Tag: Coypu Saga

What to do with the Cornered Coypu?

~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

I have been out chasing it around the pond a bit. I have learned that Coypu do not like leaf blowers. It is a fairly humane way to move the critter around. It swam back to the pond side near the river and under the bank overhang. It seemed practiced and I have marked the bank where it went under. It sat there nose poking out for a while. It was sniffing the leaf blower. We had prolonged eye to eye contact.

I will check the bank for burrow entrance digging there…later.

In an ideal world the coypu will pop back into the river over night and not return. That is the win from my perspective.

I could try to stake it or batter it. But that is not humane nor to my taste. The French have suggested that we eat it.

We could call the hunters and they might shoot it.

I’ll stick the trail camera out later to see what it does.

I know its preferred hiding places now and how to flush it out with the leaf blower. So I can check if it is there tomorrow.

I don’t want to scare it shitless when it is cornered in the pond and by the electric fence. I just wish it would go away of its own accord. I have no plans to kill it….

I don’t want to bash its brains out…

I don’t want it eating our lotus shoots.

I don’t want to get bitten by those teeth…

Hmnn…

Coypu Saga – Next Episode

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On checking the electric fence I can see the point of ingress last night where it twisted the strands in shock..

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I walked around the pond to see if the little bastard was still here.

I disturbed it…see the bubbles…

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Fuck you human…centre frame…

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I walked around the pond for more evidence…

mid-sized adolescent Coypu turds.

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The little sod has eaten a lotus root

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I made a lot of noise and hit the bank with a rake near where it was hiding.

This scared it off into water….

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I left it hiding under the bank near the river. This is where they burrowed before.

After lunch I am back out trying to scare him back into the river.

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Daft Coypu

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Over the years we have had an on and off struggle with the  Coypu or Nutria which live wild as an invasive species here. The little buggers eat the lotuses and irises when the shoots are young and cause the pond to leak by tunnelling into the pond bank. They have damaged the normal fence.

I have a five strand electric fence running along our river “border”. I don’t mind papa Coypu eating the bamboo shoots on the far bank. In general they do not cross the bridge. In winter the Coypu come. Usually in spring and summer there is enough food elsewhere.

This morning as I was emptying the food waste from yesterday into the composters by the green house. I had the thought, “I do not need to check if the Coypu have tried to breach the electric fence…”

I looked over towards the pond and river. There, not more than four metres from me, on the grass between the pond and the greenhouse was a Coypu “hiding” in the grass. Usually when they see me they run and “plop” into the pond. I stood staring at the Coypu and it stared at me. It was sniffing the air. I was making a noise and whistling. It did not move. Was it on ketamine or GHB? Was it a daft Coypu? If I had a rake I could easily twat it.

I went inside to fetch the wife thinking that the little bugger would have moved by the time I got back.

No it was still sat there a couple of minutes later. We looked at it. I clapped and it turned towards the sound. Gandalf the stray cat joined us meowing loudly. The Coypu did not move.

Best guess is that it made it through the electric fence and got shocked in the process. It is now too traumatised to risk it going back into the river.

I don’t want the little bugger making home in the garden

So when I have finished my coffee I will boot up, put my boots on, and try to run the blighter off.

It is an adolescent near maturity, hopefully not female what with randy papa Coypu lurking.

I’ll take the camera with.

It is pretty weird to be close enough to a wild animal to see its nostril flare and stare eye to eye…

It is possible that it is somehow injured…or just frozen with fear…

If we call the hunters they will take a while to get here…with their guns…

Obsessive About Coypu – Moi?

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The little buggers came through the electric fence and got shocked as evidenced by a disturbed fence. They tried for an alternate exit and failed. They got shocked twice. So they are getting acustomed. The less expensive option before buying a 2.8 Joule energiser is to put in an extra barrier. From the tracks in the mud it was the Coypu twins last night.

This what they do to our lotuses. Taken this morning.

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Last year they were deterred and we had a magnificent display of lotuses. We need deterrence before spring.

So I laid another strand of defence right on the river bank where they come in.

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They will get double whammy before they get to their dinner.

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Two shocks in quick succession might deter…

Otherwise I am going to start looking on line for some second hand lasers and mirrors…

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Gandalf Likes Chicken Jalfrezi…

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As part of the morning routine, I take any waste and the coffee grounds out to the composters. I usually leave the pot and the cafetiere there and go to check the marker / witness sticks around the pond. We need to get the coypu situation sorted before the lotuses start.

Yesterday I had some leftover chicken jalfrezi in a saucepan. The recipe contains turmeric, paprika and tomatoes. I left the saucepan on top of the composter and did my rounds. Now Gandalf is the young female stray cat. She is both grey and white and hence her name. Gandalf the grey battled the Balrog underground and as consequence was reborn as Gandalf the white. Her white fur is very white.

When I got back from my rounds, she was there on top of the composter with her head in the saucepan licking the jalfrezi sauce. She picked up some smears of yellow-orange sauce on her face. There is still some residual colour this morning. Turmeric can be difficult to shift. She seemed to like the jalfrezi. What about vindaloo? That remains to be seen.

As a result, I have had to change my routine and not leave pots on the composter.

This morning’s round reveals that the dastardly coypu twins have found / made a new hole in the fence. The witness sticks near that hole have been moved. The ones near the electric fence remain relatively untouched.

I have 25m of fencing with 2mm thick wire arriving later this week. This afternoon there is no rain and we are predicted the dizzy heights of 7 °C. So, I shall rewire the electric fence to be a four strand fence with 4-5 cm gaps between strands. I’ll popover into the swamp and the DMZ in the neighbouring wild and strim their side of the fence.

That means when the new fencing arrives, I am good to go…

Two Hour Coypu Fence Assault

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Yesterday I made a temporoary repair to a new hole in the fence. Which you can see in the footage below.

The coypu twins arrived at 3:30 AM and were at the fence until 5:45 AM. I have forty 15 second clips of them chewing and digging.

Look at the size of the teeth on this little bugger.

The three strand electric fence has been disturbed and the witness sticks away from the fence near this corner have been moved.

My guess is they gave up on the wire fence and risked the electrice fence as dawn approached. Having been shocked they went in the pond away from the electricity.

I’ll probably put a fourth strand in the electric fence this afternoon.

The local farm store sells a battery operated electrificator which has 2.8 Joule pulses at ten thousand volts. That is more than a factor of ten higher…

Might be worth a hundred euros…

I have ordered some more fencing to repair where there are other holes.

The Coypu Saga Continues…

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Over the last few days, the river has been in flood and flowing very quickly. Previously we have had no Coypu visits when it has been like that. So, I put the trail cam outside my office to confirm the re-appearance of the new hefty tom cat. Sure enough, he visited and sniffed the pissing tree during the night. He is probably not feral as he looks very well fed.

This morning, I inspected the electric fence in the corner of the property. The fence had been interfered with and some of the wires had slipped their guides.

Here is what a big Coypu does when it gets shocked {from February last year}. Turn up the volume. You can see an earthing spark in the infrared images.

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As you can see the Coypu jumps, grunts and disturbs the fence. I am reasonably sure that something got shocked last night. BUT the witness sticks at two point of ingress into the pond were untouched.

So, I have repositioned the camera for tonight and placed witness sticks at all the points of entry into the pond.

Perhaps we have deterrence, perhaps not.

Maybe I can put some antipigeon spikes on the wall to the right in the video above, down by the river… if the blighters are accepting the shock for a nice midnight snack….

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