Over the last few months I have experience the loss of some two dozen bantam chickens, all killed during the night or at dawn or dusk. It became rather distressing to walk down to the poultry yard each morning to see what damage had been inflicted throughout the night. At first, I thought it must be a falcon or white sea eagle taking the poultry. Sea eagles are very cleaver, they fly with flocks of white cockatoos, so they will not be noticed while looking for their next meal. But nether predator seemed quite right, as they left the body behind, taking only the head on a half chewed neck. In the end I decided to hang a dead chicken inside a possum trap. The first two nights there was nothing, then one night surprise, surprise there was a quoll in the cage.
Quolls are a nocturnal native cat that inhabit the Tasmanian east coast, being night animals are rarely seen by humans unless you are an insomniac.There are two types, one is called a tiger cat and is very ferocious, another is smaller, olive gray in colour with white spots on the body. Very pretty,to behold or you may say beautiful to look at, there are people who try to make pets of them. Like most felines they are night owls and very dangerous. They have been known to clime trees above roosting fowl and then fall on their prey grabbing the unfortunate bird by the neck and falling to the ground with the now dead fowl. The love poultry blood, hence why I call them the vampires of the bird world. The bite across the back of the neck to extract the victim's blood. Never satisfied, they will return time and time again to a new found source of food, until all the birds have been killed. This has nothing to do with hunger pains, but just for the fun of the kill. This smaller quoll is about 45cms long with 30cm tail. I have attempted to draw the one I capture before letting the animal go as they are a protected species and must be allowed to run free. This will not of course help my attempt to keep poultry, but such is life.
No comments:
Post a Comment