Where did the armadillos go ?

Kajun

Member
Sorry to trade on rossow's thread below. But have any of you Louisiana folk or southern Mississippi folk noticed a decline in the armadillo population ? I see few killed in the roads and few active holes . Or is it that I am so old that I don't move around anymore LOL .

Kajun
 
Here in my corner of Louisiana I still see quite a few, perhaps not quite as many as 20 years ago. I have two or three rooting around on my place at any given time. Their chief predator appears to be the automobile, as evidenced by the buzzard parties along the highways. Several other species seem to have disappeared from here--virtually all the ground-nesting birds are gone.

An interesting thing about armadillos and their presence/absence: My dad grew up in the woods and hills of NW Louisiana, and hunting was his favorite activity. He was in his 40s before he saw his first armadillo, then almost overnight there was a population explosion. It was almost the same for deer: my dad was well into his 50s before he killed his first deer.
 
Kajun,

I, too, think they have moved to Tennessee. I've trapped and killed at least 6 of them in the past year. I'd kill more of them but they are very hard to trap. They can't be baited. You just have to find where they are running and set a trap in their runway. If you can narrow the path down so that they go straight into the trap, you might succeed, but otherwise, they're just too elusive. They only come out at night so shooting them in the open is almost impossible. My yard looks like a minefield from all of the holes that they have dug.

Tom in TN
 
"They only come out at night so shooting them in the open is almost impossible."

Tom, I've shot two in broad daylight here in Southern Illinois, and "almost" ran one down with the tractor and tedder. By "almost" - I was gaining on him, but had to brake hard to keep from running off into the woods. I thought that tedder would do a number on him, but didn't get to find out. They can run faster than I thought they could. The ones that I've seen in the daytime were all flipping dried cow pies over, I guess looking for bugs underneath?

I found one on the back step one night and managed to shoot him before he got away. All told, four have been killed here on the farm. One by a deer hunter - in broad daylight. Our Illinois armadillos might be afraid of the dark.
 
Just wondering here, but seems to me I keep hearing more and more about the feral hog populations growing. I would imagine that would also heartily push other species to find new territories.
 
They are "[i:654c4848f0]migrating[/i:654c4848f0]" to NE Texas and dying by the dozens in an area down in the bottom we call "[i:654c4848f0]No Man's Land[/i:654c4848f0]".

Our dogs drag up an empty shell almost every week.

Nasty!
 
Plenty of them in south central Kansas. During the summer our dogs kill about one per week on average. 30 years ago it was a novelty to see one around here. Now the stupid things are all over the place.
 

I've had to shoot four so far. Don't like killing critters but these
dudes just tear the hell out of the lawn..They root around like
pigs...
 
I can tell you for sure TENNESSEE , we never had the blasted thing till about 4 years ago now they are talking over the place. Can,t go out at night without seeing one. Doing a lot of yard damage. Had 6o ton of ag lime dumped in a large pile for spreading soon as we get the corn out and they are digging in that pile for what I can not understand.
 
They showed up in NE Arkansas about 10-12 years ago.
People there said Armadillos carry the tuberculosis virus.
They are scavenger type animals.
 
(quoted from post at 19:53:03 09/18/18) They showed up in NE Arkansas about 10-12 years ago.
People there said Armadillos carry the tuberculosis virus.
They are scavenger type animals.

Not TB, they can carry leprosy. :shock:
BillL
 
No decline here in northeast La. One has tore the crap out of my model airplane runway and has been hitting the back yard the last two nights. It has been very dry here and the moles have been bad this summer too.
 
You mean that you have never eaten opossum on the half-shell?
That is what we call them. They taste similar to the Spotted Gray Owl, but I prefer the Bald Eagle fried.
 

Thx for the input , folks.

I live in South Central Louisiana . I saw my first one at least 60 years ago . We were told they migrated from Mexico through Texas . SFAIK , they proliferated until recently . Sorry about the migration to you folk in states-north of us.
 
They immigrated to N. Texas......my farm! Have a new one dragging dead leaves and grass up under the house to make a nest......neat, now I get to chase 5 instead of 1. Just got rid of half a dozen that setup housekeeping over the winter. At least the skunks have given me a "breather" for the last year or two. My yard is very fertile and I have large white worms which they love, lots and lots of them. So I have lots and lots of holes in the yard and in the fields which don't matter all that much but I would like to keep the yard nice.
 

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