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May 25, 2023

Our harrowing wildlife encounters and how we should have handled them

Even city folks and suburbanites face risky wildlife encounters — especially in

Even city folks and suburbanites face risky wildlife encounters — especially in the spring when animals are nesting or protecting their young. We are sharing our hair-raising run-ins with local wild animals to help readers from becoming victims of fowl play and other squirrelly behavior.

Most people go about their lives without thinking very much about opossums. It isn't until we come across one that we even remember they’re around. They exist, mainly out of sight, doing some very important work that benefits us all. Opossums eat over 90% of disease-harboring ticks, and one opossum can eat up to 5,000 ticks in a season. Because they are resistant to snake venom, these nocturnal mammals also prey on snakes that pose a danger to humans.

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About a dozen years ago, I brought home chickens for my backyard. And then the predators moved in.

It wasn't right away, but once opossums and raccoons discovered the potential free meals, they kept stopping by to check to see if the otherwise carefree hens might be taking a snooze outside their coop.

Once I went upstairs and found a baby opossum on my bed, a gift from my terrier mix. My dog meant well, of course, but I was repulsed by the rat-like marsupial lying still.

Using a plastic garbage bag to pick it up, I put the baby outside where the dogs couldn't reach. Not sure whether it was dead or "playing possum," I went back to check in the morning.

It had waddled away, of course, to resume its hunt for rodents, trash, rotten fruit and, likely, poultry or eggs.

Another time, a AAA guy came to give a car battery a jump. I happened to look at the garage chicken coop and saw a fearless opossum staring at us from a perch. The chickens were roaming outside, so they were OK, but when I embarrassingly expressed disgust at the critter, the AAA guy said, "Oh, I thought it was a pet."

Why a person would choose one of the ugliest animals in the city to be a pet is a mystery. Beady-eyed with long snouts and a gazillion teeth (OK, 50), opossums hiss and snap when dogs or people confront them. Sure, they supposedly rid the world of ticks (their bodies attract so many they reportedly can lick off thousands of a day). But my city yard has never been full of ticks.

What the experts say • The Missouri Department of Conservation notes that many people now post social media pictures of "cute" possums, particularly babies. It suggests leaving the omnivores, part of the "ecological web," alone (or securing garbage cans and feeding pets indoors). As a last resort, it suggests baiting a live trap, and releasing the critter somewhere else. Some place without backyard chickens. JH

At the Wildlife Rescue Center in Ballwin, squirrels are kept together by age. As they get older and closer to being released, the cages get bigger and the accessories become more like their environment in the wild, Tuesday, April 19, 2022. Photo by Hillary Levin, [email protected]

It's normally a joy to watch the squirrels scamper along the tree branches and fence next to our 130-year-old home in St. Louis’ Shaw neighborhood.

Until they found their way inside.

My husband, Andy, and I couldn't figure out how. We’d hear scratching in the walls. See a swish of a tail. Spot sawdust at the foot of the wooden basement door where one tried to chew its way into the first floor.

On several occasions, while hanging out in the basement, which we had turned into a play area for the kids, we’d spot a squirrel scampering out of the corners of our eyes. Cue the Benny Hill music as we frantically shifted tables, chairs, boxes of LEGO and crates of crayons in an effort to catch and release the culprit.

A compilation of squirrel extraction videos from the Hahn household in St. Louis. These extraction techniques may or may not meet approved wildlife removal standards, but they did their best. The squirrels can no longer get into an old chimney and basement fireplace cleanout. Video by Valerie Schremp Hahn of the Post-Dispatch.

We trapped a couple in plastic shoeboxes, sliding the lid or a piece of cardboard on top to release them outside. One time, it took a shop light, a box, a pair of leather gloves and barbecue tongs, but Andy caught one in the back of the basement atop the stone foundation wall and released it into the yard. "I don't recommend going in there again," he told it as he held it in his gloved hands, before he let it go in the yard. It ran away, chirping.

The squirrel — and his friends — didn't listen.

The final straw came one day as I sat at the kitchen table, and something rustled in a fig tree in a corner. Another squirrel. In a panic, I got up, reached out, and grabbed the squirrel with my bare hands. I screamed, the squirrel screamed, and it bit me on the hand. I ran it out the back door to the yard, where I screamed again before releasing it.

I texted my doctor at the time (he's the type of doctor you could text) and asked what I should do. The bite drew blood but was minor, and he didn't seem concerned but had me call a nurse. The nurse said to keep an eye on it for redness and swelling.

A depiction of a giant, vicious squirrel that bit Valerie Schremp Hahn after she found it in a fig tree in her kitchen and stupidly grabbed it with her bare hands. This a screenshot of a text exchange with her doctor.

