Barriers such as rivers aren’t a problem – the animals can hold their breath for up to six minutes and walk on the riverbed, or even inflate their intestines to float across to the other side.ĭog sniffing grass, close up image of armadillo seen through hunting tool The armadillos have made it into Missouri, Iowa and even the southern reaches of Nebraska. “We just don’t have those really cold winters any more and I’m sure that’s helped them,” said Olfenbuttel. Around Sapphire, the armadillos happily root around in the dirt with their snouts and claws, feasting on insects at elevations above 4,000ft. The animals dislike freezing conditions and global heating is making winters milder, turning northern parts of the US more armadillo-friendly. A booming reproduction rate that sees females give birth to quadruplets multiple times also helps their population’s growth.Īn emerging theory for this advance of armadillos is the climate crisis. The animals, known for their keratin armored shells, travel unhindered by potential predators. T he nine-banded armadillo – there are 20 different species, only the three-banded variety can roll itself into a ball – made its way north from Mexico to the US through human intervention and its own ingenuity by the late 19th century. “I’m as curious as anyone as to where they will pop up next.” They are hard to trap and I don’t know if there’s a repellent for them,” said Olfenbuttel. “It’s challenging to deal with armadillo damage. The agency confirmed the first armadillo in North Carolina in 2007 but numbers have rocketed in the western half of the state since 2019. “It’s only a matter of time before we see range expansions into other states,” said Colleen Olfenbuttel, furbearer biologist at the North Carolina wildlife resources commission. The Sapphire valley is the latest place to witness the seemingly relentless northward march of a species that originated in South America, but is now pushing toward the north-east of the US. Photograph: Mike Belleme/Mike Belleme/The Guardian Armadillos have gradually migrated north over many years from their native South and Central American habitat. “I thought the woman had a possum and a drinking problem.” But within a year, Bullard was spending his nights at the local golf course, speeding from hole to hole on a golf cart, killing armadillos on the greens like a sort of cross between Tiger Woods and Davy Crockett. ![]() When the first armadillo was sighted here in 2019, Bullard got a call. In autumn, the area is a gorgeous riot of red and orange fall hues. It is part of a scenic plateau that gets so much precipitation that it has developed a temperate rainforest, with the ground and rocks draped in lush mosses amid towering fir and spruce. Sapphire, meanwhile, is nestled 800 miles and worlds away in the soaring Blue Ridge Mountains. ![]() There, they’re regularly seen as roadkill or in small-scale racing events where they are made to scurry down a 40ft track.Īrmadillo meat is consumed in Central America, and to a lesser extent in the US, where it was called “poor man’s pork” in Depression-era Texas and has been tainted by the species’ connection to leprosy. The creature has been Texas’s state mammal for more than two decades, used to the baking heat of the dry, flat state. T o spot armadillos in North Carolina was, at first, incongruous. “It’s like hunting aliens,” said Bullard, who is more used to hunting feral pigs. The armadillos give off a sort of loamy grey color at night, a shone light absorbed by their bodies, rather than reflected in their eyes. One of the creatures bounded away in a freakish, kangaroo-like hop, leaving an astonished Bullard flailing. ![]() 22 rifles Bullard used on the first armadillos didn’t seem to kill them outright. ![]() The task has been learned hastily on the job. But armadillos have wreaked such horticultural havoc that dozens of people in and around Sapphire, North Carolina, now have Bullard on a retainer, allowing him to prowl around their properties at night, armed, in the hope of shooting the culprits. Homeowners, perturbed at their lawns being torn up by the newly arrived mammals, initially deputized Bullard as a sort of armadillo bounty hunter, handing him $100 for every dead carcass he produced. Bullard is a member of Mountain Wildlife Management. Pete, Jason Bullard’s dog, hunts for armadillos.
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