Rats in your . . . palm?

I know its hard to admit it, but rodents, palms, and fruit trees are almost a separate niche food cycle in the grand scheme of the ecosystem.  Tempt a talented, intelligent, clever, and dexterous rodent with a succulent sweet juicy fruit or ripe palm seed and . . . presto . . . rodents in your back yard.

When we lived in Ft. Lauderdale we had a plethora of palms and fruit trees in our back yard.  I remember a few years back when our best mango tree grew big enough to produce 100's of delicious, tree ripe fruit.  Everyday I walked to the tree to examine the fruit, watching it mature as each precious mango slowly increased in size.  Mentally I had determined that the first fruit should be ripe by the next weekend.  When the day approached I gathered my basket, gloves (allergic to mango skins), and walked out to my prize tree.  Imagine my horror when I found 10-12 beautiful fruits laying in the St. Augustine grass half eaten, the grooves of incisor teeth evident in the mangos.

I looked around trying to determine who the culprits were; surely not rodents in my yard!  Just to make sure I installed a "rodent ring" (see below) to stop anything from climbing my precious tree.  Then I gathered up all the half eaten fruit, walked slowly to the compost pile, cursed quietly under my breath (literary license, I don't curse), and heaved my firstborn on top of the rotting tomatoes, vegetable peels, and turfgrass.  At least I felt confident that I had stopped this problem before any real damage had occurred to my fabulous crop.

The next day I returned to my tree prepared to collect a bountiful harvest of fresh fruit to make into a delicious icy  mango smoothie (before they were even popular).  I warily approached the tree but was confident that my rodent ring would dispense with the previous days mischief.  I was dumbfounded when I saw another 15-20 beautiful half-eaten mangos on the ground.  Hmmmmm!

Later that evening I was sitting on the patio listening to the frogs and mosquitoes when I heard a "plop".  I pulled out my trusty Nikon 7 x 35 binoculars and started scanning the yard.  Suddenly I saw an animal streak (yes he was naked) across a telephone wire until he was about 1.5 meters (5 feet) from the canopy.  With the precision of an acrobat he vaulted from the telephone wire onto my mango.  By this time I figured out who my visitor was,  It was a squirrel with a wonderful bushy tail that expertly helped it keep its balance.  I watched as he went limb to limb, exploring and sniffing every fruit.  Occasionally he would select a perfectly ripe fruit and gnaw through the bitter stem - PLOP!

After about 10 minutes in the canopy, Groucho the squirrel (my kids tend to name our animals) was down in the lower limbs of my mango.  When he was about five feet off the ground he vaulted through the air onto the soft turf.  I could see his toothy reflection in the metal "rodent ring" on his way down!  He strutted over to "his" prized mangos, ate maybe one half of one fruit, then swaggered into the woods behind my property.

Thinking he was going to invite the whole "Groucho" family back for a mango feast I watched on for another 10-15 minutes.  Soon out of the woods came a couple of possums, then a family of raccoons.  The deftly ate the upper half of the mangos (the raccoons actually turned a few over) and when they were full sauntered back into the woods.  All I could think of was, "I wonder how much they paid the squirrel for the fruit feast?"

The moral of the story - don't be embarrassed if you have rodents in your palms or fruit trees.  In most cases you can control them, at the very least they can be entertaining ! ! ! !