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We Provide Humane Muskrat Trapping, Removal and Damage Repair Services
throughout New Jersey and Staten Island, NY
Common Nuisance Situations:
Calls from customers are generally during the warmer months of May through September as people are more active around the water at these times of the year.
Why Are They Damaging My Property ?
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- Most muskrat damage is caused by their burrowing.
- They burrow into earthen dams, dikes, levees, and railway embankments, weakening
their structures. They also burrow into the banks of ponds, canals, and irrigation
and drainage ditches. Their tunnels may drain a small farm pond. They may
damage floating docks, marinas, and boathouses.
- Muskrats will cross yards. Some people are frightened of them, or mistake
them for Norway rats.
- Occasionally eat field crops. May cause substantial financial losses in
states with major rice and aquaculture operations, because they eat rice,
cut it down to use as building material for their lodges, and damage the field
by burrowing through levees.
- Damage aquaculture sites by burrowing into levees or pond banks.
- Damage ornamental aquatic gardens by eating water lilies or cattails or
other plants.
- When their populations grow too high, they may "eat out" all of
the aquatic plants in the area, reducing the quality of the habitat for other
species, such as waterfowl.
- Disease risks: tularemia, hemorrhagic septicemia, leptospirosis, salmonellosis,
ringworm, pseudotuberculosis. They are hosts for many ticks, mites, fleas,
and various worms.
Description:
Fur rich brown, dense, glossy; belly silver. Tail long, scaly, blackish, vertically flattened, tapering to a point. Hindfeet partially webbed, larger than forefeet. Eyes and ears small. Excellent, steady swimmer, with head, back, and sculling tail visible. Mainly eats aquatic vegetation.
Sign: Conspicuous lodge of cattails, roots, and mud floats in marsh or other body of water; rises up to 3' above surface of water. Burrows in stream banks. Tracks: 2-3" narrow hindprint (5 toes print); smaller round foreprint; often with tail drag mark.
Breeding: 2-3 litters of usually 6-7 young a year April through September.
Habitat: Fresh and salt marshes, ponds (even in urban areas), rivers, canals.
Activity: Day and night; lodge-bound on coldest days.
Typical Muskrat Lodge
See Our Muskrat Control and Removal Section for Humane Muskrat Removal
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