Palm leaf attack

[islandcassie]

Suddenly for the past few weeks we have had something gnawing through the ribs of a certain sort of palm leaf - from 3 palms there have been about 12 leaves brought down. Asking the locals what it might be, they said rats without any hesitation. OK - we always have problems with rats here - in the generator etc, but never climbing up palms to gnaw the leaf ribs. Why now suddenly???? So today we ringed the palms with super sticky rat trapping bands, and we wait to see what tomorrow brings - hopefully lots of rats stuck to the bands. The damage happens at night when the dogs are shut indoors so they are no help. As we are going away on Wednesday for 3 weeks we thought that the palms would be reduced to bare trunks by the time we got back.

[charlie]

Do follow this up, I want to see picture of rats stuck to the glue! We allways used to have to put rat guards on the mooring ropes and wides to try and stop them but I can remember seeing one scampering up the gangway as bold as brass!

[islandcassie]

Leaped out of bed to find we had only caught lizards so far!! Very disappointing!

[islandcassie]

Still none the wiser after we arrived back home last night. Now we think it possibly could be bats as there was nothing stuck to the rat bands and the palms still have a good number of leaves - we did put some anti-bat measures in place too. It's a mystery!!!

[Chrisg]

Welcome back.

Sorry to hear the mystery has not been solved.

[charlie]

Perhaps the rats have learnt about the sticky bands and left the Palms alone after seeing them in place?

[islandcassie]

I now think that it must be bats - but why suddenly now after all these years?