DEAR JOAN: I have an acre and half of land, and the bottom half is covered with large twig houses that the marmots are building. They are stealing my persimmons and I am sure they are storing them.
There are at least seven large mounds and I need to get rid of them. Do you have any suggestions?
I think they are also tearing off the leaves of the persimmons, probably for nesting material. They are also going after my neighbors trees.
Diana Anderson, Saratoga
DEAR DIANA: I think we might have a case of mistaken identity. Yosemite and the higher elevations are home to the yellow-bellied marmot, which also is known as a groundhog. The Yosemite variety is much smaller than the groundhogs we associate with Groundhog Day and Punxsutawney Phil.
So while we don’t have any of the large- or medium-sized marmots in the Bay Area, we do have plenty of their smaller cousins, the ground squirrels. However, the marmots, groundhogs and ground squirrels do not build stick nests. They dig tunnels and create underground dens.
What I think you have is a dusky-footed woodrat, also known as a packrat. They can build veritable mansions of sticks that contain enough rooms to keep a Kardashian happy. In these rooms, they store food — including your persimmons — and have nesting spots for the adults and the many, many babies.
You would control the woodrats the same as you would with other rats. If you decide on extermination, please don’t use poisons, which endanger innocent animals that eat rats, or sticky traps, which are just plain torture.
The most important thing is to tear down those stick houses. You need to be extremely careful, however, because of fleas and because there may be things in the nest you don’t want to inhale. You should wear protective gear, including masks and gloves, long-sleeve shirts and long pants. Tuck in the cuffs of your pants or duct tape them around your ankles to keep out any sneaky fleas.
Before starting your deconstruction project, you want to remove any twigs, limbs, leaves and other woodrat home construction materials, and make sure your house is secured to prevent the now homeless woodrats from moving in.
You might want to hire a professional to do all that. Afterward, keep a close eye on your property and quickly knock down any new building before it gets established. The woodrats will grow frustrated and move on.
DEAR JOAN: I saw three road sign poles that are filled with acorns. It would take a ladder for a human to fill them with acorns from the top.
In this area we have woodpeckers, ground and tree squirrels, as well as other nocturnal animals such as skunks and opossums. Further down the road there are other signs, but they do not have anything in the poles. Your thoughts?
Kris, Pleasanton
DEAR KRIS: That behavior is common in several of the animals you listed, including one you didn’t.
Acorn woodpeckers create huge storage areas for their nuts, and they would appreciate finding the holes already created. Tree squirrels usually bury their stash, but they will take advantage of a handy area.
It’s doubtful skunks, opossums or ground squirrels are responsible as they prefer to stay closer to the ground.
The other option would be crows, which would have no trouble reaching the top of the sign posts.
The only way to know for certain is to catch the hoarder in the act.
The Animal Life column runs on Mondays. Contact Joan Morris at [email protected].
