Where the Wild Things are
As development continues to encroach on natural habitat, coastal residents are more frequently crossing paths with wildlife
By Patricia V. Rivera

From the sound of the growling and yelping, Keith Dawson expected to see two dogs engaged in a battle of wills. But as he came closer to the commotion, he saw the pointed ears, bushy tail and reddish coat of a fox facing off with a leashed dog. The dog’s owner stood paralyzed as the fox and the dog brawled.

Dawson, a rural mail carrier working in a community just north of Rehoboth Beach, looked around in his mail truck for something he could use to scare off the wild animal. With few other options, he grabbed a heavy box, ran out and took aim.

“I knew I had just one chance and that I had to throw it hard,” he recalls. And he did, knocking down the fox long enough for the dog to run home to lick his wounds. The fox rose and walked away. The dog had only minor cuts.

The rise of development over the last decade has shrunk the swamps, marshes and woods of coastal Delaware, forcing wildlife into frequent encounters with people, and with domestic animals.

Most of these encounters are peaceful and pleasant. Backyard birdfeeders may be populated with less common species; a startled fawn may lift its head and stare at a passerby before bolting off into the woods on spindly legs. However, some human-wildlife interactions, like the one Dawson observed, leave people with shaky legs and, often, injured pets.

In the heart of downtown Lewes in November, for example, a woman and her dog walked out of their Mulberry Street house and were attacked by a blur of black and white. A skunk latched onto her leg, bit her arm and scratched her through her pants. The skunk, which turned out to be rabid, also bit the dog, an English setter. The dog had up-to-date rabies shots. The woman recovered as well.

“Those incidents are rare but we do see them every once in a while,” says Greg Moore, wildlife program manager for the Delaware Division of Fish and Wildlife.

Wildlife experts have been emphasizing for years that coastal residents must find ways to coexist with the deer, foxes, possums, squirrels, geese, raccoons and bats that have long called this area home.

“People just need to use more common sense when dealing with wild animals. There’s no reason to be scared of them, but they’re also not pets and you shouldn’t try to pet them or give them food,” Moore says.

Stressed by the development that has diminished their habitats, many animals and birds can no longer graze in shady meadows or hunt for nuts and berries in piney woods.

They have been forced to come out of the woods and, increasingly, their food comes from trash bins, birdfeeders and the carefully cut grass of playing fields. For instance, coastal Delaware is seeing an increase in red foxes, which some environmentalists have classified as the second most commonly seen mammal, following the deer, in the area.

This is not a phenomenon limited to the coast. The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Wildlife Services office reports that human-wildlife conflicts in urban and suburban environments have tripled in the last 10 years. The situation is more acute in areas that have seen faster growth, such as coastal Sussex County.

The animals and birds have no choice but to invade the properties that have been taken over by humans, Moore says.

“Once they’re displaced we have the problem of how to deal with critters in residential developments,” Moore says.


Close encounters breed fear
In July 2006, the state contracted with the Kent County SPCA to perform dog- and rabies-control services statewide and to enforce animal-control laws. The Sussex County SPCA had decided in 2005 that it no longer wanted to continue with dog-control programs.

Last November, in recognition of its broadened responsibilities, the Kent County SPCA’s Animal Control section had its name changed to the Delaware Animal Care & Control Division. Murrey E. Goldthwaite, executive director of the organization, says the behavior of animals that come into contact with people is changing. Those critters considered nocturnal, such as foxes, skunks and raccoons, have started to make their presence known in broad daylight — even when not rabid.

The result: The five agents who patrol coastal Sussex County at any given moment must answer a broad array of calls from panicky people afraid to step outside their homes or cars because they’ve seen a skunk or raccoon they think could be rabid. Any warm-blooded animal is susceptible to the rabies virus. In Delaware, the disease is most common in raccoons, skunks, foxes, cats and dogs. A few cases have been reported in bats.

