The sight of deer in the wild can be delightful but when these animals invade your garden, devouring everything in sight, people's ideas might change. The internet is full of advice for ridding your garden of deer, but beware, much of it is ineffective.
In the newly revised Pest Notes: Deer, author and retired Wildlife Specialist Robert Timm, shares detailed deer management methods proven by UC research to be effective. Pest management works best when you understand the pest's biology and behavior, so new information about the range of the different deer species is included as well as their food preferences.
Keep in mind that deer are game animals, regulated by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. For additional information on deer management, including whether frightening devices and repellents are effective or not, see the full text of recently updated Pest Notes: Deer on our website.
- Author: Jeanette Warnart
From the UCANR NEWS BLOG
Coyotes are much more abundant now in urban areas of Southern California than they have ever been before, reported the Long Beach Business Journal. For the story, the Journal interviewed UC Agriculture and Natural Resources emeritus Cooperative Extension specialist Bob Timm in their Long Beach offices.
Timm, who served as director of the UC Hopland Research and Extension Center in Mendocino County, has 27 years of experience dealing with coyote management.
Timm said coyotes can find ample food in suburban and urban areas by scrounging through garbage and compost piles, eating pet food and even small dogs and cats. Water is available in ponds, birdbaths and pools. Some people intentionally feed coyotes.
“The difficulty is there is so little research on coyotes in suburban and urban areas because it is so hard to do,” Timm said.
Research conducted in the early 2000s by Timm and a Cal Poly Pomona professors found that coyotes habituate in urban areas in a predictable manner than can be observed along the following seven steps:
- Increased coyote presence on streets and in yards at night
- An increase in coyotes non-aggressively approaching adults and/or taking pets at night
- Coyotes present on streets or in parks and yards during morning or afternoon hours
- Coyotes chasing or taking pets in the daytime
- Coyotes attacking or taking pets while they are on a leash or near their owners, and coyotes chasing joggers, bicyclists, and other adults
- Coyotes present around children's play areas, schools or parks in the midday hours
- Coyotes acting aggressively toward adults in midday hours
“One of those steps is they start attacking and killing pets,” Timm said. “When they start doing that in the daytime, then it becomes very problematic and some of those coyotes are eventually going to become aggressive toward people."
According to Niamh Quinn, the UC ANR Cooperative Extension area vertebrate pest advisor, based at the UC ANR South Coast Research and Extension Center, there were six recorded coyote bites on humans in Irvine this year.
Read more about Coyotes and their management in Pest Notes: Coyote.