Wild animal co-existence

A free online booklet has been published by the California Division of Fish and Wildlife. Its title is A Gardener's Guide to Preventing Deer Damage:

https://nrm.dfg.ca.gov/FileHandler.ashx?DocumentID=83544&inline

You may be able to find a similar publication from your own equivalent state or national government office.

Another recommendation:
http://www.humanegardener.com/

An outstanding guide, mostly oriented toward non-lethal methods, when bears live in your environment:

http://icwdm.org/handbook/carnivor/black_bears.asp

It's an ongoing challenge. Biggest threat to our vegetable patch is a big troop of baboons who pass our house every morning and evening while foraging. We have a solar-powered electric fence around the garden and a pair of big dogs, but the baboons circle, constantly looking for a way in. The wild grazing animals (mainly zebra, Thomson's gazelle, dikdik, eland and mountain reedbuck in our vicinity) haven't managed to penetrate yet, but it's nice watching them graze outside our fence. The domestic cows, sheep and goats get through the outer chain link fence occasionally, probably with help from their herders, but not the electric fence. We leave half our land unfenced to allow the local community and wild animals to graze on it. We've lost a chicken to the baboons, and had a snake in the hen house recently. There's a leopard in the vicinity but it hasn't troubled us as we don't have livestock apart from the ducks and chickens. When we start breeding them and have small chicks and ducklings we'll also have to watch out for the larger raptors, mainly eagles, buzzards and kites.

One measure I plan to take when I get the chance is to do a snake identification and handling course, so I'm better able to deal with snakes without killing them.

Our campaign against the spirochaete Borrelia burgdorferi responsible for Lyme Disease mostly consists of keeping rodent and tick populations in check. We try to discourage mice with landscape choices (below) and welcoming snakes and weasels, etc., but I'm afraid more active means are occasionally necessary.

To keep mice tick-free, last year I scattered homemade tick tubes (cardboard tubes stuffed with permethrin-sprayed cotton balls = mouse bedding that acts like a flea collar) around our yard and garden shed, and critters certainly collected them. We found a couple of softball-sized, cotton-lined mouse nests. Treated cotton balls disappeared within hours from garden shed. The lawn often sported a cotton ball or two: we joked that the mice must have a soccer league. Lots of deer pass through our yard, so tick control will be an ongoing challenge.

The chem in my tick tubes, permethrin (originally derived from chrysanthemums), is very toxic to invertebrates (incl ticks) and fish, and much less so to birds and mammals (except cats). Still, it's a good idea for mammals and birds to avoid contact with LIQUID permethrin (gloves, ventilation) and to keep it away from cats. (I understand cats are safe once stuff has dried--they live safely with dogs wearing flea collars--but cats can be harmed/killed by contact with wet permethrin.) Uses of permethrin include pre-treating clothing, dog flea collars, spider spray on coastal houses, horse dips, bird houses (blow-flies), scabies and lice treatment for people.

Some resources:
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Connecticut, where the disease was first documented, has a comprehensive guide to ticks (84 p PDF http://www.ct.gov/caes/lib/caes/documents/publications/bulletins/b1010.pdf )" with a section on "integrated tick management" including non-chemical landscape management tips, etc.
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Mfr of "tick tubes": manual, study, safety data sheet, FAQ

The Comprehensive Deer Tick Control Manual
Strategies and Techniques for the Control of Lyme Disease Carrying Ticks
EcoHealth, Inc. Boston, Massachusetts
40 pages
http://www.ticktubes.com/downloads/deertickmanual.pdf

