[HN Gopher] The Waning Reign of the Muskrat
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The Waning Reign of the Muskrat
Author : Thevet
Score : 132 points
Date : 2024-05-07 05:34 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (hakaimagazine.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (hakaimagazine.com)
| trollerator23 wrote:
| I thought this was about the other Muskrat
| pvarangot wrote:
| Same, I got a pack of cigarettes ready to read the apologist
| comments.
| incangold wrote:
| Went straight to the comments instead of the article and was
| surprised to discover that:
|
| "They'll invite themselves to live in beaver dams and make for
| a vaguely tolerated roommate that helps patch up walls and
| stuff. They're not as good at the big picture stuff as
| beavers."
| Pwntheon wrote:
| Me too. The Elongated kind has had more of a media presence,
| but I prefer the normal one.
| philk10 wrote:
| We have a regular muskrat visitor at our pond in Michigan every
| March, I haven't worked out where it goes the rest of the year
| bitxbitxbitcoin wrote:
| Interesting that there is no mention of the invasive nutria
| perhaps outcompeting them especially in brackish waters.
| pfdietz wrote:
| I believe muskrats are declining outside of areas with nutria
| as well.
| jncfhnb wrote:
| Sad. These guys are really cute. They'll invite themselves to
| live in beaver dams and make for a vaguely tolerated roommate
| that helps patch up walls and stuff. They're not as good at the
| big picture stuff as beavers.
| 082349872349872 wrote:
| Also sad that they're pretty much northern hemisphere[0]. In
| Lima, lush wetlands are a thing[1] but as far as Muskrat Susie
| and Muskrat Sam are concerned, it's not at all where they whirl
| and they twirl and they tango.
|
| [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Muskrat_Range.svg
|
| [1] https://www.ecologisticaperu.com/birding-in-lima-villa-
| wetla...
| james_david wrote:
| The author, Brandon Keim, is a favorite of mine. If you like this
| piece, his book Eye of the Sandpiper is worth checking out.
|
| https://brandonkeim.net/sandpiper
| bayouborne wrote:
| https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501707728/the-...
| james_david wrote:
| Thank you. They must have updated the site as a result of the
| spike in traffic.
| UniverseHacker wrote:
| My son was required to do a report on muskrats for school
| recently, and both him and I knew nothing about them, and were
| shocked by how little info their is- trying to find basic info
| about them online is really hard, they are certainly pretty much
| ignored by people. Ultimately, we were able to find reported
| sightings in iNaturalist, and were able to find them in the wild,
| active at dusk. It was a magical experience for both of us.
| nsguy wrote:
| Anecdotally we used to see them all the time around here
| (Vancouver, BC area) in ponds and sloughs but I haven't seen one
| in a while.
| geye1234 wrote:
| Read this too quickly and thought I would be finding out the
| details of rifling, breech loading, etc.
| giardini wrote:
| They are supposed to be tasty eating.
| LightBug1 wrote:
| That shade!
| pvaldes wrote:
| Nice animal in US, but a cute pest in Europe. Biologists must
| keep killing them to avoid their expansion to new areas. Was
| removed from UK but is not so easy in the continental areas.
|
| The local populations can be decimated by diseases like
| Tularemia. Foxes also kill a lot.
| itsanaccount wrote:
| I live on tens of acres of wetlands. Two 1/4acre ponds, front is
| a marsh.
|
| The muskrat damage constructed pond shores, but what they create
| is a low maybe 1 foot deep shoulder where their holes erode dirt
| onto the pond slope, which is excellent for wildlife. Its the
| area herons stalk for prey and fish breed. In my case my ponds
| are very secure with mud banks, so not being worried about leaks
| I decided to leave the muskrat. They are very cute. That was a
| few years back.
|
| One spring I found 3-4 bodies washed up, possibly from Tularemia.
| More moved back in, and the spring we went from 2 to 6
| individuals, and all the plants started to disappear. The reading
| I did said muskrat are very much a meta-population like the
| article mentions. In absence of predators, they will eat a place
| bare until it can no longer feed them and then migrate.
|
| Close to the house I've now adopted a slow reduction with a rifle
| (non-lead rounds) to offset my imbalance of protecting them from
| predators. The pond shore damage hasn't stopped so they're still
| there but it has slowed enough to have time to get out with a
| wheelbarrow and fix the holes. Plants are doing fine.
|
| In a similar balance I shot a pair of extremely large snapping
| turtles two years ago after learning large snappers have no
| predators, and we now have a new population of tiny turtles (~4
| different species so far). I'm never happy to kill anything, but
| hopefully in these two cases I'm performing my steward role
| adequately.
| dboreham wrote:
| We had a family of muskrat come live in our pond a number of
| years ago. It took a while to realize they were there: "wtf is
| that thing swimming around in the pond that's not a duck or a
| bear?" They dug a pretty serious hole in the bank that was
| risking draining the pond. Haven't seen one since though.
| gerbyzation wrote:
| Grew up in the Dutch countryside with it's polders, water mills,
| dykes and extensive network of water. Muskrats thrive in this
| sort of area, but are rather not welcome as unmanaged they'd pose
| a thread to life with their tunnelling of watersides and dykes.
| When I was a kid my dad used to work for the government
| department responsible for curbing the population of muskrat -
| known as "muskrat-catchers". Joined him occasionally on his treks
| through the countryside to check all the traps and cages so this
| brings up some childhood memories. Surprising topic to come
| across on HN!
| DevKoala wrote:
| My friends call Elon Musk, Muskrat. I thought this was a
| chronicle about the decline of Tesla.
| adonovan wrote:
| In a museum in Canada I noticed a grammar book of the Eskimo
| language, which is agglutinative. The examples illustrating what
| this meant started with the word for "muskrat", and got
| progressively more complex, finally ending with the word (yes,
| word) for "he will never hunt muskrat the same way again", which
| sounded to me like the beginning of a beautiful fireside legend.
| tyjen wrote:
| We see muskrats swimming along our shoreline at least once a
| week. They're very skittish and once you spook them into the
| water, they don't pop back up within visible range. I think
| they're relatively uncommon around here due to most properties
| installing anti-erosion structures along their shorelines--a
| seawall or riprap with metal mesh. Also, we still have a healthy
| amount of predators, eagles, hawks, foxes, raccoons, pollutants
| and speeding cars.
|
| Sad to see the clear decline in muskrat numbers.
| RoyalHenOil wrote:
| They were common in the area where I grew up, but I only ever
| saw one (despite being a very outdoorsy kid). It was being
| attacked by a mink, and they were both too busy with the task
| to take notice of me.
| arnavpraneet wrote:
| I thought this was about Elon Musk for a second
| trollerator23 wrote:
| I think lots of us did hehe. But I'm glad it wasn't for a
| change.
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