Human-Wildlife Conflicts

As both an animal lover and naïve new homeowner, I was thrilled several years ago when I discovered that a mother raccoon and her kits had taken up residence in a crawl space above my front porch. Noticing how skinny the hardworking mom was, I started putting out a dish of cat food for her each night. Pretty soon, her weaned kits began to come out to share the feast. As the youngsters grew, they became tamer and bolder, hanging out on my roof to wait for me to come home from work. The kits even learned to recognize my car and would rush to the street as I climbed out, jumping up on my legs like puppies.

Only later did I realize I was putting both the raccoons and myself at risk. The common raccoon is one of four wild animal species (along with the bat, fox and skunk) considered primary carriers of rabies in the United States, and the animals’ feces readily transmit roundworm and other pathogens. Even disease-free, “Laura’s raccoons” quickly became neighborhood nuisances, approaching people too closely and wreaking havoc with lawns (digging for worms) and trashcans. No doubt some annoyed or frightened neighbors called animal control to come out and help.

Living Responsibly With Raccoons

1. 1. Enjoy raccoons from a distance. Do not handle, feed or accidentally attract raccoons with open garbage cans or dirty outdoor grills.
   2. Feed your pets indoors.
   3. Do not keep raccoons or other wild animals as pets.
   4. If you find an injured raccoon or abandoned kit, do not try to rescue it yourself. Contact your local animal-control agency or a licensed wildlife rehabilitator for help.
   5. Check outside your home for openings and seal or cap them (after making sure no animals already have made it inside).
   6. If you discover raccoons living in an attic, chimney or other interior cavity, try to evict the animals by leaving lights on or playing loud music on a battery-operated radio. If this doesn’t work, contact a humane wildlife-control specialist for assistance.
   7. Once you’re sure the raccoons have left, seal the opening they’d used with caulk, heavy-duty hardware cloth or wood. Replace missing shingles and cap chimneys and exhaust vents.
   8. Never try to smoke raccoons out of a chimney or seal any opening until you know all of the animals are out of your house.

Create Natural Habitat For Wildlife

Once certain that your home is raccoon-free, you can responsibly enjoy these fascinating and intelligent animals. The best way to help raccoons, along with other native wildlife, is to protect and restore natural habitat in your garden and throughout your community.

“There are right ways to help and enjoy wildlife in our cities and towns, and there are wrong ways, says NWF Naturalist David Mizejewski. “Artificially feeding raccoons, and allowing them access to your home, are the wrong ways. Restoring native plant communities creates a natural food chain for raccoons and offers them safe cover and places to raise young.”

8 Random Facts About Animal “Shutdowns”

1. Eastern box turtles spend nights concealed in a shallow depression in soil or leaf litter. They not only sleep and hibernate in the litter, but also tunnel through it. Also -when they “shutdown” they are completely covered.

• Here’s a great guide explaining the difference between torpor and hibernation.
• Could we hibernate? – A great question and something I’ve been pondering with all these rainy days.
• Wake up! Sleep secrets from the animal kingdom.

 Tell your member of Congress that they need to pass a funding bill so that vital wildlife conservation, environmental protection and many other vital services can continue.

We were blown away by the response to the contest and all the unique and creative drawings we received. Opening the mail every day was a treat, as we never knew what kind of Ricky’s we would find: silly, impressionistic, cartoonish, or even abstract. We saw Ricky’s painted with watercolors and drawn with pastels, and even an uncanny foam representation of our favorite raccoon. Our readers are true budding artists!

Hear from the Winners

All of our winners have two things in common: a love of drawing and a passion for animals! Cooper, age 5, said that he likes Ricky “because he’s an animal and I like animals.” Faith, age 4, loves to draw any kind of animal, especially “wild cats that have spots!”

The winning artists put a lot of effort into their creations, and it showed. Bonnie, mom to Griffin, age 7, said that Griffin “was so detailed and wanted to make it just perfect.” Cooper’s mom said that her son enjoyed “taking his time” with his drawing and “trying to make it look as good as he could.”

