Exploring Kansas Outdoors: Geez, I’m Glad We Don’t Have These In Kansas – Hays Post

I always admire all the wildlife and outdoor adventures we have here in Kansas, but like a reverse bucket list, there are things I’m glad I DON’T have here. I was watching a TV show the other night about the Florida Everglades. The host of the show was there to try to catch a monster shark from the Everglades, and as a sort of rite of passage, the local guides had him first swim with alligators and then help them capture a giant python, an invasive species to the Everglades and sow chaos in its fragile ecosystem. I’ve been trapping muskrats in the McPherson Valley Wetlands, just outside of Inman, which involves wading through swamps of horntails and marsh grass that look a bit like areas of the Everglades. I am eternally grateful that I don’t have to keep my eyes open for alligators and pythons; God, I’m glad we don’t have those in Kansas.

I think Joyce and I must have been storm chasers in a previous life; when tornado sirens blare and the guys on TV yell at us to get into our basements or basements, we break out lawn chairs and watch for a twister, despite the devastation they might cause. Some of the memories I will take with me to the grave are photos and news footage showing all the absolute devastation caused by the recent hurricanes in North Carolina and Florida. So as much as I’d love to own oceanfront property here in Kansas, I’ll take the occasional tornado that can destroy parts of towns in its path over a hurricane or tsunami that can wipe out the entire state; God, I’m glad we don’t have those in Kansas.

Dad had a place at a nice “snowbird park” in Mesa Arizona, and one of his favorite activities was picking oranges, lemons, and grapefruits with other park boys. The Mesa and Scottsdale areas are havens for citrus fruit trees. There are acres of commercial orange groves within the city limits of Mesa, plus many homeowners have citrus trees in their yards just as Kansas homeowners have apple, apricot, and pear trees. And like the homeowners here, many people don’t want or use most of the citrus fruit from these trees. Every February, a team of guys from Dad’s Park would go one day each week and pick unwanted fruit for the homeowners, then bag the fruit and take it back to the park and make it available to any residents who want it. Many of the homeowners even gave the boys gas money to pick and take their unwanted fruit. It was a win-win all the way, but the homeowners there seemed much more serious about getting rid of their unwanted oranges, lemons, and grapefruits than the homeowners here were about getting rid of their unwanted fruit, and I often wondered why. I found out it was because of a rodent called a “roof rat”.

Roof rats are also known as black rats (but are not actually black) and are slightly distinguished from other rats by the length of their tails, which are longer than their bodies. Historically, roof rats are believed to be the pests that spread the plague or black death in the Middle Ages. They were first spotted in the Phoenix, Arizona area in 2001 and have become a problem throughout the area as fresh fruit and especially citrus fruits are their favorite food. I found a website maintained by Maricopa County, Arizona that contains the cities of Phoenix, Scottsdale and Mesa called www.roofrat.net. Its mission statement is “To help neighborhoods work, donate quality fruit and eradicate roof rats.” On the list of roof rats’ preferred foods, the top 6 are citrus fruits, which the website says they will eat even off the tree. To help eradicate roof rats, the website urges homeowners to “Promptly and thoroughly pick out all

fruit (ripe or unripe) on citrus and other fruit and nut trees and collect all fallen fruit each season.” I was told that Scottsdale residents could even face a hefty fine if they don’t. Roof rats nest in ceilings, hedges and even trees.

Maybe writing this column was a lesson in how well we Kansans have it compared to some other states. Yes, we have ticks and brown spiders that demand our respect. We have earth-shattering thunderstorms and tornadoes, but no hurricanes. We have a bull snake, a rat snake, and the occasional prairie rattler, but no alligators and pythons. We have mice, rats, and pack rats (which can be a problem if left undetected), but no roof rats to eat the fruit from our trees and infest our neighborhoods. Gosh, I’m glad we don’t have those in Kansas!

You can contact Steve by email at [email protected].