I once, many moons ago, had an old-timer Athabaskan native in the village of Chuathbaluk explaining to me about the fur damage he was seeing on his marten. He described the offending animal as "bullet-nosed bat larvae". I thought it was an excellent description of a shrew. I've chuckled about that description ever since. Indeed, they certainly can cause fur damage to marten. Traps should always be elevated off the ground (off the snow), and be set to suspend the trapped marten where shrews and voles can't get to it. Especially in the north, the little guys are everywhere. I had a friend living out of a wall tent one winter on his trapline, and he caught well over 100 shrews inside the tent. Another time, we set up in the dark one time, with some beer and some blow darts made out of bic pen barrrels, some toilet paper, and some sewing needles (in a trapping cabin again), and speared shrews to the floor all night long.

Difficult (downright impossible to me) to correctly identify the species of shrew without looking at the teeth. This one was a cinereus shrew . Note the two ticks embedded on it's neck (North of 40?).



This is a newly discovered species of shrew that my wife and I discovered near our homestead. Sorex centennialis. Turned out to be very common in sagebrush vole colonies.



A couple of mountain shrews (Sorex monticolus) fighting.



This is a cinereus shrew taking a rare break on my bear gun.



Got any shrew stories?

Gulo how come I lost 10 degrees of latitude....I'm one degree above the boarder in my profile.
My first involvement was when they were doing life history studies on masked shrews at a forestry station for larch sawflies life historys..Buckner was the mammalogist, who transplanted them to the Newfoundland island in the 1960's
more stories later

I was thinkin' Northof 50, but mistyped and hit 40. Heck, I know you're north of me, and I'm north of 40.

Man Gulo there should be a like button for your posts.. Always something cool.

Of course I do have shrew story.

Back when I was a young one still living at home. Where we lived there was always lots of mice in especially in fall. So us boys killed every one we could when we could.
Anyways my younger brother was by the front door to the house. Sees what he thought was a small mouse scooting past, by instinct stomped it. No big deal until the smell came out. What the heck did you just do?? Smelled like just hit skunk with truck. Closer look it was not a mouse but a very small shrew. Ok we had whacked shrews before but not with the kinda stink. So off to Mom we go who at that time was our version of what is now Google. What she had and knew to use was books. Books to identify mostly birds her main thing but also some for critter. Looking threw the small mammal section of one book she found our little shrew. First time for all of us to see a Skunk Shrew. Who knew. There was such small critter could smell so loud. I have only seen one other since.
So that's my shrew story.
Thanks for reminding me..

Mac

"Never Forget Which Way Is Up!"

Could picture your story very well, have done similar. Wish I had been there. Look forward to you posts, thanks. Charlie

Interesting animals. Always seems to be something to fill a niche in nature. For as fast as they move all the time, you got some very good shots of them, Jack.

these little buggers will tunnel their way into snared or conibear caught wolverine and lynx. Ive picked up a few lynx over the years that were nearly hollowed out.

One my daughter caught by the house here on the Kenai peninsula. None on Kodiak that I know .
Great post ,I always enjoy. Thanks

Man I hate those things ! Couple stories.

Gulo...you will remember my good buddy TC here in MCG. Late one fall he and I had pitched a wall tent far up my Risible River....hunting moose and caribou. TC was wearing a Refrigiwear suit over just long johns. The place was overrun with shrews. In the tent, one ran up the inside of the leg of his Refrigiwear pants and was running laps at the confluence of his anatomy.

It looked as though TC was Break dancing trying to get that suit open and eject the invader. What a hoot that was !

The second story was in my cabin at the trapline. It's always easy to catch the random vole in a snap trap but shrews are a different story. They can silently clean the bait off the pan without firing the trap. I used to use the "walk the plank into the bucket of water technique but it didn't always work with shrews. ( have you ever noticed that a vole is pretty quiet getting around but a shrew sounds like a moose walking on crackers ? ) The noise is what really bothers me at night.

So I took a Ziploc bag and put an empty tuna can and its lid in the Ziploc. Then I punched a hole about the size of a dime in the bag. The shrews would enter through the hole and start making a racket with the can. They had a hard time finding the hole to make a quick exit and that gave me time to get up and grab the 22. I shot many inside those bags. I had to keep moving the bag so as to avoid too many bullet holes in one spot on the floor. It was very satisfying !

[quote=white17[Man I hate those things ! Couple stories.

Gulo...you will remember my good buddy TC here in MCG. Late one fall he and I had pitched a wall tent far up my Risible River....hunting moose and caribou. TC was wearing a Refrigiwear suit over just long johns. The place was overrun with shrews. In the tent, one ran up the inside of the leg of his Refrigiwear pants and was running laps at the confluence of his anatomy.

It looked as though TC was Break dancing trying to get that suit open and eject the invader. What a hoot that was !

