Is There Profit in Animal Control?

Although PCOs may be tempted to enter the nuisance control market, they should be forewarned that there are challenges associated with this rapidly expanding side of the business. Do you have what it takes?

The nationwide increase in wild animal problems has spawned a growing industry in suburban and urban areas. Raccoons, squirrels, skunks and woodchucks, the “Big Four” of nuisance animals, have in many cases literally moved into people’s houses. Nuisance wildlife control operators (NWCOs) are thriving in large population centers and there are even two national franchises, WCT Wildlife Control Services and Critter Control, that offer wildlife control throughout the United States.

Pest control operators (PCOs) often come across opportunities to do nuisance wildlife work while dealing with insects. Some pest control companies, well aware of the money being made, have considered going after a slice of the pie themselves.

There is definitely money to be made in the wildlife control industry. But before PCOs leap into this arena, they should be forewarned that there are some significant differences between general pest control and wildlife animal control.

A TYPICAL DAY. As a rule, insect work tends to be more predictable than does wildlife control. Once a general pest control job has been evaluated, the time needed to complete the job can be determined fairly accurately and the job can be scheduled to fit in with others. While some PCOs work five days a week, nine to five, nuisance animal work, on the other hand, can be very unpredictable. Consider the following fictitious, but typical, workday.

At 7:00 a.m. on Friday a NWCO gets a call. A woman had just entered her garage to get her car and saw a “giant” raccoon, curled up asleep, on a high shelf. Can the NWCO come immediately? She doesn’t dare go back in the garage — she’s terrified the animal will attack her. She has another ride to work but she wants the raccoon gone when she comes home tonight.

The NWCO already has eight stops scheduled, a full day, but he rearranges his route to fit this one in. The raccoon probably won’t move during the day and the NWCO might be able to catch it today. Solving the problem in one stop is the most lucrative situation for him.

The phone rings again. The caller, a man, saw a skunk walking across his lawn last night. He wants something done immediately. He’s afraid the skunk will spray the family dog, or worse, a member of the family. The NWCO reassures him that skunks don’t spray unless provoked and promises to stop on his way home tonight, even though it’s a bit out of his way.

As the NWCO heads out the door the phone rings yet again. The woman caller begs him to come today. She can’t take another night with “creepy” scurrying sounds in the ceiling. He tells her it’s probably flying squirrels, which are harmless. He convinces her she’s safe (which she is) and she finally agrees to wait until the next day for him to take care of the problem.

Lesson One: Most clients perceive an animal problem to be a crisis, even if it isn’t. They’re usually fearful of animals in or too close to their houses. If you don’t respond quickly, they’ll find someone who will.

Lesson Two: You can never know from day to day how many jobs you’ll have. And you can’t plan on a free weekend. Emergency calls even come at night.

Our NWCO’s first stop is at a home with a raccoon living in the roof. He set two cage traps in the attic the day before and today, one holds a raccoon. Success! But the animal he caught is a nursing female and that means there’s a litter somewhere in the attic. He can’t leave the young because they’ll die. That is inhumane and they’ll smell bad when they decompose, which is unacceptable.

It takes more than an hour, but the NWCO finally locates the four young way up under the eaves, in a cavity down between two wall studs, just out of reach. Fortunately, he has a set of long cat-graspers and can just reach them. Without the graspers he would have had to cut through the wall in the room below, something he’s had to do before. But then, carpentry repair work is involved.

This job has gone smoothly, completed in just two stops to the home. But it took longer than expected to find the litter. Our NWCO is already running late.

The next stop is at the garage. The NWCO quietly approaches the raccoon. As it sleepily awakes and lifts its head, the NWCO drops the wire cable noose of a long tubular metal snare pole around its neck and tightens. The big male struggles violently, but it’s quickly lowered into a carrying cage. The job is done in minutes. Good money!

The next job is a new one — slight scuffling noises in the ceiling at night, a common complaint. A PCO had already been called and found little black droppings in the attic, determined they were mice and set up bait stations.

But, the noises continued and the bait remained untouched. So, the client called our NWCO, an animal specialist.

He closely inspects the attic, almost inch by inch. Finally, after carefully analyzing the size, color and location of the droppings and the slight tracks and travel patterns in the dust on the rafters, he determines that a family of flying squirrels, which are nocturnal, are the problem.

It takes another 30 minutes of peering into corners and looking for cracks emitting light from outside to locate the entry point. It’s a gap only ½ inch wide and 1 inch long, where a dormer joined the main roof. Flying squirrels, like bats, can squeeze in almost anywhere.

Lesson Three: It can take considerable time to diagnose what species is causing the problem and what the approach should be to control the animals.

Lesson Four: It takes considerable knowledge of animal behavior and sign reading to diagnose nuisance animals correctly.

Our NWCO next goes outside, gets a 32-foot extension ladder and a repeating wire rat cage trap and climbs cautiously up onto the roof of the house. He places the trap over the hole and covers it with a cloth, both to protect the animals from the sun and to prevent the public from seeing them. Passersby sometimes call the police or the Humane Society when they see trapped animals.

Lesson Five: With ladders, different sizes and types of traps, snare poles and cat graspers, a lot of specialized tools are required for animal work.

Lesson Six: Much of the public disapproves of trapping animals and some will interfere with the job.