Surveillance
Landscape Management
Targeted Chemical Control
Personal Protection
Cultural Practices

http://www.ticktubes.com/downloads/ticktubes_fire_island_study.pdf
study on effectiveness of commercial product, Damminix, in Long Island NY neighborhood, where Lyme is big problem

http://www.ticktubes.com/msds.html
Damminix tick tube Safety Data Sheet

http://www.ticktubes.com/faq.html
Damminix FAQ
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DIY tick tubes:

http://wrightroadjournal.weebly.com/blog/how-to-make-tick-tubes

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DIY tick tubes:

http://organicdailypost.com/make-tick-tubes/

Interesting article...ours is the least manicured lawn in the neighborhood. We don't use fertilizer, water, or herbicides. We do mow close to the house, especially--to discourage Lyme-bearing ticks. One section we don't mow until July, so fawns are born there and blackbirds at least seem to nest. Then we mow to break the flowering cycle of the noxious, invasive biennial, Wild Parsnip. After 10 years of this, the Wild Parsnip is largely gone, but so are most of the wildflowers and biodiversity--bees, butterflies, birds. Now that the Wild Parsnip is almost vanquished, need to rethink our strategy, although invasive Phragmites and Dog-Strangling Vine (Swallow-wort) are on either side of us...

Lawns are an Ecological Disaster
Ian Graber-Stiehl | May 18, 2018
https://earther.com/lawns-are-an-ecological-disaster-1826070720

April 2019: Deer avoid peonies. So we will start looking for peonies at plant nurseries. Link:

https://www.southernliving.com/garden/flowers/peony-facts-bloom-season-symbolism...

There are only a few plants I've ever noticed that are prone to deer snacking at my wild place. Tulips, oak-leaf hydrangea and persimmon buds; but the last only very early in spring, when there's not much forage yet. I've got lengths of woven wire that are easy to use as barriers as needed.

What plants do you find are vulnerable?

Almost all edible plants are snack food for deer in NorCal. And they can jump a fence up to six feet tall. However, now that Spring has sprung, they have other things to eat as well. Part of our deer problem is that are few mountain lions in Mendocino county these last 10 years or so; I've only heard of "one" sighting in that time. Historically, there were a few more than "one."

At the top of this thread, there is a link that explains how to avoid deer damage. And when I recommend a book in our Zeitgeist thread that lists any deer-resistant plants, I give some examples there of what those book contents recommend.

I was recently surprised by the amount of snacking that our deer recently enjoyed from our olive tree sapling, so we moved it into our sunroom. C'est la vie.

Wildlife conservation in South Sudan (UNMISS)

In South Sudan, conflict has impacted the rich wildlife, flora, & landscapes. Nicholas Haysom, Head of the UN Peacekeeping mission, UNMISS, undertook an aerial trip to assess ways to use conservation efforts as a peacebuilding tool...

While elsewhere in East Africa, Tanzania Evicting the Maasai “in violation of existing agreements” (ACI Africa):

The government of Tanzania has orchestrated the eviction of the Maasai from their ancestral land in a move that violates “existing agreements”, the leadership of the Catholic peace and charity foundation, Denis Hurley Peace Institute (DHPI), has said... the Director of DHPI, Johan Viljoen confirmed the existence of “treaties and agreements” that have given the Maasai the right to settle in the neighborhood of “a World Heritage site” and faulted the government of the East African nation for going as far as using “live ammunition” in the eviction process... the situation of the Maasai in the Ngorongoro area of Tanzania is a “litmus test for the land- and cultural rights of hundreds of indigenous communities across Africa being forcefully and violently driven off their ancestral lands to make way for hunting and safari operators”...

The Maasai are noted for their tradition of coexistence with the local wildlife, and we often see zebra and Thomson's gazelle grazing peacefully in close proximity to (and sometimes intermingled with) Maasai cattle.

A short video of Bandingilo National Park, South Sudan - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyEzo-_KIfA&t=352s

South Sudan is home to the second largest animal migration in the world, second only to the more well-known Serengeti migration of wildebeest in Kenya and Tanzania. It's estimated that around 800,000 white-eared kob take part in the annual migration, as well as other animals such as tiang, but I'm told they suspect that after the count is complete it may even surpass the Serengeti. I was once flying over the area in a small plane and the pilot asked us if we'd like to see the kob. We said yes, of course, so he flew us low over herds made up of thousands of them. Very impressive.