tops…be sure to clean the bird droppings off of those things regularly or it makes you look, uh, less than persistent. If I could just electrify some of the trellis wires in my vineyard, then the birds would get a shock every time they tried to land because the vines would conduct electricity and…..   4-foot electronic fence for deer exclusion, well, maybe on the Shetland Islands.  Sonic gopher control?  Next time you see a gopher sucking down an ornamental plant, get your binoculars out and see if he’s wearing a Sony Walkman.  Doesn’t a tractor make quite a bit of sound and vibration going through a vineyard?  Seems like people with tractors wouldn’t have gopher problems if that worked.  I could continue but I should probably stop there.

There are always people with good ideas and I don’t want to leave you with the impression that I think these people are stupid.  At least they’re trying to solve the problem.  We usually get caught up in these things because we assume that animals think and feel like we do.  They don’t.  They’re just hungry or looking for shelter and water.  Everything in this article is real; I didn’t have to make any of it up.  Have a nice holiday season.