Winner Samantha, age 5, said she entered the Draw Ricky contest “to feel proud of herself.” She, along with all the other kids who entered, can feel very proud of her entry. Thanks to all the kids who helped make the contest a success!

See More Drawings

We could only pick five drawings to publish, but we had many other favorite entries. You can see more drawings on our website, as well as on social media: check out our Facebook album, our Pinterest board, and our Dear Ranger Rick Tumblr blog.

Related: Meet the Artist Behind Ricky Raccoon

As National Wildlife Federation’s naturalist and media personality,  I do a monthly appearance on the Today Show, usually during the 4th hour with Kathie Lee and Hoda. Each time, I bring a variety of animal ambassadors to help inspire the millions of viewers to care about wildlife and to join in NWF’s conservation efforts.

I’ve been doing this Today Show stint for over four years at this point, so the ladies and I have become pretty comfortable with each other.

Watch the clip below to see Hoda poke a little good-natured fun at me.  And as always, enjoy the beauty and the antics of the animals and get involved in our conservation work.

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On May 18, this beautiful mountain lion stopped by my parent’s backyard pond in Los Alamos, N.M., adding to the long list of amazing wildlife encounters over the years.

In the summer of 1997, we decided to build a pond in our backyard. I was back from college and thought this would be a good summer project. We weren’t new to ponds: we had two in our front yard that proved to be great for attracting birds, chipmunks, and garter snakes that were frequent visitors.

We decided to build this new pond since we never could get a lotus to bloom in the front ponds, as they did not receive morning sun which Lotus require to thrive. Lotus is a very important flower to Indians, and we were excited that lotus are actually hardy and can handle the below freezing winters of Los Alamos. This new pond bordered a 1,000 ft deep canyon that comprises our amazing backyard. Los Alamos exists at 7,200 ft with a temperate mountain climate. With the addition of our new pond we were successful in growing lotus and getting it to bloom. We had no idea how introducing water into our yard would result in years of amazing wildlife encounters.

With its location on the back canyon, it became clear that the pond attracted an amazing variety of birds present in Los Alamos County. During spring (May) and fall (September) migration, beautiful warblers, tanagers and buntings (right) were commonly seen at the pond, so my mother, Selvi Viswanathan, decided to name it Warbler Pond.

My mother worked extremely hard on our yard and created a beautiful habitat nestled between two canyons. She had heard about National Wildlife Federation and decided to apply for backyard Wildlife Habitat Certification. Our yard became one of the first NWF backyard Wildlife Habitats in Los Alamos on June 30, 1995 (Certificate #16249). There are now many more and there is talk about Los Alamos becoming a NWF Community Habitat.

We put fish in the pond and numerous water plants. It soon became clear that there was almost constant activity at the pond. Garter snakes frequently came to the pond and seemed determined to catch the fish, though these were not aquatic garter snakes and never seemed to catch any fish. However, the snakes actually bred in the pond and we once saw four baby snakes sliding across the lotus leaves. My mother then witnessed a sharp-shinned hawk swoop in to take away a baby snake! We never got a picture of that but here is a sharp-shinned hawk that frequented Warbler Pond. As years passed we gave up on fancy water plants and fish since they were eaten but certain plants such as floating heart, buttercup and native grasses established themselves making for a beautiful scene that required very little upkeep.

Close Encounters

Years passed and we did notice that mammals sometimes visited Warbler pond as well. Coyotes, bobcats and deer were seen on occasion. However, despite usually having a camera handy, we never got any pictures since large mammal visits were fleeting and few and far between (at least when we were watching).

By 2011, I was living with my own family 10 minutes drive away on a different canyon in Los Alamos. Early in the morning of Dec 24, we had a rare and tragic encounter with a mountain lion that attacked and killed our pet dog Gwennie in our backyard that also borders a canyon. We knew mountain lions were present in Los Alamos County but an attack was unheard of. In fact, most people never see a mountain lion during their lifetime in Los Alamos, even if they are avid outdoor enthusiasts. In our case, experts believed it was a combination of recent habitat loss from the Las Conchas fire, heavy snows forcing deer into town and simply bad timing.  If I had not let Gwennie out by herself at dawn this incident would have likely been avoided. Since this incident, other problems have not occurred and we take care to only take our dog out on leash into well lit areas. That being said, living in an area like ours comes with some risk.

