One of the benefits of being in the pond business is that customers bring fresh ideas to us all the time. Here are few predator antidotes we’d like to pass on...
To help identify what kind of predator might be visiting your pond pour flour around the pond before you go to bed or leave the house. Most predators leave tracks and if a fish simply jumps out he’ll leave some strange markings as well.
Discourage raccoons by emptying and storing away bird seed before retiring for bed.
And speaking of raccoons, let me share with you a story "The Rock Lady", one of our newest and very entertaining customers, shared with us...
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Her house is a local hangout for raccoons. They scale the fence and watch her family’s activities with great interest and exhibit no fear of humans at all. She admitted to having "had a few" one night when one particular raccoon sat on the fence refusing to move and taunting her in the way that only a raccoon can taunt. No matter what she did to the raccoon he sat there staring at her and daring her to do more. So, not wanting to actually hurt the furry animal but getting a bit aggravated by its stubbornness, she ran into the house and grabbed the closest thing she could find to hit him with — left-over biscuits from dinner. She fired one at his head. He moved his head to dodge it. She fired another. He moved his head the other way. She said he never moved any other part of his body, just his head as he dodged the flying biscuits. The game ended: Raccoon — 1. The Rock Lady — 0. If she’d been using my biscuits (as hard as mine can get) perhaps the odds would have been more in her favor!
From The Clear Water Edition of What's
Up, Doc?, May, 1999
© Copyright 1999, The Pond Doc's Water Garden Center. All rights Reserved.
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