Who to call when wildlife invades your property?

Seagulls can really make a mess in New Bedford, but pigeons also proved to be a menace in one downtown building when they decided to nest and make the attic their home.

After a call to David Silvia, owner of the new Critter Control franchise in New Bedford, the 20 or so live pigeons were evicted and prevented from getting back inside.

Silvia, a certified wildlife specialist, said he focuses most of his business on offering exclusion services, including using screening vents, installing chimney caps and closing entry holes to reduce the opportunity for wildlife to return to the home, apartment or office building.

One customer who had skunks under her porch wanted him to trap them, but he recommended exclusion work instead. With the skunks, he set up steel fencing, dug a trench around the porch about two feet and left an opening for three or four nights. A few days later he removed the fencing.

“The problem is, the more you build, the less land there is, and the more you’re going to deal with animals,” he said. “They’re only doing what they’re going to do so I come in and can guarantee the work. You may have to pay a little more up front, but you’ll never deal with it again.”

It isn't always a quick fix

Silvia will set up a one-way trap that the animal can exit but blocks them from reentering. Raccoons, for example, go out to feed every night. In three days he would take the trap down, fill in the hole and then repair any damage.

There isn’t always a quick fix. He said it can take up to a week to complete a job because he will make several trips to a location over several days to make sure the animals are really gone from the home.

Silvia prefers exclusion work to the alternative, which is euthanizing them. Any animal he catches in a trap, he must put down, or the owner can release it on their property.

Releasing wild animals isn't so simple

Silvia often gets questions about what happens to the animals after he catches them in the traps. He also gets calls from people who have trapped an animal and want him to release it for them. The critter removal in either case is part of the cost of the service, including keeping a live skunk from spraying.

But Silvia said it’s not as simple as releasing every animal back into the wild. The state, he said, has restrictions on the release of wildlife.

“A lot of birds in Massachusetts are protected, and a lot of people don’t know that,” he said.

Failure to follow the rules can result in a fine.

Silvia said you cannot kill geese, but you can try to deter them from your property. Geese can only be hunted during a designated hunting season, like deer hunting season. Some people use dogs to chase geese away.

The barn swallow bird is also protected. Bats are protected when they are nesting, but can be trapped and released at other times of the year.

Squirrels are another challenge. He said squirrels can destroy an attic and even cause electrical circuits to short out so that can create a dangerous situation in a home.

Call for Critter Control

Siliva, who grew up hunting and trapping with his brothers in the Lakeville area, would leave home around 4 a.m. to set traps before going to school. In the afternoon they would check all the traps.

When he started working in property management, he would constantly field calls about animal complaints. He decided to research companies that dealt with animal complaints, and Critter Control stood out to him.

Since purchasing the franchise, he has done a lot of work in the New Bedford and Dartmouth areas. In his first two months of ownership, he did eight jobs in New Bedford.

He plans to focus more on pest control in the future as he expands the business and adds new employees.

Standard-Times staff writer Kathryn Gallerani can be reached at [email protected]. 

This article originally appeared on Standard-Times: New Bedford's Critter Control helps remove wildlife from homes