If nuisance wildlife keeps showing up around your home, there’s a reason they’re there.Many homeowners assume animals randomly wander onto their property, but in most cases they’re being attracted by two simple things: food and shelter.
Food Is the #1 Attraction
Wild animals are constantly searching for easy meals. One of the most common attractants is pet food left outside on porches, patios, decks, or in garages. Once a raccoon, possum, skunk, or rodent discovers a reliable food source, it will continue returning as long as that food remains available.
Other common food attractants include:
Bird seed
Fallen fruit
Open garbage containers
Compost piles
Outdoor pet feeding stations
Livestock feed
To a hungry animal, your property may look like an all-you-can-eat buffet.
Shelter Matters Too
Food may attract animals initially, but shelter often convinces them to stay. Utility sheds, crawl spaces, decks, porches, wood piles, and other protected areas provide ideal places for wildlife to hide, raise young, or spend the winter. Animals frequently dig beneath sheds and outbuildings to create dens where they feel safe from predators and weather.
Why They Keep Coming Back
Once wildlife finds both food and shelter in the same location, they quickly establish patterns and continue returning. Even if one animal is removed, another may soon take its place if the attractants remain. That’s why successful wildlife control involves more than trapping an animal. It also requires identifying and eliminating whatever brought it there in the first place.
Mountain Mike’s Tip
“The two most important factors in attracting nuisance animals to a property are food and shelter. Remove those attractions, and you’ll eliminate most wildlife problems before they start.”
By making your property less attractive to nuisance wildlife, you’ll save yourself time, frustration, and future problems.
Have a question for Mountain Mike? Submit your wildlife control question and it may be featured in a future Ask Mountain Mike article. 🦝🏡🐾
