Practical nature tips for people who give a shit
Can you keep a pet opossum? In most of the United States, no. Keeping a Virginia opossum as a pet is illegal in more than half the states, and no permit will change that. A smaller group allows it with a permit, and a short list of states, including Arkansas, Wisconsin, Idaho, and a handful of others, allows it with The post Why a Pet Opossum Almost Never Works Out, Even Where It s Legal appeared…
If you want raccoons gone, the move that actually works is the one nobody wants to hear: find what they re eating and how they re getting in, then take both away. Remove the food source, seal the entry point, and the raccoon leaves on its own because your property stopped being worth the trip. Everything else, the ammonia rags, the ultrasonic The post How to Get Rid of Raccoons Without Trapping…
Deer eat milkweed. They don t love it, they won t always touch it, but they eat it, and the gardener who planted three butterfly weed plants for the monarchs and found them chewed to the crown by June is not imagining things. Milkweed gets sold as a plant deer leave alone. The truth is closer to a plant deer usually leave The post Deer and Milkweed: Why Deer-Resistant Doesn t Mean Deer-Proof…
Owls do eat snakes, and the more interesting question is how they manage it, particularly with venomous species, where the obvious follow-up is whether a rattlesnake or copperhead poses any real danger to a bird hunting it from above. The short version: owls say yes to snakes, and the venom isn t the problem it might seem. The longer version involves The post Yes, Owls Eat Snakes. Even The…
Let s be absolutely clear: owls are not out to get you. But they re not completely harmless if you wander into the wrong patch of woods. Both things are true, and the space between them is worth understanding. Owl attacks on humans are genuinely rare in the sense that the vast majority of people who spend time outdoors near owls are The post Are Owls Dangerous? When They Attack, Why, and What to…
Wait, is it possum or opossum? Both are correct. Which one applies depends entirely on which animal you re talking about, and most people in North America are casually using the wrong one without knowing it. The animal most Americans encounter in their yards, the one that plays dead, hisses dramatically when startled, and occasionally raids the compost, is technically an The post Possum vs.…
Raccoons have plenty of natural predators. Coyotes, great horned owls, bobcats, red-tailed hawks, and in Florida even alligators all take raccoons regularly. The reason your neighborhood raccoon population doesn t seem affected by any of this is simpler than it might appear: most of those predators don t live where raccoons have learned to thrive. Raccoons have few natural enemies left in The post…
Milkweed is not illegal to grow in most of the United States. That s the short answer, and for the vast majority of homeowners and gardeners in most states, it s the complete answer. The more interesting story is why people are searching for this question in the first place — because there s a real, legitimate legal history here that got oversimplified The post Milkweed Laws Explained: When…
The conversation around planting milkweed for monarchs has produced something that was probably inevitable: a huge amount of people doing the right thing for the wrong reason, with the wrong plant. Walk into any garden center in spring and you ll find tropical milkweed (Asclepias curassavica) stacked prominently near the entrance, bright orange-and-red flowers, vigorous and easy. Monarchs will…
Most people who plant cardinal flower think of it as a hummingbird attractor. That framing is accurate, but incomplete. The ruby-throated hummingbird doesn t visit cardinal flower because it s a pretty red flower that happens to be nearby. It visits because these two species have co-evolved over millions of years into something that functions almost like a contract: the flower provides The post…