Muskrat
Indentification
The muskrat (Ondatra zibethicus) is the largest micro-tine rodent in the United States. It spends its life in aquatic habitats and is well adapted for swimming. Its large hind feet are partially webbed, stiff hairs align the toes, and its laterally flattened tail is almost as long as its body. The muskrat has a stocky appearance, with small eyes and very short, rounded ears. Its front feet, which are much smaller than its hind feet, are adapted primarily for digging and feeding.
The name muskrat, common throughout the animal’s range, derives from the paired perineal musk glands found beneath the skin at the ventral base of the tail in both sexes. These musk glands are used during the breeding season. Musk is secreted on logs or other defecation areas, around houses, bank dens, and trails on the bank to mark the area.
The muskrat has an upper and a lower pair of large, unrooted incisor teeth that are continually sharpened against each other and are well designed for gnawing and cutting vegetation. It has a valvular mouth, which allows the lips to close behind the incisors and enables the muskrat to gnaw while submerged. With its tail used as a rudder and its partially webbed hind feet propelling it in the water, the muskrat can swim up to slightly faster than 3 miles per hour (4.8 kph). When feeding, the muskrat often swims backward to move to a more choice spot and can stay underwater for as long as 20 minutes. Muskrat activity is predominantly nocturnal and crepuscular, but occasional activity may be observed during the day.
Habitat
Muskrats can live almost any place where water and food are available year-round. This includes streams, ponds, lakes, marshes, canals, roadside ditches, swamps, beaver ponds, mine pits, and other wetland areas. In shallow water areas with plentiful vegetation, they use plant materials to construct houses, generally conical in shape. Elsewhere, they prefer bank dens, and in many habitats, they construct both bank dens and houses of vegetation. Both the houses of vegetation
and the bank burrows or dens have several underwater entrances via “runs” or trails. Muskrats often have feeding houses, platforms, and chambers that are somewhat smaller than houses used for dens.
Burrowing activity is the source of the greatest damage caused by muskrats in much of the United States. They damage pond dams, floating Styrofoam marinas, docks and boathouses, and lake shorelines. In states where rice and aquaculture operations are big business, muskrats can cause extensive economic losses. They damage rice culture by burrowing through or into levees as well as by eating substantial amounts of rice and cutting it down for building houses. In waterfowl marshes, population irruptions can cause “eat-out” where aquatic vegetation in large areas is virtually eliminated by muskrats. In some locations, such as in the rice-growing areas of Arkansas, muskrats move from overwintering habitat in canals, drainage ditches, reservoirs, and streams to make their summer homes nearby in flooded rice fields. In aquaculture reservoirs, damage is primarily to levees or pond banks, caused by burrowing.
Damage and Damage Identification
Damage caused by muskrats is primarily due to their burrowing activity. Burrowing may not be readily evident until serious damage has occurred. One way to observe early burrowing in farm ponds or reservoirs is to walk along the edge of the dam or shorelines when the water is clear and look for “runs” or trails from just below the normal water surface to as deep as 3 feet (91 cm). If no burrow entrances are observed, look for droppings along the bank or on logs or structures a muskrat
can easily climb upon. If the pond can be drawn down from 1 1/2 to 3 feet (46 to 91 cm) each winter, muskrat burrows will be exposed, just as they would during extended drought periods. Any burrows found in the dam should be filled, tamped in, and covered with rock to avoid possible washout or, if livestock are using the pond, to prevent injury to a foot or leg.
Where damage is occurring to a crop, plant cutting is generally evident. In aquaculture reservoirs generally maintained without lush aquatic vegetation, muskrat runs and burrows or remains of mussels, crayfish, or fish along with other muskrat signs (tracks or droppings) are generally easy to observe.
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Reginald Murray is a nationally known trapper and professional wildlife management services provider. His knowledge of trapping equipment, wildlife business ethics and professional techniques for the nuisance wildlife control industry is held in the highest regard by his own peers, and yes even his own local competition. He is one of the very few truly Professional Wildlife Control Operators in North America that has been published, and respectfully requested to review regulations before they are implemented.
His company co-owner, wife and partner, Jennifer Murray is also an Oklahoma Certified Nuisance Wildlife Control Operator, and she is the Founder of the Mended Fences Ranch Inc. Non-profit Livestock Rescue organization of Oklahoma.
The vast majority of the OK Wildlife Control, L.L.C. clientele ... comes to us AFTER other companies have failed to provide professional remediation a wildlife issue or situation.
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