ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, September 15, 1996 TAG: 9609170008
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C-12 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: OUTDOORS
SOURCE: BILL COCHRAN
You will find our names on the deeds at the courthouse, proof that we own the land. We pay the taxes on it.
But like other rural property owners, we learned long ago that it really belongs to the wild animals. Never mind that we have defined our property with tangible things, like fences. Fences are something the animals leap across or crawl under.
Land to them is land - their land. Your beans become their beans, your apples their apples, your corn their corn.
Sharing is fine, up to a point. We enjoy wildlife. We've planted food and cover for it. We've attended seminars on how to manage our property to benefit wildlife. We've tried to tell the wildlife, ``you may eat from the trees of the garden planted for you, but you shall not eat of the fruit of the tree in the midst of our garden, least you die.''
The wildlife has not been impressed by our edict. We've received no praise. We really don't expect any. We'd simply like to reap our share of benefits from the labor we've exerted in our gardens, orchards and stands of trees.
What we've found is, when you invite wildlife onto your property it will come, and the next thing you know it is acting like wildlife. In fact, it will even come when you don't invite it. Examples:
DEER: Deer have chewed our young apple trees to a nub. They've mowed down our strawberry patch, pinched the tops out of our pine seedlings and horned our Fraser fir Christmas trees. They've also enjoyed our green beans.
BEAR: We put wire cages around our young apple trees to protect them from the deer. The trees have grown tall and straight, instead of producing right-angle limbs like cultured apple trees should. When the trees began bringing forth their first fruit, the bears went after it, breaking out the tops of the trees and turning them into gnarled bushes. Apparently just for fun, they also ripped apart some of our Christmas trees.
GROUNDHOGS: When the beans came up nicely, we said something foolish, like : ``Well, it looks as if the groundhogs aren't going to bother them this time. The next day, the bush beans had been gnawed into one-inch nubbings. We blamed it on the groundhogs, but they may have gotten help from the rabbits. This time we planted pole beans in an effort to get them above the reach of the groundhogs and rabbits. It worked, except the deer still could reach them.
RACCOONS: Our sweet corn crop was a good one this season. Fed by frequent rains, the cornstalks grew straight and the ears began to fill. Just about the time it was in the milk stage, the raccoons discovered it. They appeared after dark, coming off the timbered ridge, crossing the creek and moving in like miniature harvesting machines.
OPOSSUMS: When our cantaloupes began to turn from green to brown on the outside and bright orange on the inside, we started finding them ripped apart. ``Raccoons,'' I thought. Then a nighttime check with a flashlight revealed an opossum gnawing on a melon, grasping it with his pink paws and poking its sharp snout deep into its flesh.
QUAIL: When the song birds began eating our blueberries we spread a net over the plants to protect the fruit. That solved the song bird problem, but quail would duck under the net and feed on the lower branches.
TURKEYS: Wild turkeys have dusted in our garden, but have caused no real problem other than disturbing some of our vine-type plants. We are waiting to see what the grouse and woodcocks are going to do to us.
LENGTH: Medium: 64 linesby CNB