The encounter left my family quite shaken and I decided to purchase a critter cam to see what wildlife was visiting our backyard. I also purchased a critter cam for my parent’s yard to see what was visiting Warbler Pond at night. We were amazed at the diversity of wildlife that was visiting. Within a few nights of putting in the critter cam, it was clear raccoons and foxes were frequent visitors at Warbler pond. Our backyard (despite being the location of the mountain lion attack) was not as active but fox, ringtail and raccoons visited sporadically. Being an amateur photographer, I decided to purchase Phototrap so I could use my nice camera equipment to capture pictures of wildlife visiting both our yard and my parent’s yard/Warbler Pond at night. This would serve to both warn and document what was visiting our yards. I could not believe how many amazing wildlife encounters were captured within one year of setting up the Phototrap.

Sleuthing Around With Nocturnal Cameras

Gray fox proved to be a frequent visitor year round. So frequent that we even captured interesting behavior such as a fox eyeing this mouse.

Raccoons were common and sometimes entire families came in for a romp in Warbler pond. It became very clear what must have happened to our water plants in the early years! We even tried out fish in this back pond and it is now clear that they didn’t have a chance based on the number of nighttime visitors.

In the summer we were shocked to learn that black bears used Warbler Pond as a bathtub! What was even more amazing was that come morning, one could not tell a giant animal had been there! People with fruit trees were not so lucky. For them it was clear when a black bear had visited at night, since branches and fruit would be strewn about. In our case, we were shocked when we’d check the camera since Warbler Pond would look untouched. Clearly, even these big animals leave areas mostly undamaged unless food is at stake.

Bobcats were infrequent but gorgeous visitors that were seen about once a month.

Deer also came in groups of 3-6 for a drink. Here is one during the peak of the buttercup bloom. We were surprised that a Great Horned Owl even came in for a bath in the pond.

We were shocked by how many animals were taking advantage of the pond. This was likely going on for over a decade without us knowing! The good news was there were no problematic wildlife encounters in the neighborhood despite the frequency of visitors. We were curious if a mountain lion would ever visit, due to our tragic encounter at the other yard. It was clear deer are common, and mountain lion expert Ken Logan declared Los Alamos prime mountain lion country after he visited to learn about our incident.

On May 6, 2012 (3 months after we installed the critter cam, a night where only the black and white critter cam was setup), this amazing mountain lion came in for a drink on the night of a super moon. It was a bit disconcerting that mountain lions likely have been visiting Warbler Pond all this time! After this photo, I assumed that perhaps mountain lion visits may actually be common. However, a full year went by and no more mountain lion sightings at either yard. I thought perhaps the 2011-2012 sightings was simply due to the immediate aftermath of the Las Conchas fire. Then May 18, 2013 showed us that mountain lion visits do occur but seem to be very rare (which is a good thing). Here is a gorgeous mountain lion that came in for a drink and spent about 15 minutes at Warbler Pond (left, above). She then melted away back into the canyon making it hard to believe she really paid us a visit.

After the first encounters with the mountain lion, my mother Selvi took several steps based on Ken Logan’s advice:

1. To remove the shrubs nearby where the mountain lion and other animals can hide.
2. Also to have open space where the animals can run away when they see us.
3. To inform neighbors about the sighting of the mountain lion.

For more information on backyard predators, see “When Carnivores Come Calling” in National Wildlife magazine.

My mother said the neighborhood took the news well:

I got a few e mails encouraging [me] not to trap the mountain lion. Our neighbors are happy and they are all learning to live with wildlife.

I take the welfare of the community seriously, especially since the mountain lion was right in my back yard. It is interesting, my neighbors and friends who see me in the yard when I am working or even in supermarket, always tell me how nice the pictures are. They are careful now. They never told me to get rid of the pond which I expected some may say.