I texted the doctor a picture of a squirrel I found online, wearing a little camo helmet and holding a bazooka. "It looked like this," I wrote.

"Yeah I know that squirrel," he replied.

Eventually, we figured out how the squirrels got in the house: through an exposed spot in an old chimney, and then they chewed through a piece of foam that had covered an old fireplace cleanout in the basement wall. Andy fortified both spots, and the squirrels have scampered outside on the trees and fence since.

We’re all happier.

What the experts say • Kim Rutledge, director of the Wildlife Rescue Center in Ballwin, knows squirrels. They’re some of the many critters the center rescues and rehabs from precarious situations.

"But if you have six squirrels in your living space, that's too many squirrels in your living space," she said. "Let's talk about personal boundaries."

She said we did the right thing by figuring out how the squirrels got in our house. Trimming back the trees from our roof could help, creating a less tempting "squirrel superhighway."

At the Wildlife Rescue Center in Ballwin, squirrels are kept together by age, Often a nice fleecy blanket formed into a hammock serves as a place to play, hide and sleep, Tuesday, April 19, 2022. Photo by Hillary Levin, [email protected]

But once they get inside, there are some eviction and harassment techniques to get them out.

You could add sounds and smells into your home to make it seem less cozy, she said. You could use live traps, because it's not easy to catch them. If you turn out the lights and open a window, the squirrels might head toward the bright light and leave (this also works with birds).

If you capture the squirrel and let it go in another location, say a mile or so away, it might try to come back to its family and home territory and get hit by a car or injured along the way, said Rutledge. The best technique is prevention.

"If your house is on a squirrel highway and it has a trap door, that's what you want to find and try to figure out how in the world are they getting in," she said. VSH

Walking on a cold day in the Missouri Botanical Garden, one of the only other visitors to cross our path was a fox — or maybe a coyote. A friend and I strolled through the quiet Woodland Garden when a raggedy, long-legged and pointy-nosed animal stared at us. It calmly kept walking. Then it paused to take a poop just 10 feet in front of us.

The nerve, we thought. Shouldn't a fox or coyote be more afraid in an obviously public space? Could it have rabies, I wondered.

No, apparently it was an ailing fox, one of a couple that frequented the botanical garden a few years ago, says Ben Chu, a horticulture manager.

Confusion over identifying the creature, which didn't seem to have the usual fox bushy tail, was because it suffered from mange, a common skin condition caused by a parasitic mite, Chu said. The garden even tried to leave bait with a miticide to help the frequent visitor, he said.

He hasn't seen fox lately, although two months ago he did spot a coyote enjoying the garden. The foxes seem less timid than the coyotes, he says, and he fears human visitors have fed them in the past.

The predators are actually more of a help than a problem, he says: "In some ways it's a bonus to have them here. They can help control the rodent problem or rabbits chewing up plants and squirrels digging up things. They can be beneficial. We also have hawks and lots of owls, which help us out a lot keeping those damaging rodents away."

What the experts say • The most common carriers of rabies in Missouri are bats and skunks, according to the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services. Cases average about 40 a year. The national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also notes raccoon and fox as rabies carriers.

At the garden, Chu recommends just enjoying the encounter and not feeding any wildlife. He says experts say to relocate an animal only if absolutely necessary because it can be hard for it to find food in a strange environment. "If I was a wild animal I’d think this was a lovely place to live," he says of the garden.

But use the loo in private! JH

Earlier this spring, I was invited to speak and screen one of my documentaries at a high school in north St. Louis County. I was innocently walking up the entrance to the school when I experienced an unprovoked and heinous attack.

An aggressive, angry goose flew straight at my head! I was caught off guard, as I hadn't even spotted the pair of geese in a nearby corner. I instinctively covered my head and tried to run away. I made it 2 feet before falling on the concrete. When the goose saw that I was down and sprawled on the ground, it backed off.

The assistant principal who was holding the door open for me was paralyzed with fear. She had previously been attacked by a goose and was unable to help me. She said the attack was triggering to watch.

I saw my life flash before my eyes when that goose came at me. I reported the assault to the principal, and he told me he had also been attacked by this same goose!

They are federally protected, and the school has not been able to relocate them.

I posted details about my goose attack on Facebook and so many others shared their fowl encounters that I considered starting a support group.

My husband unhelpfully suggested that the principal should try to pull the security camera footage of the incident because it might be fun to take a gander at my close encounter.

I informed him that this was a birdbrained idea.

Thankfully I did not break any bones, although my knee was sore from the fall.

