What animal does this?

December 23, 2020 9:53 AM

An animal is rampaging through our garden at night. Any ideas who?

The past few weeks, an animal has been wrecking our raised-bed gardens at night. Pictures here. It's not deer; our yard is completely fenced. We thought it was squirrels, as we have quite a few. But this devastation is... significant - too extensive for squirrels, I think. This is in southern Marin County, California. Nothing seems to be eaten - just everything uprooted and the dirt flung everywhere. What kind of animal would do this?

posted by niicholas to Home & Garden (16 answers total)

Armadillo? Not sure if you have them in Marin County but they are quite destructive.
posted by newsomz at 9:59 AM on December 23, 2020 [1 favorite]

Unless your fence is 8ft with spikes on top, deer can get in.

It's not way out of line for squirrel damage imo, but definitely on the high side.

Possum or skunk would be the other common culprits.

I'd still lean toward squirrel though. Because all the others would be eating some roots or greenery. The squirrels don't really eat roots or greens, but they do compulsively dig up nice open soft soils; especially if it's been recently disturbed. Squirrels don't remember where they stashed nuts, they just stash them then dig in places that look like a place they (or another) may have stashed stuff.

Basically your bed looks like a place squirrels have stashed nuts, so squirrels dig, so it looks like a place squirrels stash nuts, so they dig... you get the idea.

Squirrels are a much bigger garden pest than they usually get blamed for: curse their cute little paws!

Buy a big bag of cheap pepper flakes or powder, tamp the soils down well, sprinkle liberally; that will deter squirrels and most mammalian diggers.
posted by SaltySalticid at 10:07 AM on December 23, 2020 [1 favorite]

/Squirrels don't remember where they stashed nuts, they just stash them then dig in places that look like a place they (or another) may have stashed stuff.

Not quite - they actually can smell a nut up to 2 ft below snow, they are digging in approximate locations where they can smell nuts below.

Regardless, this looks too big to be squirrels. Also, they are diurnal.

Raccoons maybe? Or possums? Are there any tracks or stool? It's hard to identify animals based just on damage.
posted by epanalepsis at 10:14 AM on December 23, 2020

You may want to read this short comic novel. A battle of wits with a rampaging boar is a motif.
posted by Glomar response at 10:27 AM on December 23, 2020

Wild pigs? They might be going for roots or grubs.
posted by corey flood at 11:18 AM on December 23, 2020

My money is on skunk!
posted by juniperesque at 11:32 AM on December 23, 2020 [2 favorites]

Seconding feral pigs. They are common in CA and a problem.
posted by mcstayinskool at 11:33 AM on December 23, 2020

Best answer: In a fenced yard, you're going to notice if feral pigs got through the fence.

Your most likely nocturnal diggers who won't eat brassicas but do like to look for grubs are possums and skunks. Skunks can get through any tiny scoot-space under a fence, they are mostly floof, and possums will come either under or over the fence if they've got something to climb up and down.

I have a little Wyze wifi camera with night vision that will do motion alerts or 12-second video capture on motion for stuff like this. I have the $20 indoor model on the patio where it's not going to get hit by the sprinklers (and am in SoCal, so rain not a big issue), you could build a little enclosure if necessary to get through a couple nights and find your culprit.
posted by Lyn Never at 11:49 AM on December 23, 2020 [8 favorites]

Any gopher activity elsewhere in the yard? Or in your neighbor’s yard? Gophers will dig under and up into raised beds and totally thrash them. They are sort of picky about which plants to eat, but will wreck the whole bed in the process of eating only a few plants.
posted by Wavelet at 12:43 PM on December 23, 2020 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Thanks all for your thoughts.

It's not deer, we've been through that - and our yard is securely, extensively fenced. Wild pigs and armadillos would be exciting but I don't think those are relevant in my area. This damage is significantly different (just in sheer volume) from the squirrel diggings... so I am going to go with skunks. I have seen & smelled them in the yard before so it's not surprising - I just did not know they were apt to excavate my beds. This whole situation just stinks.

Thanks again all -
posted by niicholas at 1:47 PM on December 23, 2020 [3 favorites]

I can't really tell from the photo how high these beds are, but in my experience skunks are not great climbers. It still could be skunks, but I also wouldn't rule out opossums or raccoons. All three would be more interested in bugs in the dirt than the actual plants.
posted by queensissy at 2:18 PM on December 23, 2020 [1 favorite]

Can you flatten an area, or spread a light powder nearby, so you might catch footprints?
posted by nickggully at 3:16 PM on December 23, 2020

Are there American badgers in your area? They can dig like nobodies business but are carnivores and with a few exceptions mostly don't eat plants. A fence won't stop them unless it extends underground a significant distance. Usually they stay away from people but it is not unheard of for a old, injured or sick specimen to take up suburban hunting.
posted by Mitheral at 4:44 PM on December 23, 2020

We get moles and voles in our yard. One year we had a row of tulips that were sequentially getting oddly eaten - bulb gone, tulip stem & bloom slightly askew in the dirt. We did not re-plant in that area. When we put in raised beds after that, they were installed on top of 1/2” hardware fabric to prevent any root damage, as it was in their tunneling area. Not sure at all this is your issue, but I recall being similarly stumped with the tulips. Moles generally don’t eat plants, it was voles. Also, your local garden extension agent (US) might have more local feedback.
posted by childofTethys at 6:36 AM on December 24, 2020 [1 favorite]

San Luis Obispo county resident here who has had the same thing happen with raccoons. I had success with aggressively sprinkling cayenne pepper in the garden bed and it hasn’t happened since!
posted by sparringnarwhal at 10:22 AM on December 24, 2020 [1 favorite]

The pic won't come up for me but moles like raised beds and cats and owls like moles. It can look pretty mysterious when the sun comes up.
posted by Mr. Yuck at 4:18 PM on December 24, 2020