To me it is extremely exciting to see the amazing wildlife that exists within close proximity of our town with hardly any incidents to speak of. The animals that visit appear healthy and have figured out how to mostly avoid altercations. Our town is rare in that canyons weave their way through all of Los Alamos, so wildlife corridors abound. It is clear most animals do not rely on Warbler Pond. There must be plenty of water sources due to bird baths (we’ve seen bobcats at ours rather than coming to the pond), sprinklers, and the numerous ponds in town.

However, our pond that has now celebrated its 14-year anniversary and has becoming a watering hole for an amazing variety of critters. It’s not just the water that attracts the wildlife. We noticed that our hummingbird feeder was emptied in the morning day after day. Then one night we figured out who the culprit was, a beautiful ringtail. People in areas like ours would be surprised at the activity that is likely taking place in their yards when no one is watching!

Turn Your Yard Into a Haven for Wildlife

Welcome wildlife into your own backyard! Find the best native plants for your yard, learn how to attract wildlife, and be kind to your neighbors. Then, make your yard an official NWF Certified Wildlife Habitat®!

Hari Viswanathan in an amateur photographer who lives in Los Alamos, NM with his wife Gowri and 4 year old son Aditya. He is a scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory where he focuses on increasing energy efficiency and reducing the environmental impacts of fossil fuels. Hari enjoys nature and wildlife photography and living in New Mexico gives him many opportunities to pursue his hobby.  He has also traveled all over the world and has had opportunities to visit and photograph many amazing places. For more pictures please see HarisPhotos.com.

Follow us on Facebook, Pinterest and Tumblr to get updates on the contest and see some of our favorite submissions!

Meet Christian Slade, “Ricky and Pals” Illustrator

Seeing all these renditions of Ricky inspired us to talk to the authority on all things Ricky Raccoon: Christian Slade, the artist who helped originate the character and has illustrated the magazine’s “Ricky and Pals” stories for the past five years. “Ricky and Pals” follow the adventures of Ricky Raccoon and his animal friends as they explore the outdoors in Deep Green Wood, their forest home.

An avid animal lover, Christian grew up reading Ranger Rick and said it was a “secret dream” of his to work on it someday. He says that working for Ranger Rick Jr. is an especially important project because if an issue falls into the “right hands, that child is going to grow up with a love and appreciation for animals and could do great things.”

Who Is Ricky?

Christian feels a special attachment to the character that he says is “like one of his kids.” He describes Ricky as a loyal friend who’s “an explorer, first and foremost. He’s an adventurer, and he loves nature.” Ricky loves to bring back all sorts of nature treasures to his tree house, much like Christian fills his art studio with his many collections.

Christian has a “soft spot” for all the characters in “Ricky and Pals,” and likes to imagine that their stories continue beyond the page. “Ricky and Pals, they don’t go to sleep,” he says. “The adventures go on.”

On Drawing Ricky

According to Christian, Ricky’s face and hands are the most important—and the most difficult—to get right. He draws Ricky’s expression first, and sometimes makes faces in the mirror above his desk to help him capture it. Christian also modeled many of Ricky’s gestures and mannerisms off of his 5-year-old twins Nate and Kate.

His initial sketches are very loose, “like a pile of spaghetti, but the essence is there.” Then he goes back and tightens it up to make sure Ricky looks exactly like the raccoon readers know and love.

Inspired by Nature

In “Ricky and Pals,” the environment is just as much of a character as Ricky or Bizzie Beaver. Christian says it’s probably the greatest character because it provides the setting for the characters to explore. The artist loves to immerse himself in nature while vacationing in the mountains, soaking up details of the animals and trees that he can incorporate into Ricky’s world.

Advice for Young Artists

Do you have a budding illustrator at home? Encourage him or her to get outside and draw! Christian advises young artists to carry a sketchbook everywhere and draw the world around them, not just what’s in their heads. “By drawing the world around you, and the people and animals in it,” he says, “it’s only going to enrich the things you draw out of your imagination.”

