Reasons to not believe everything you hear...

I use the next door app for both personal and for business purposes. I think it is pretty useful, but sometimes it is just people venting about loud cars and other dumb things. Quite a few people look for wildlife removal on there which is why I have it.

Saw this post last night and thought it was hilarious. It was unreal to me that 80% of the comments also thought it was a cougar. Even when there is a picture.

I have gotten calls before of mountain lions and I always tell people it was more than likely a bobcat. The comments here erase all doubt that it was a bobcat every time haha.

I always have a similar thought process for the people who saw a 50 pound groundhog, 100 pound coyote, raccoons the size of their German shepherd. The customer who asks if the opossum I caught today is the same groundhog I caught yesterday because it looks like the same one. The customer who says we caught a raccoon, but I get there and it is a skunk..

It really baffles me that people don’t know any different, but I guess that is part of the reason businesses like ours exist lol..

I had a person call a few years ago saying they had a large infestation of beavers. When I got there I couldn't find any beavers but lots of muskrats. Couldn't tell them any differently....

Rattlesnakes

Every non garter snake is a rattler. I tell them if it is I will pick it up for free.

Around here it is Milk Snakes, every day we get calls about the "Copperhead" they found. Or the shed that has a Beaver living under it.....and those dang "Hedge Hogs".. they're just everywhere.LOL

That’s what I’m talking about lol. Especially the snakes. Gopher is another name for groundhog around here.


Awhile back someone called and said they had gophers. I said that they probably have moles. Oh no, this is gophers. I’ve had moles before and this is worse. These are gophers. Someone else is already on there way don’t worry about it.

I said okay they are going to tell you you have moles.
An hour later she called back and said she had moles.

Have had the same thing many times with "mountain lions." In the Adirondacks if there are 8 guys in a hunt club, 5 of them have "seen" mountain lions, which of course is B.S. I trapped in lion country for 8 years and though I saw tracks, had one eat a coyote and caught a couple, I never saw one, but I'd bet they saw me. Had one local fellow show me a picture of a lion his friend snapped like the photo above. Hated to bust his bubble, but when I pointed out the black and while ears and short tail the story was put to rest. Happens every time. When people say they have a woodchuck I usually believe them, but need to ask more questions, like the size of the hole. My friend Tim in Ohio always asks, "can you put your head in the hole?" Once in a while I show up with woodchuck traps and it's chipmunks, my fault for not asking better questions. But, we have to remember this is why they call us to solve wildlife problems that they can't.

I had a lady call and leave a vm last night that she found ground beef in her back yard. I played it for the wife and she confirmed ground beef. She wanted them removed, not killed. Wood chuck? Ground hog?

Called her and customer said ground beef again. A couple more questions and I was able to establish a ground bee problem.

It's never borinf!

The large cat sighting phenomena gets complicated in South Texas bc we do have mountain lions roaming our brush country. Since they have such a sizable home range, lion sightings are commonly reported. Wildlife biologists with Texas Parks and Wildlife Dept. are required to investigate any lion sightings around larger urban areas, schools, city parks, etc. Very few turn out to be verified sightings. What is somewhat funny is the amount of people including hunters reporting sightings of long-tailed Black Panthers! The last reported kill of a Jaguar was in the late ‘40’s or early ‘50’s in deep STX somewhere. Ocelot and Jaguarundi sightings are fewer since they roam the deeper Rio Grande Valley.

Beaver...I get calls where someone just bought a piece of land, and after walking back to the trout stream and pond on the property they find beaver damage. So they call you and say I got a ton of beaver wrecking trees. You get there and the trees that were taken down are about 3 years old or more (nicely seasoned gray wood), no fresh sign, water is too small and shallow to support beaver. You tell them "well you had beaver at one time". And then they don't believe you, think you're blowing them off. You do your best to convince them, but the skepticism in their voice never ends. They don't realize that I wish there were a dozen beaver there.

Limestone, I think I have a ground beef problem also. I don’t have any in the fridge

Aggie, I can definitely see where it would be more realistic if you had a pretty good potential of seeing a lion. I think those black panthers are just feral cats though lol.


Awhile back, I had someone call with a bird in their basement duct. I arrived and went to the basement and this man was convinced that there was a bird in this 4” metal duct about 4’ long. It has two 90 degree bends so you couldn’t see through it, but I heard the bird “chirp” after about a minute of being down there and knew it sounded funny. I started looking everywhere but the duct. I heard it again about two minutes later, same chirp, and two minutes later, same chirp. Found a little white plastic piece with a battery behind the hot water heater and asked the man to hold it for me. Pretty soon it chirped in his hand. It was the low battery alarm on his flood monitor lol. He said the day before he took the duct apart and sat there for three hours waiting for the bird to come out 😂

Though we now enjoy mountain lion mania, it used to be "black panthers," which of course were fisher. Never heard of a black color phase of mountain lions like leopards or jaguars, which probably would not fare well at 20 below zero. The power of suggestion is an illness. Years ago when we had an escaped African Serval Cat on the property next to us. It ended up in the news. People 60 miles north and 50 miles south swear they had seen it. We got almost simultaneous accounts of sightings 100 miles apart. Perhaps he took the bus. The cat never left the property. We caught it less than 300 yards from out house.

