Rats!

The problem with rats is they have no fear

of human beings…they would run the

place given half the chance…”

– Sir David Attenborough

When I opened the door, the little guy stayed put. I had to shake him out. He froze for a moment on the desert floor, took a quick glance at what he thought was a large predator preparing to make a meal of him, and scurried off, disappearing into the cactus and underbrush.

"Yeah," I said almost as an afterthought. "And don't come back!"

I smiled to myself, almost hoping he would survive, hopped back in the car and headed home.

How this started…

The leaves on the miniature grapefruit tree had begun to disappear. Actually, that had not been the beginning. The Agave plant lost a couple of its leaves, gnawed through and except for a few small pieces under a Yucca plant in the back yard, they disappeared. PACK RATS!!

When we first moved to the desert, there was a family of them living under one of the Yucca’s in our back yard. These pesky creatures will scavenge practically anything from plastic, old wood and plant material, to build their nests. They are unrelenting, and if an opening can be found, will get into the outer walls of your home to live.

We asked around and were told rat traps were the ticket. I have a long history of hating to kill things, but it seemed it was the best way to manage this destructive situation. Sparing the details, I sucked it up, and within a couple of weeks, the family was dispatched. All was well in our little back yard.

As a preventive measure, we trimmed the Yuccas so that there was no place to hide underneath their long and human-unfriendly leaves.

Back to the present…

When the Agave leaves began to disappear, we made the decision to set the traps again. For the uninitiated, rat traps are NOT mouse traps. They look like mouse traps on steroids. They are big, the springs very powerful, and like their ‘mousey counterparts’ have hair triggers.

Rats, on the other hand, are smart. The first go was cheese. Rats visiting our back yard do NOT like cheese, or at least our rats do not. Peanut butter, we were told…that’s the ticket. So peanut butter it was. There is little doubt rats love the stuff. They also apparently are able to ‘lick the platter clean’ without setting off the traps! That didn’t work!

If confession is good for the soul, in spite of their destructive nature, I was kind of glad we didn’t kill the little guys. Yeah, I know, Molly doesn’t get it either.

The grapefruit tree…

When the leaves began to disappear, we decided we needed a different approach. It wasn't just the leaves near the bottom, but whole ‘new growth' branches began to disappear. While there were more than sixty grapefruit ripening on the thing, it started to look like it was being given a haircut by some mysterious cosmic barber.

Since we had been outsmarted by the rat pack, we decided to get one of those 'catch and release' cages. For those reading this that hate these little creatures, I completely get it. I don't like them either. They seem to have only two missions in life: procreate and destroy property to build their nests. In both cases they are prolific. Unfortunately there don't appear to be enough carnivores in the desert to keep their populations down, so getting rid of them by whatever means is an absolute necessity. 

An aside: After talking to desert plant experts, destruction of the upper part of our little grapefruit tree was probably the work of bighorn sheep. A couple of years ago, they were reintroduced into the Catalina Mountains near our home. There have been recent sightings of them in our part of town. We found some hoof prints on the outside of our five-foot high wall. Apparently, that is not much of a barrier for a hungry jumping sheep.

At any rate, the trap was set - peanut butter placed on a small platform in the front of the cage. I put it in the backyard on a chilly desert night and retreated to the house wondering whether these little beasts would get the peanut butter and defeat the trap.

Success…

In the morning, there was a pretty good-sized rat in the cage wandering back and forth looking for an escape. Not so my safely held captive. I realize these guys are exceedingly destructive, and I appreciate that if you get near them (as in the confines of a cage) they will gnaw on any digit that gets close - think George Orwell’s 1984. In spite of all of this, he was kind of cute.

He and I were going for a drive into the desert…a drive of no return for one of us. I asked Molly if she wanted to come. The answer was an abrupt "No!" She did, however, put newspaper on the floor of the front seat of the car, in case the little fellow had an accident during our trip.

After driving several miles to a state park, we parted company as earlier described. It was going to be up to him to find a way to survive in his new environs. There was not a house in sight!

Possibly the bigger issue is those bighorn sheep. I’m not certain how we are going to deal with them.

I wonder if they like peanut butter?

- ted