Watch Christian in Action

Need some inspiration for your own Ricky drawing? Watch the video to see Christian drawing in his studio and get his tips on how to draw your favorite raccoon. It’s a fun, behind-the-scenes peek at the world of Ricky and Ranger Rick Jr.!

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How to Enter the Draw Ricky Contest

Kids have until June 30, 2013 to submit their entry (online or by mail) to the Draw Ricky Contest. Winners receive a Ranger Rick Jr. hat and get their drawing featured in the October issue of the magazine.

See official rules for details.

Every month we publish five or six drawings or photos from our readers in the “Ricky’s Mail” section of Ranger Rick Jr. Ricky is a playful young raccoon who guides kids through the pages of the magazine, and he loves to get mail! We also feature reader mail in a monthly slideshow on our website.

Since our readers love sending us drawings, and we love our readers, we decided to hold a “Draw Ricky” contest for these talented young artists. So send us your best drawing of your favorite little raccoon, Ricky! The winning drawings will be featured in the October issue of Ranger Rick Jr., and the winning artists will receive a Ranger Rick Jr. baseball cap. We’ll also send the winners six complimentary copies of the October issue, so they can share their artistic debut with their family and friends.

Even if your drawing isn’t published in the magazine, there’s still a chance for fame (but maybe not fortune). We’ll be featuring many more of our favorite Ricky drawings on Facebook, Pinterest, and Tumblr. Be sure to follow us to see all the drawings and get updates about the contest!

How to Enter

Of the two hosts, Hoda is a the more skittish when it comes to the animals I bring on the show, especially when it comes to touching or holding them.  So I was particularly proud of her this time around, as she bravely held out her hand to hold a creature that is actually venomous, an emperor scorpion.

Watch the segment and join me in congratulating Hoda on her bravery, which helped me get the message out that just because an animal has the ability to sting (or bite or scratch or whatever) doesn’t mean it needs to be unnecessarily feared,  just respected.

And of course, enjoy the other extraordinary wildlife I brought with me too!

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If cats have nine lives, an endangered cougar subspecies may be down to its last one. The Florida panther has been a whisker away from extinction for decades, struggling to survive amidst habitat loss, pollution, disease and uncontrolled hunting.  Unfortunately, massive, hungry snakes from overseas are bringing more darkness to the future of this Sunshine State mascot.

Giant Burmese pythons are gorging, hissing and crushing their way through the Florida Everglades. These invasive snakes are gobbling up mammals left and right that serve as the food for panthers.  A new study blames a more than 90 percent drop in wildlife sightings of raccoons, white-tailed deer and bobcats in the Everglades on Burmese pythons. These lethal reptiles have no natural predators in the region, like living in wetlands and can live a year without food. They can also live for up to 25 years, grow over 20 feet long and weight up to 200 pounds.

Irresponsible owners who can’t handle giant predatory pets like Burmese pythons dump them in the wild where the snakes terrorize native wildlife and people. Recently, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service prohibited the importation and interstate transportation and sale of the Burmese python and three other non-native constrictor snakes. However, the agency dropped five other dangerous constrictors from this list. A full restriction of invasive constrictor snakes would save taxpayers money and help endangered species in the Everglades.

There are fewer than 200 Florida panthers left in the wild, and invasive species like the Burmese python are only making the problem worse. Take a moment to take action and keep this American icon from disappearing forever. Click here to see the work the National Wildlife Federation and the Florida Wildlife Federation  are doing to save the Florida panther.

We are grateful to the photographers who have generously donated the photos below. These images and countless others remind us why we do what we do. Through our partnership with FotoMoto, now you can own these photographs yourself, as a full-sized print or postcard. Just click on the buttons underneath each photo. Or, to browse through more striking imagery, go to photos.nwf.org. Enjoy!

Adopt Your Own Wild Animal Baby

Symbolically adopt a baby animal today! Choose from one of 16 adorable baby animals, including a baby elephant, panda, dolphin, polar bear and more.