Doing His Best With The Pests Trapper Makes Problem Animals His Business

Eileen Moe smelled trouble.

Then she saw it, although her husband was skeptical when she reported a black-and-white tail disappearing under the porch.

“He said, ‘Oh, Eileen, it’s your imagination. It couldn’t be a skunk. They don’t move that fast.”’ That night, Ed Moe went outside to turn off the sprinkler and saw the skunk for himself.

So the Post Falls couple called Dave Morelli, aka the Critter Catcher.

His business apparently is unique in North Idaho, where people like animals. Except for the gopher that makes holes in the lawn, the raccoon that attacks the cat, and the beaver that floods the pasture.

Even some people who trap a nuisance animal themselves call Morelli to take it away.

“They’ve got something that’s not cute and cuddly anymore,” he said. “It’s P.O.’d and grumpy.”

Morelli is an ex-cop who studied wildlife biology in college. He’s been a trapper for 25 years. He has a pest management license and can spray for insects, but problem animals are his specialty.

Idaho wildlife officials refer people to Morelli. So do animal-control workers, who are prepared only to deal with dogs and cats.

The garage at Morelli’s home outside of Post Falls contains a collection of capture devices. Not even those he uses for professional wildlife trapping are the pointy-tooth traps that many people associate with animal capture.

“I’m constantly revising things to make the animals more comfortable,” he said.

Theresa Wheeler attests to Morelli’s sympathy for animals.

Wheeler manages the Falls Apartments near the Spokane River. She called Morelli when birds began building nests in dryer vents, and one of them got caught in a fan.

Morelli cleaned out the twigs and grass clippings that the birds were piling up.

“Once the little babies are in there, it breaks his heart to take them out,” Wheeler said. “He designed a screen to prevent the birds from going back in.”

Then marmots dug holes in the apartment lawn, threatening tenants with twisted ankles or worse. Morelli trapped the cute but messy rodents and moved them to the other side of the river.

“He’s a jewel in the rough,” said Wheeler.

Morelli said he’s killed only three pesty raccoons in four years, although there is a winter season when they can be legally killed for their fur.

Most people like their nuisances to be taken into the woods and released.

“People do care,” Morelli said. “Sometimes they care to the point where they won’t let me trap the animal if it can’t be relocated.”

Others aren’t concerned. They’d rather pay $35 just for trapping, instead of the usual $50 fee that includes relocation.

Morelli won’t relocate skunks. Beavers are tricky to move because most landowners don’t want them around, destroying trees and clogging streams.

To Morelli’s mind, release isn’t the best fate for an animal that’s not ready to fend for itself.

“It’s almost cruel to relocate an animal to the wild that’s been living off a porch.”

Craig Tanya paid Morelli to relocate six raccoons last year. They’d been sneaking in the cat door and cornering the family pets on the deck.

“They’re not easily intimidated,” said Tanya, who lives above Hayden Lake.

This year, he’s borrowed a cage from the Idaho Fish and Game Department and is trying to capture more unwanted guests himself. He found out that a raccoon or other animal was able to take a nice slice of turkey from the baited trap without getting caught.

Knowing animals’ abilities and quirks is a big part of Morelli’s job.

“Skunks don’t knock over garbage cans, usually,” he told a customer who called about a mysterious intruder. “That sounds more like a ‘coon to me.”

He knows that raccoons like marshmallows, but cats aren’t usually attracted to that bait. He’s proud that he could catch six stray domestic cats that were plaguing a Coeur d’Alene neighborhood without trapping a single beloved house pet.

“Placement of the traps is everything,” he said.

Often, he said, people can solve their own critter problems. They can keep pet food off the porch, where it attracts skunks and raccoons.

If an animal gets in the house, the human resident can simply open the windows and doors and the intruder will usually leave.

Morelli uses protective gloves, poles and nets. The equipment didn’t keep him from being bitten recently by an outraged cat.

The job isn’t normally dangerous, but it can be strenuous. One of the Critter Catcher’s funniest moments came when he was trapping river otters that were trashing lawns along the Spokane River.

A beaver got caught in one trap. Morelli was wrestling with the giant rodent when something dawned on him: He wasn’t being paid to catch it.

“So I let it go,” he said with a laugh.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo