Bill would allow year around trapping of coons and possums

[CritterCatcher]

I ate at Baby Jo's in Winfield last night and there were a couple of Game Wardens eating there as well. While they were waiting for their food, I went over and asked them about this. They said it goes into effect on July 1. So, there is your answer @backhometrapper. Just a couple more weeks, and have at it.

 

[jrickman]

This is definitely needed, if my anecdotal experience is anything close to reality. I do most of my stomping around in Habersham, Stephens, and Rabun counties and you just about trip over them now up here. I live in town and have to deal with them more now than I ever did years ago when I lived out in the boondocks. Not only are they more populous, they are getting pretty bold. Possums have always been that way, feeling free to wander right up to a house and snoop around, but I had a coon looking at me through the window from my porch roof one night not that long ago. If coons are coming out of the woods and scouting out houses on the regular, you can bet they are doing it because there's a crowd out in the woods eating everything in sight. My uncle pointed this out to me several years ago, and said then that between coons, yotes, and tree huggers, wild turkeys up here would be like grouse in a decade.

 

[crackerdave]

The feral pigs are "hogging" all the food!
They're the ones who need trapping year round. Possums eat ticks! They're good guys.

 

[cowhornedspike]

The feral pigs are "hogging" all the food!
They're the ones who need trapping year round. Possums eat ticks! They're good guys.

Possums eat lots of things in abundance and ticks isn't one of them. That's a made up story by the "animal lover" crowd. They eat chickens, eggs, turkey eggs, dead stuff, and maybe a tick or two if it happens to crawl into their mouth.

 

[Nicodemus]

Possums eat lots of things in abundance and ticks isn't one of them. That's a made up story by the "animal lover" crowd. They eat chickens, eggs, turkey eggs, dead stuff, and maybe a tick or two if it happens to crawl into their mouth.

Yep. Possums ain`t gonna waste the energy to purposely hunt ticks.

 

[crackerdave]

Yep. Possums ain`t gonna waste the energy to purposely hunt ticks.

Maybe I just need a flock of guineas.Whatcha think,Nick?

 

[Nicodemus]

Maybe I just need a flock of guineas.Watcha think,Nick?

Just holler at me when you want them brutally murdered.

 

[crackerdave]

Just holler at me when you want them brutally murdered.

Will do...we'll have a guinea-killin party!?

 

[Doug B.]

Possums eat lots of things in abundance and ticks isn't one of them. That's a made up story by the "animal lover" crowd. They eat chickens, eggs, turkey eggs, dead stuff, and maybe a tick or two if it happens to crawl into their mouth.

I would guess that turkeys probably eat more ticks than possums do!

 

[crackerdave]

I would guess that turkeys probably eat more ticks than possums do!

Anything that eats ticks is a friend of mine!

 

[C.Killmaster]

Yep. Possums ain`t gonna waste the energy to purposely hunt ticks.

The whole "possums eat lots of ticks" came from a lab study where they were experimentally putting ticks on possums for disease transmission work or something. However, I guess possums like to groom and they consumed every tick that was put on them. From there either the researchers and/or media incorrectly extrapolated that possums are all out there cleaning the woods of thousands of ticks.

 

[ucfireman]

I had outdoor cats a while back. I kept food out for them, the opossums would come around every night to eat the food. No big deal.
But I still had bunches of ticks and there were a good many opossums that were local. So take what you will.