There are many options in getting wild animals off your property. You should always start with prevention. This means removing any access to food on your property. The main exterior food access points are pet food, children being put outside with messy food, bird feeders and general outdoor eating. If you have a barbeque then you need to clean it vigorously after every use. If you eat outside a lot make sure to clean everything and to eat over a solid surface. Eating on a raised deck can result in food falling through the inaccessible cracks. Put a rug down and you will prevent food from falling where you cannot clean it up. This will dramatically reduce wild animals on your property and if that does not work you can use innumerable repellents from predators urine to actual predators like a big dog on the property, to automated motion detector water spraying machines that can aim at the motion detected and spray the wild animal with water. If you have already tried all of this and failed to keep the animals away then you should probably think of using a trap.
Now you can choose to have a professional company handle the trapping, you will not have to go near the animal, it will all be taken care of for you but it will also be rather expensive. The actual trap is not expensive, you can buy it from home hardware or off an animal control website that sells them. Amazon is also a great place to compare and find the best model. You will want a good model that is easy and intuitive to set up and bait. One that isn’t going to slam down on your hand when you’re trying to set it up.
What is most important is following local regulations. The Ministry of the environment and parks handles trapping licenses that allow you to do more than trap and release an animal. You are also limited in how you can relocate the animal. You must release them less than a kilometre away and you must release them in an environment they can survive in. Taking them to the wild will kill them, they learned to rely on humans and that is sadly the case. A licensed trapper can move the animal almost anywhere and can also kill the animal in certain situations like a sick raccoon or an animal with rabies.
When the animal is caught you will need to learn how to approach the trap, to handle it and pick it up with an animal inside who is not happy you caught it. This is when you need to choose the right trap. A trap with steel bars may be open enough for you to get scratched or bitten by the animal. A trap that is more enclosed and with a tighter mesh will help protect you from attack. You will want to wait until the animal is calm. If it looks agitated leave and comes back when it is not. Do not leave it for too long as it is hungry. You also do not want the animal to injure itself trying to escape. There are severe fines for harming wildlife in Ontario.
The good news is animals do not seek revenge. They rely on fight or flight and after catching it the only thing it wants to do is run away. This is to your advantage. Stand behind the trap and open it from the opposite side. Back away slowly and the animal will run away from you as fast as it can. This is the safest way to stay safe while releasing a wild animal from a trap.
