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Tallahassee Democrat (FL) Springtime brings wildlife out of hiding
The wild animals creep out when spring arrives. Predators and foragers, warmblooded and cold, turning up in all sorts of unexpected places. Hawks hunt rats from church-steeple perches, raccoons sneak into kitchens and bears sometimes lumber through downtown streets. Reminders that Tallahassee's a city not quite out of the woods yet. And there's no telling how many there are each year. Usually, people report encounters only if the animal's sick or becoming a nuisance. City and county animal-control officers handle the rabid ones and refer the rest to the state or private trappers. But even those add up. Todd Nims, a state wildlife biologist, said he took nearly 1,000 reports in this part of Florida last year. The majority was from Tallahassee and the surrounding county. "I get just about every kind of call you can imagine," Nims said. Raccoons - those furry, dexterous little burglars - are the most common. They'll pry lids off trash cans for table scraps, break into screened porches to get pet food. Even push right through the doggie door, brazen as you please, and start feeding from the cat's dish. That seems to be a favorite. Their larcenous habits don't always go over very well. Jon Johnson, who runs the St. Francis Wildlife Refuge, said he gets complaints almost daily about the city raccoons. They typically stay outside, like the one he had to trap last week at a San Luis apartment building. But not all of them are so polite - he also has to take more than a dozen uninvited raccoons out of homes each year, he said. But they're basically harmless, if left alone. Best advice when raccoons become pests? Lock up the food. Maybe stop using the pet door. "If you can take away why they're coming there, they'll stop coming," Johnson said. "Trapping is the last resort." Good neighbors Believe it or not, Tallahassee is also a haven for foxes. Lots of them. "There are healthy populations all over town," Johnson said. And they have expensive tastes in locations - preferring to live mostly around golf courses. "Here's an open area, with water, and plenty of vegetation around the edges with rabbits and mice," Johnson said. "It's their best hunting opportunity." People tend to be more concerned about foxes because of their size, afraid they might carry off a small family pet. But it's not likely, according to the wildlife experts. They become aggressive only if they're rabid, as was the case with a fox that bit two people at Florida State University last year. Otherwise, the healthy ones make good neighbors. And that's what Nims told a woman from Tallahassee last week when she called to report a fox sighting. "Foxes do extremely well around people," Nims said. "They don't mind living in their back yards." Leave it to beavers A few more: Possums, with their penchant for getting run over by cars. Armadillos, the notorious reputed yard maulers. Snakes, always good for a scream from the bathroom in the middle of the night. And beavers. Yep, right here in the city. They're spotted most often around the larger lakes, but a pair of them have been causing a little mischief near Florida State University lately. Johnson said they've taken up residence in a holding pond on Chapel Drive, across from Osceola Hall. They chewed down the new trees planted there and keep trying to dam up a drainage ditch that runs under the road. But at least all they eat is trees. The same can't be said for the coyotes infiltrating parts of south Tallahassee. There have been sightings from the SouthWood development over to the airport. "They'll go through a neighborhood, and they'll get every cat," Johnson said. And "maybe some small dogs, too." The farther you go from the center of town, the bigger the animals get. Killearn Lakes, for example. Deer are a regular sight in the neighborhoods there, grazing on lawns and paying little mind to cars or people. Wayfaring bears And then, there are the bears. Nims said they show up every summer. Lesley Taylor was housesitting for a friend last June when she had her encounter. She and her boyfriend walked out of the house on Thomasville Road, a little north of Killearn, and got into their car. It was dark, and the headlights picked picked up a shape. A black bear, calm as could be. "It was just walking toward Thomasville Road," said Taylor, 28. "I was so worried that he'd get hit by a car." There was a fence between the property and the road. No problem for the bear. It stood up on two legs and went right over, disappearing on the other side. "It was really cool," she said. "My boyfriend and I just looked at each other and said, 'Was that really a bear?'" More than likely. Nims said he received almost two dozen bear reports in and around Tallahassee in June. He thinks there were three bears - one in the county, just west of the city limits; one around the area of Taylor's sighting; and one that slowly made its way from Miccosukee all the way to downtown Tallahassee. Within just a couple of blocks of the Capitol. "You could literally follow them by the calls I was getting," he said. "It's amazing where they can hide. "And I'll bet you money it'll happen this year, too." Wildlife? Not exactly Meanwhile, there's one final Tallahassee animal that isn't exactly wildlife, but still requires the occasional attention of the Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission. Rats. Nims said he had a call in December from a woman who'd seen "a brown animal with spiked fur and a short, scaly tail." The woman asked if he'd seen the movie, "Gremlins." Then, "she swore up and down there was a gremlin sitting on the ledge of her house," Nims said. "I was at a loss."
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