Speaking of ground beef, here is a good one we encountered years back. A lady called about a dead animal odor in her home. A couple others had been there trying to locate it, with no success. By the time we got there it was overpowering. I was getting frustrated, as it was confined to the kitchen area, but couldn't locate it, and it just didn't make sense. Then I saw a large plastic shopping bag on the table......there was all the hamburger and steak she bought the week before at the grocery store rotting away in plain sight. You would think that would have been simple, yet when I got fixated that it was a dead animal odor, we overlooked it repeatedly, as did the others before us.(Along with the homeowner)

I've pretty much quit commenting on posts like that outside of of a few specific groups. It gets old being called a liar by idiots who can't see my company info and qualifications right there in my profile.

I've had lots of funny calls. One customer heard noises in the wall, and smelled skunk outside, so naturally there was a skunk in the wall. Two different issues become one.

Had a guy with noises in the wall of his bedroom. My first inspection showed nothing, not even a hole big enough for a mouse, but this guy thought the animal was going to come through the wall. A month later, same guy, same noise. This time I put my ear to the wall and hear what sounded like a boat moared at a dock. Told him to look outside and tell me when the wind stopped. It did, so did the noise. The elec. wires coming to the house was tight over a 1" branch out near the road. When the tree moved, the noise echoed, just like two can 'phone' with a string between them.

One guy had a completely empty basement, except for a pile of vomit. I searched the basement and found no other evidence. Finally, I got down and touched and sniffed the vomit. Someone has spilled glue, then swept the floor, leaving bits of wire covering (red and green) along with sawdust. It certainly looked like puke standing above it.

One old lady had bats flying around in her living area, every day for three years. ???. No sign of a bat anywhere in house, incl. attic. While waiting for inspection fee, I noticed a list of meds on her fridge door. I quickly jotted them down and looked them up. One of the side effects were hallucinations.

Quite a few smoke detectors chirping in the attic.

Beaver under sheds (woodchucks)
Groundhogs (moles)
Gophers (groundhogs)

I'm sure there are more. Always an adventure.

Loving the stories guys lol.

The skunk one reminds me of a landlord who called me and said the tenant smelled skunk and thinks that there is one in the crawlspace.

So I get there and start looking around, the house had a basement underneath the whole thing, no window wells or anything like that.


Had a lady call because of noises in the wall, she thinks it’s a possum because she saw one in her yard a month ago. I did my inspection and determined that it was more than likely mice but I put a cage and camera in the attic anyways.
Next visit she tells me that she caught a skunk in her trap out back and that possum was trying to rattle the cage and dig the skunk out of the trap. I asked if she actually saw it happening and she said no. So I asked her to show me where the trap was and explained to her that the animals can get their arms out of her style cage and dig trenches on the sides of the cage from inside of it.
I don’t blame her for not knowing the skunk could do that but what would make her think the possum was going to dig the skunk out of there lol.

I have loved the outdoors and animals all my life. I was helping to fix a fence along a property line and as I walked around the edge of the woods I saw a mountain lion running down the fence line. Nobody believed me. Couple years later my mom and neighbor both saw one crossing the road. I told them they saw a bobcat and went about my day.

That is hilarious. Gave them a taste of their own medicine.

Got a new one to add to this list the other day..

They swore up and down they saw a Tasmanian Devil!


After a few minutes of discussion and some googling it turns out it was actually a groundhog.

Is that a reddish-brown bobcat in the top pic?

Yes…


Had a call yesterday of a lady asking me to come out and put her dog down. Something new all the time.

Those serval cats are no joke when they get hungry…

Had a call about one recently that was left in a garage by a tenant that moved out of the rental property. Definitely my craziest call to date.

Over the past few years we have had an increase of bears moving in the area and lately they have been causing a lot of damage to crops due to our dry weather. Had a call a few days ago asking me if I had any live traps big enough for bears. Told them no and recommended they call the DNR about that issue. Several sightings of big cats and wolves too. Just hope they all stay out of my coyote traps this fall.......

You get a call about 'Ground Beef in my yard', from a Mr Tyson; Watcha gonna do?

Okay I've had lots of weird calls over the years, but I got a voicemail late last night that takes the cake.
Dude was very serious and sane sounding.
"Yes I have a mountain lion in my car. It's either behind the dashboard or under the seats, I can't see it. Call me back".

Thats why I charge by the hour to spend the time to educate them. That should be a several hundred dollar call. They will hear you loud and clear.

Upon reading back through this thread I noticed a post by nuisance wildlife trapper Albert Burns. Sadly, we learned of his passing while at the NYS Trapper's Convention just the other day. We knew he had contracted covid and was unable to meet with us late in August, but had no indication the problem was at that time really serious, while looking forward to seeing him at the NY show. I believe he was hospitalized for two weeks before he passed. So very sad.

Rest in Peace, sir.