And now whenever I’m walking in a park and spot a goose in the vicinity, I hightail it outta there. I think I have goose trauma.

What the experts say • Michael Beran, aka Bare Hands Beran, a certified wildlife control professional with the Wildlife Command Center in Imperial, said there are three factors that make male Canada geese more dangerous than they might appear:

1. Their wings are so powerful that they can whip a victim with their wings and break a small bone, like a finger. There's also a small hook on the end of their wing with a claw on it, and it can slice you significantly.

2. Inside their beak, they have catfish-like teeth, so if they bite you and twist their beak, the injury can send you to ER for stitches.

3. They are very heavy-bodied, so they can literally knock a person down. Falling on concrete can lead to a concussion, broken bones or teeth.

"Over the years, I have seen everything," he said. Currently, he's working with an industrial facility in Ellisville with a goose problem. Geese made a nest on the top of a roof overhang at the front entry. When people walk out, they’re not typically looking up. The male goose dive bombs them and has hit some from the back of their heads. One employee lost three teeth by falling on the concrete during a goose attack.

"Because of their aggressive nature, they can be formidable animals," he said.

Hearing these stories put my own bruised knee in perspective.

Beran said facility managers and owners reach out to him because of the liability issues involved if someone gets hurt on the property in a goose attack. Beran obtains a permit from the Missouri Department of Conservation that allows his team to remove the geese in humane ways. One type of permit allows them to remove the nest and eggs, which turns off the aggressive behavior in the male geese.

So, what should one do in the midst of an attack, I asked him.

"What you really need to do is very hard to do," he said. If you hold your hands up in front of a Canada goose, it will back down, he said. Most people, however, get scared and look for an escape route. When someone turns their back on a male goose, it kicks in its aggressive attack mode, Beran said. Oftentimes, a person may unknowingly turn their back toward a goose or are unaware of the geese nearby.

"You cannot turn your back to them. It's easy to say, but hard to do in the face of an attack," he said.

Another simple way to prevent an attack is to carry an umbrella. Target sells white and red umbrellas, colors that throw danger signals at geese. If you know there is a pond with geese or have heard rumors of an attack, carrying an open red and white umbrella is the simplest way not to be attacked, Beran said.

People need to be on high alert for aggressive geese from March through the end of May, when they are actively nesting. Don't ever feed them — that's just asking for goose problems later. AS

Most nights, my dogs sleep in our room, quietly and without interrupting us until 6 a.m. One night in April, our Aussie mix, Scout, began pacing through the house, room to room. Our windows were open. Clearly, she heard something, but we didn't think much of it until the next morning.

That's when my husband found a dead deer in our suburban yard. We had seen a young buck in our treeline days before, limping. On that morning, its throat had been ripped, and its backside was partially eaten.

We have cameras around the outside of our house, but it was too dark and far away to see the deer's death, but we heard it, along with a low, gutteral growl that made my hair stand on end. My husband posted it to his social media: Bear, bobcat, cougar, Bigfoot, chupacabra were the suggestions.

My family, hunters all, eventually posited that it was a bobcat. It sounded bigger, they said, but a mountain lion, aka cougar, just isn't likely in our neighborhood. When I sent the sound to Dan Zarlenga, spokesman for the Missouri Department of Conservation, his first email back to me said: "The sound kind of has the cadence of a cat growl, but seems a bit low in pitch to my non-professional ear. Even mountain lions sound surprisingly like just a beefed-up house cat. Maybe a bear?"

If a mountain lion sounded crazy for St. Charles County, a bear sounded crazier.

Zarlenga consulted with MDC wildlife biologists, and after viewing photos I sent him of the dead deer, their unanimous decision surprised me: Coyote.

"The verdict is coyote as far as what did the deer in. The sound is still a bit uncertain, but the possibility is it could have been made by the deer itself. A couple folks gave empirical accounts of hearing similarly unusual sounds coming from deer that had been shot or were dying. Consider that the damage we see was probably inflicted while the deer was still living, not postmortem. Coyotes are not known for quick, merciful kills."

What the experts say • So we found ourselves with a dead deer in our yard. The Department of Conservation doesn't come remove the animal.

Zarlenga wrote: "The two options we suggest are moving the carcass into woods if that is an option, or calling a removal service for those who live in more residential areas. I believe we have some vendors we can refer them to. At the other extreme, if it is on a remote part of a large parcel of property one could just leave it and let nature take care of it."

We have two dogs, and I didn't want whatever killed that deer to stick around. And I sure wasn't touching it. So we paid a service $200 to remove it. Rest in peace, poor deer. AB

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