Controlling Wildlife Damage | Skedaddle Wildlife Ottawa

Unfortunately you cannot always prevent urban wildlife from invading your home, despite the many preventive measures you may have implemented. Urban wildlife infestation creates many headaches for homeowners like you. Wildlife such as raccoons, squirrels, bats, and mice wreak havoc once they have infested your home. The damage they can cause range from mangled soffits, vents, and damaged windows, broken locks, chewed out electrical wirings, and even spreading ticks and fleas. There are ways you can control the damage incurred by urban wildlife.

How to Control Wildlife Damage

The goal of any wildlife control program is to limit damage inflicted by animals in a humane, environmentally safe, and practical manner. A majority of wildlife control expert companies implement methods based on the biology and habits of the animals that cause damage. By customizing damage control methods based on the nature of the animals that caused them, damage control makes sure that the animals involved are humanely removed.

The key to effective damage control is determining the kind of animal that caused the damage. One can easily determine the type of animal by simply observing the damaged area. Feeding indicators are very similar across various species; it would take droppings, burrows, nests, or food storages to determine the exact species of the animal that damaged your property.

Once the species of the animal has been determined, wildlife removers then proceed to implement the appropriate damage control method. Improper implementation of damage control methods may harm or even kill wildlife. If harmed, wildlife is more leery about future damage control methods. Improper use of traps and poison baiting techniques do more harm than good. Here are a few damage control methods you and your wildlife company can implement:

Exclusion

Physically removing the animals or keeping them away from property is one of the most common and preferred methods. It is also one of the most effective and permanent solutions to wildlife control. Exclusion can be inexpensive or costly, depending on the materials used and how much of it is needed. Fencing your home to keep deer, raccoons, and squirrels away is far more expensive compared to protecting your garden from birds using a net.

Habitat Modification

Modifying your home or the animals’ habitats is an inexpensive and long lasting damage control method. By implementing habitat modification, you limit access to shelter, food, and water, the basics that animals need to survive and breed offspring.

Frightening Devices

Using devices such as horns, bells, recorded sounds, clappers, whistles, lights, reflectors, and other similar devices help keep animals away as well. However, these are less effective if the animal already built a den and has given birth to their young in your property. For instance, there is little you can do to keep a mother raccoon away from its babies. Frightening devices are more effective for prevention that exclusion.