Goldthwaite says his organization responds any time there is a threat to people and the danger of rabies. For example, officer Mary Janette — who has been on the job less than two years — has already responded to calls involving a fox in a basement, several skunks in attics and snow geese on front lawns.

“Every animal is very different, and we do our best to trap them and then release them in another habitat,” she says.

Animal specialists are attuned to the signs of sick or injured wildlife. Bob Hughes, a volunteer wildlife rehabilitator for the Division of Fish and Wildlife, gets called whenever someone reports an injured or orphaned animal. That’s happening more frequently, he says, and often the animals are found in or near homes. Last year, for instance, he rescued a litter of raccoons from the floor above pilings in a Bethany Beach home. Their mother had sought a warm place to have her babies.

Sick animals may also land in backyards and garages while in a confused state. Two years ago, Hughes pulled a red fox with mange from a home in Pilottown Village.

He brought 86 animals to his Rehoboth Beach home for rehabilitation in 2007 and received more than 200 calls that year.

The busiest time of the year comes in the spring, when litters arrive and eggs are hatching. Hughes says he may get five or six calls a week during that time.
“It gets overwhelming,” he says.

Not all the animals that move into neighborhoods are as small as skunks and raccoons. Small herds of deer can also be seen trotting through those neighborhoods at dusk. While they’re graceful to watch, they can wreak havoc on carefully manicured lawns, leaving them torn up.

Herds of up to 10 deer have wreaked such havoc in Aggie Stevenson’s 1.5-acre garden on Munchy Branch Road near Rehoboth that she is considering not planting the plot this year. It would be the first year since 1958 that she has not raised corn, beans, sweet potatoes, tomatoes and other produce that she sells in front of her property, but she says, “It’s just not worth it. I can’t afford the cost of seed and everything else just to feed the deer.” Stevenson says she is also concerned about deer ticks, which can carry Lyme disease.
In addition to causing landscape damage and possibly conveying Lyme disease, deer are increasingly involved in traffic accidents.

Delaware State Police reported that the number of deer-vehicle collisions resulting in at least $1,500 damage totaled 228 in Sussex County in 2007, a 31-percent increase from 2006. More than 70 percent of those occurred on the eastern side of the county.

They are becoming a hazard in commercial districts as well. Three years ago, for example, a buck crashed through the 6-foot-tall front window of the Food Lion grocery store in Milton. It then charged up and down the store’s aisles, sending frightened shoppers and employees running for cover.


Finding ways to live in harmony
Experts agree that the first step in coexisting with wildlife is to acquire an understanding of how the various species act. Most will flee from people rather than attack them.

There are, the experts say, non-lethal ways to keep wildlife at bay. For instance, to frustrate raccoons, the University of Delaware’s Cooperative Extension Service suggests storing garbage in durable hard-to-tip containers with tight-fitting lids. The service also suggests sealing off burrows and openings under buildings to prevent raccoons from using them as dens; fastening a metal grid over the chimney top shuts off another entry route.

Barbara Blake, a Lewes resident, says that learning to coexist with wildlife is not that difficult. When she moved into a home in Wolfe Glade adjacent to a marsh, her landscaper, Susan Selph of Milton, suggested planting greenery that would not be damaged by deer.

“Deer rely on smell when selecting food. Strongly aromatic plants like boxwood, eastern red cedar, lavender, sages and salvias deter deer and, planted in large enough numbers, may even keep them away from plants that they normally eat,” Selph says.

Blake’s family also tries to live in harmony with wildlife by keeping garbage cans inside the garage. Now she can enjoy the sight of deer and raccoons exploring outside her home without having to watch them damage her property.

“You can’t be surprised by something like that,” she says. “When you move into a rural area, the woods or a marsh, you can’t be surprised to have wildlife in your backyard.”

Patricia V. Rivera, a journalist with experience at major national newspapers, writes regularly for Delaware Beach Life. She lives in Clarksville.

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