The pack rat compulsively cares for the nest, constantly trimming off pieces of cholla and leaving them lying around, a sure sign that the nest is active.
Well, I started getting these little calling cards in the garage. Instead of fresh green bits of cholla, these were old dry ones, the best he could find in the garage, but I knew exactly what it meant. It meant a pack rat was living out of sight in the garage. And my car was only a few steps away. I opened the hood and here's what I found in the engine compartment. I've seen too many pictures of cars left parked and undriven for a couple of months with engines that were totally covered with bits of cacti, engines that had virtually become nests.
That's when I brought out the HAVAHART trap, spent about an hour trying to figure how it worked, and after a few trials and errors, caught the angelic looking creature you saw in the first picture in this blog on pack rats. It would need to be taken at least a mile away or it would return. We drove for at least a mile, and began looking for a spot to release it.
It's not as easy as it sounds; a mile from our house is another house, and a mile from that house is still another house. As good neighbors, we wouldn't want to leave it by somebody else's garage, especially knowing if we got caught they would come after us with a posse. We finally parked by a place that was at least a few feet more than a mile beyond the closest house, and I tried to look like I was examining a tire while car after car drove suspiciously by. Finally there was a gap, I pitched the rat out and we raced for home.
We're still waiting for it to return.
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