Francis Berger
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Finally Trapped The Marten

8/19/2020

6 Comments

 
Stone martens (Martes foina), also known as beech martens or house martens, are quite a problem here in western Hungary. Landing somewhere between weasel and ferret in terms of appearance, beech martens can be rather 'cute', but there is nothing cute about the damage martens can do to houses and automobiles, both of which they are extremely fond of visiting in the middle of the night.

For example, about a year ago a marten chewed through the brake fluid line of my neighbor's BMW. My neighbor only became aware of the damage after he was forced to bring the car to a screeching halt via the handbrake. At around the same time, I began to notice muddy paw prints on my own vehicle every morning. A little later, I discovered marten droppings in my attic. My father and I immediately went out and purchased a trap and placed it in the attic.

​After that, I waited. And waited. The marten continued to visit my attic and perform moonlit tap dances on the hood of my car, but it showed absolutely no interest in the trap. I tried different baits; nothing worked. I even lay trail of bait in the attic in an attempt to lure the marten into the trap. Nada. After about four months, I accepted defeat and stop baiting the trap. 

Then, about a week ago, I heard strange noises emanating from the attic. It took me a few seconds to remember the unbaited trap I had left up there; once I did, I went upstairs not knowing what I would find. Well, it turns out the best bait is no bait at all. It took a year, but the sly marten finally found its way into the little metal prison I had set for it. 
Picture
The culprit.
Shortly after I had purchased the trap, I asked a neighbor what I should do with the marten if I managed to trap it.
 
"Submerge the cage in the river," he said gruffly without a trace of compassion in his voice, "wait ten minutes, and then empty the trap."

Having once been an avid hunter, I have no qualm with killing animals, especially pests, but as I stared at the marten in the trap, I couldn't find it my heart to exterminate it. Instead, I loaded it into my car (martens may look cute, but boy do they smell), drove four or five kilometers to an open field, and released the marten into some thickets of brush. It took off like a bullet and scampered out of sight in the tall grass a few meters from where I stood. 

A few days later, I noticed paw prints on my car again. I sighed. Probably a different marten, which means I have won a battle, but not the war.
6 Comments
Michelle
8/20/2020 03:20:25

I guess you're not a curmudgeon after all! My father used to do a similar thing to the pesty critters he would trap around his house. Except before he let them go in a field about 5 miles away, he would spray a stripe of fluorescent
paint on their backs. Then at least he would know if he was fighting the same battle over and over again. None of the fluorescent animals ever returned, although that would have been pretty funny if they did.

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S.K. Orr link
8/20/2020 04:26:15

This one brought a rueful smile to my face, spurred by a memory. A few years ago, I trapped a big raccoon who was raiding my chicken coop. I didn't want to shoot him when I found him in the trap because it was early morning and I didn't want any of the distant neighbors to think there was some sort of trouble at my place. So I opted for drowning. I had a 55 gallon barrel of rainwater at my disposal, so I submerged the trap in the barrel. Unfortunately, the large trap just barely fit into the barrel, so there was about an inch of space at the top end of the trap where the coon could stick his snout and breathe. He scurried right up there and put his nose up against the grille of the trap and gasped these big, panicked gulps of air, his eyes shut tight. His will to live and the pathetic figure he presented made me relent, so I pulled the trap out, put it in the back of my truck, drove him about eight miles over to another mountain, and released him. He hissed at me and streaked out of the trap into the underbrush. I like to think that his hiss translated to "Say, you're a swell fellow, SK!"

My tenderheartedness towards animals has come back to bite me in the behind on more than one occasion. But as Popeye maintained, I yam what I yam.

Reply
Francis Berger
8/22/2020 08:30:02

@ S.K. - "My tenderheartedness towards animals has come back to bite me in the behind on more than one occasion."

Tell me about it.

Thanks for sharing the story about the raccoon.

Reply
Epimetheus
8/20/2020 12:48:39

Synchronicity! I caught a small groundhog in a live-trap last Saturday. I took it down the main highway and let it out in the bush. Also, yesterday, someone told me about spraying the backs of captive animals with paint, just as Michelle described.

Reply
Craig Davis
8/20/2020 13:11:28

Was there any video evidence? The last thing we need is Weasel Lives Matter protests.

Reply
Andrew
8/21/2020 16:28:08

It certainly looks adorable enough.

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