At 10:19 PM 9/10/97 -0700, Debbie P. wrote:

>I've had small flocks of Starlings working over my back yard this
>summer. Many of them eat slugs. They pick them up in their beaks, wipe
>off the excess goo, and then it's down the hatchet. I have not had a
>slug "problem" this year. Last winter, I had a many Varied Thrushes.
>I'm not sure if they eat slug eggs, but I suspected that they helped
>control the population that never exploded this year in my yard. Does
>anybody know of any other birds that eat slugs? Do salamanders eat
>slugs?
>
Yes, and I believe lizards do as well (although I think there are alot more
salamanders than lizards in the P. Northwest).

Raccoons, surprisingly, also eat slugs as do opossums. There was a story
going round the rehab circles in Eugene about a guy who had just layed a new
lawn using those rolled up lawn strips. You know, you prepare the ground
then roll out the new lawn?

Well, anyway, he kept coming out in the morning to find some of the lawn
strips rolled back up. He'd roll them out again and the same thing happened
the next night. This went on for several days and no one could figure out
what was going on. Finally, one night he spotted the little rascals -
raccoons, rolling up the lawn strips and eating the slugs they found underneath!

Peggi
Ben & Peggi Rodgers
Aptos, CA (near Santa Cruz 122 W, 37 N)
USA
woodduck at cruzio.com
http://www2.cruzio.com/~woodduck/


"A bird does not sing because it has an answer,
It sings because it has a song"