The second story was in my cabin at the trapline. It's always easy to catch the random vole in a snap trap but shrews are a different story. They can silently clean the bait off the pan without firing the trap. I used to use the "walk the plank into the bucket of water technique but it didn't always work with shrews. ( have you ever noticed that a vole is pretty quiet getting around but a shrew sounds like a moose walking on crackers ? ) The noise is what really bothers me at night.

So I took a Ziploc bag and put an empty tuna can and its lid in the Ziploc. Then I punched a hole about the size of a dime in the bag. The shrews would enter through the hole and start making a racket with the can. They had a hard time finding the hole to make a quick exit and that gave me time to get up and grab the 22. I shot many inside those bags. I had to keep moving the bag so as to avoid too many bullet holes in one spot on the floor. It was very satisfying ![/quote]
Yep, I'm with ya.

I do have somewhat of a story about shrews...

Years ago, I worked for a summer in a flower nursery. It was a nice large place, where all kinds of flowers were started from seed , many carts of them hauled to the local stores , every year.

There was a problem for a while , of what everyone called mice, getting into the pots, either chewing the young flowers to pieces, or digging them up as holes were dug in the potting soil, making messes. Along with that, traps were set, and a number of catches were chewed on or partially eaten.

No one could figure why mice chewed up flowers and dug big holes in pots. or why trapped ones would be partially eaten.

I noticed that the place had three characters doing their thing - mice, voles, and shrews.

The boss had a large note board used to write plans for each day ...so I thought I would have a bit of fun educating with illustrations. I drew each varmint , with ID names under them. Deer mice, house mice, voles, and shrews. Boss loved it, and left the drawing on the board for a long time. Now that the culprits were identified, they learned if the pots were off the ground on tables with metal legs, the voles stopped digging up the flowers and chewing on them , and the shrews were appreciated , as they often hunted the mice when they didn't find them in the traps.

When anyone would see a shrew, it became a big deal to announce , for some to hurry over to see it also.

Gives an entirely new meaning to Petruchio & Katherina

UGH....why can't they scratch those things off ? With as energetic as they are, I would think they could.

shrew shrink in winter as well. always thought that was interesting. Its common to find them dead on skidoo trails in cold winter weather.

No animal will eat them.

Not true. Marten eat them when they can't catch voles.

Interesting that you say that, Guss. In boreal owl nest boxes, I snip off the feet of the prey. This is so I don't count it again next week. Often-times,a shrew will stay in the box for 3-4 weeks before being consumed. Voles usually last less than 3 days. Jumping mice (Zapus) are the same; 3-4 weeks. Also, I've followed marten tracks for several miles. After emerging from beneath the snow, I've seen many times where they've dropped a shrew, and left it lying dead on the snow.They smell bad?

Jack

LOL, only time I’ve heard of blow gunning shrews other than when I did it! I heated and straightened fish hooks and added a piece of foam for the darts.

When the snow freezes the whole layer the shrews can not get access to their food ie insects, they come on top and hunt spider and snow fleas. At this time the marten cash in. Some specimens have had 35 s Sorex cinerous in their guts.

Blarina brevicauda short tailed shrews have that woodsyee smell when you walk in the forest when their populations are 1/ ha
which happens when a insect population is high ie forest tent catipillers etc. They also follow a vole population explosion.

We had a special small mammal trap that had a trip wire that caught shrews live and as long as the meal worms were there...they were happy

Gulo please tell me those ticks were collected and ID'ed

One year I had to stop trapping mink. every mink was chewed up by shrews. I posted on here about it somebody told me to make my mink traps on willow so they shoot up in the air when caught. It was a good idea but i never tried it.

Is there such a think as water shrews? I have caught several of something like that in my underwater mink boxes?????? I don't know what they were

yes their name is Sorex palustris quite common around waterways, caught during muskrat trapping, and they chew into trapped animals starting usually at the face.
Caught in submarine muskrat traps if using 1/3 inch mesh size. Size of a meadow vole but the long nose is a give-away. Have caught one that did have a tick on it, but cant remember species of tick ( was a Ixodes spp)

Summer 1996. Driving a boat up the Yuki River to rescue another boat. On a river bank was a pole set with a marten hanging in a trap. Trapper must have failed to close all his sets and had caught the marten. Drove over and grabbed the long dead animal. It was mostly hollow. Voles/shrews had chewed in thru the anus and dined on the insides. Legs and head had freeze dried. Took the marten and trap. Made for an interesting decoration!

There was a time they closed down a Nuclear research station that had done long term study on the small mammals. There was 500 Sorex cinerous shrews in their freezers upon closer examination of the teeth over 200 were the pygmy shrew Micro sorex hoyi..now called Sorex hoyi. All were preserved as freeze dried as well......but with a pushed up snout to look at those sharp little teeth.

Nothing around my house eat them they just rot.

A favorite mount in my office. Mounted by Salcha taxidermist Skip Scott, 30 years ago.

I call it "Retribution!" For all the trapped marten that shrews have ruined for me!

Pete

Albino short tailed shrew.

JACK !!!! Have a look at Line Jumper's shrew he just caught ! Isn't that cool ?

Super cool Albino

I HARE SHREWS !