Raccoons in the trash, owls in the trees, a bat in the house. These guides cover who’s really a risk, who’s just misunderstood, and what to do when a wild animal turns up in your yard.
Can you keep a toad as a pet? Sometimes, but usually it’s better not to, for you and the toad. Rules vary by species and place, and a healthy wild toad is almost always better off where you found it.…
Here’s what I didn’t understand the first time I tried window decals: birds aren’t afraid of stickers. A hawk silhouette reads as an obstacle to fly around, not a warning to avoid the whole pane. The bird sees the decal,…
Finding a bat flying around your living room at midnight is alarming, and the instinct to panic is understandable. But bats that end up inside are generally not there on purpose. They came in through an open window, a gap…
The bird isn’t trying to get inside. It’s not confused, sick, or particularly aggressive toward you or your house. It’s fighting itself, and losing, every single time. When a window reflects the outside world well enough, a bird sees what…
If you’ve hung wind chimes hoping to keep birds off your garden, porch, or fruit tree, you’re not alone. It’s an intuitive idea: birds seem skittish, noise disrupts them, wind chimes make noise. The problem is the third part of…
White-tailed deer are built for winter. They enter the cold season carrying stored body fat, their metabolism slows to conserve energy, and they shift their diet to whatever woody material is still accessible above the snow line. A healthy deer…
Straight up: yes, skunks can spray more than once. A skunk on a full tank can spray up to five or six times in succession before depleting its supply. If you’ve had a close call and assumed the animal is…
Window decals for bird safety are one of those products where buying it feels like solving the problem. You’ve seen the hawk shapes, the snowflake patterns, the little clusters of dots: widely sold, they look purposeful, and putting them up…
Windows kill a staggering number of birds every year. Feeders, if neglected, can spread disease through visiting flocks. Outdoor cats take an enormous toll. And rodenticides placed for mice end up killing the raptors that would have controlled the mice…
For garden birds visiting a feeder, an occasional piece of bread probably won’t cause lasting harm, but it’s also doing nothing useful. Bread is nutritionally close to empty for birds. It fills their stomachs with carbohydrates they can’t use well,…
Wildlife answers, in your inbox.
We only email when there’s something worth knowing. No daily spam. We hate that crap too.
