Delta’s four legged Wildlife
When considering the four legged wildlife we have in the Delta region, the animals (considered to be pests) that I encounter most are raccoons, skunks, squirrels and rats. Each has their distinct territories, life spans and unique social life characteristics.
-Raccoon’s life expectancy in the wild is between 1 to 3 years. Territorial sizes vary anywhere from 3 hectares for females and many times that for males. Related females often share a common range, while unrelated males live together in clusters of up to four to maintain their positions against foreign males during the mating period. Two to five kits are born in spring with one to two surviving to adulthood.
-Skunks are twilight creatures that are solitary animals when not breeding, although they may gather in communal dens for warmth. Males and females occupy overlapping home ranges through the greater part of the year, typically 200 hectares for females and 10 times that for males. Over winter, multiple females huddle together; males often den alone. Litters usually average 4-8 kits and their usual life expectancy is 2 to 4 years.
-Squirrels come in two forms: ground-dwelling and tree-dwellers. The ground dweller species are social animals, often living in well-developed colonies that are quite territorial and will chase others away and have fairly violent altercations between themselves. The tree-dwelling species are more solitary. Females produce litter sizes from one to five kits, twice a year. Most squirrels die in the first year of life although an adult squirrel can have a lifespan of 1 to 5 years. Mating squirrels can be very physical and will bite and injure each other.
-Rats, aside from mosquitoes, are the number one carriers and transmitters of diseases to humans. Rats are territorial animals acting aggressively to strange rats. A female rat can mate as many as 500 times with various males during a six-hour period, 15 times per year. Therefore a pair of rats can produce as many as 2,000 descendants in a year if left to breed unchecked. Life expectancy for a rat is very short, 95 percent of rats die within one year and the average adult life span is 1 to 2 years. A 2-year-old rat would be around 60 years old in human terms.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/deltas-four-legged-wildlife-randy-bilesky?published=t
http://www.delta-optimist.com/opinion/blogs/blog-delta-s-four-legged-wildlife-1.2371190