Our NWCO stops next at another raccoon job. Here he runs into trouble.

Both traps, set on the ground behind a restaurant dumpster, have had bait stolen. The NWCO caught three raccoons here a week ago. But there is one raccoon left and although it steals the bait regularly, it doesn’t spring the traps. It is likely that the raccoon has been trapped before and was released. Raccoons learn fast. Our NWCO is pulling his hair out, trying every trick he knows. Not only is he losing money with every fruitless trip, the restaurant manager won’t pay him until all the raccoons are gone.

This time, the NWCO runs a thin wire from the trap’s pan, down under the trap, up along the back, then down through the top. From it he hangs a greasy piece of fried chicken. Hopefully when the raccoon pulls on the bait the trap will fire.

Lesson Seven: The job isn’t finished until all the problem animals are removed.

Lesson Eight: Animals learn (insects don’t). You can lose time — which is money — on the educated animals. It’s not uncommon to have to reevaluate the job strategy.

And so goes our NWCO’s day. He’s running two hours behind. He calls his wife to break the news he’ll be late for supper again. She tells him five more calls have come in. The animals are on the move — no family cookout tomorrow. As he heads for the next stop he reflects that he should probably be grateful. He’ll gross more than $1,000 today. A month ago he was only getting two or three calls a day.

Lesson Nine: Animal work is seasonal, starting slowly in early spring, peaking in summer and fading in late fall and it can fluctuate wildly even during peak times.

TRAPS, GROUPS AND COMPETITION. There are other factors affecting the profitability of nuisance wildlife work. Trapping laws, which differ widely from state to state, can affect everything from equipment to how often and by whom traps must be checked.

There is a wide variety of trap types available. Specifically, the Conibear-type lethal bodygrip traps are very useful to nuisance trappers. They’re light, inexpensive, easy to use and last a lifetime if cared for properly. These traps are square, rotating frames of round steel rod, powered by coiled springs. Animals enter the frame, push against a pair of thin wire triggers and release the jaws, which close on the neck or body. The traps kill by rendering the animal unconscious, usually in seconds, then suppressing breathing, blood circulation and heart action. Laboratory tests have shown them to be extremely humane.

Conibear-type bodygrip traps come in several sizes and are very effective on squirrels, raccoons and woodchucks. It’s usually much easier to get animals to enter these traps than cage traps and a dead animal is much simpler to deal with than a live one. Due to diseases such as rabies and excessively high animal populations, many states mandate euthanizing nuisance animals anyway.

There is another advantage to lethal traps. Because the animal is dead, the trap does not have to be checked daily. This allows the NWCO to handle more jobs. For example, the lethal traps can be set for two days in a row and then all of them checked on the third day.

Taking a dead animal out of a trap and resetting the trap takes a matter of minutes. Transporting a live animal in a cage trap from the job site to the vehicle, then returning with another trap takes considerably more time and equipment. And then, the trapped, live animal still needs to be dealt with.

Unfortunately, animal rights groups are fighting hard to outlaw lethal traps. In Massachusetts, for example, only cage traps are legal. But, there are many situations where lethal traps are the only real option.

Cage traps are bulkier, more expensive and less effective. Animals caught alive in them need to be properly cared for, which takes time. If the animals are to be released, even more time and care is required.

Cage traps should be checked daily. In hot weather, this should be done well before noon, which also limits the amount of traps that can be tended.

Some states allow clients to check the traps, calling the NWCO when there is a catch. This frees up the NWCO’s time considerably. Other states require NWCOs to check the traps themselves.

Analyze your state regulations carefully for laws that increase the amount of time spent on the job, thus decreasing profit.

Competition, of course, is also a factor. Several effective, industrious NWCOs in an area can reduce prices until there is little profit margin left. In some places $125 is the going rate for raccoon removal; in others it may be $350. One pest control company in a large city gets $1,000 per raccoon job. Overhead, of course, varies widely.

But probably the biggest single factor hindering PCOs is lack of trapping experience. Professional NWCOs commonly talk about coming in behind a PCO and finding that a service technician had simply bought a new cage trap, put a can of sardines in it and plunked it down somewhere near where the animal was last seen. Then the PCO told the client to call if a catch was made and never returned. The NWCO finds the trap still sitting there, empty and still set.

Trapping requires fairly sophisticated knowledge of the animals and the proper capture techniques. Many successful NWCOs come from the fur trapping trade, bringing considerable experience with them. They know about bait preferences, proper trap location and presentation, animal travel patterns and changes in behavior during different seasons. They’ve dealt with many of the difficulties before and they enjoy the challenge of animal work.

PCOs should not attempt animal work without adequate training. Animal behavior is more complex and variable than insect behavior.

Nuisance animal control will never produce the profits that general pest control does. Most successful nuisance animal businesses are owned and operated by a single person, or a husband and wife team. Some are busy enough to employ an extra technician or two. A few, but not many, employ more.

Some pest control companies abandon nuisance animal work because of a lack of trapping knowledge. Some do it as a courtesy to their clients, not expecting to make a profit. Some take wildlife jobs hoping it will lead to insect work. And still others subcontract the nuisance animal jobs to private NWCOs, hoping to make a little money off the transaction, or at least provide a service to their customers.

But some PCOs find the right niche, educate themselves about nuisance animal work and make very decent money. It can be a worthwhile supplement to general pest control work.