{"id":7673,"date":"2025-11-06T04:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-11-06T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/infonews.ca\/inhome\/news\/7673\/pretty-shocking-kamloops-lawn-destroyed-by-mysterious-critter\/"},"modified":"2025-11-06T04:00:00","modified_gmt":"2025-11-06T12:00:00","slug":"pretty-shocking-kamloops-lawn-destroyed-by-mysterious-critter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/infonews.ca\/inhome\/news\/7673\/pretty-shocking-kamloops-lawn-destroyed-by-mysterious-critter\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Pretty shocking’: Kamloops lawn destroyed by mysterious critter"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A Kamloops resident woke up to a completely destroyed lawn last week and it isn\u2019t totally clear what wild animal is responsible for it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tori Meeks returned to her house after walking her dog in the wee hours on Oct. 30 and noticed the torn-up grass as daylight emerged.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was still dark so it took me a little bit to process what had happened,\u201d Meeks said. \u201cIt was pretty shocking. It looked like someone had taken a rototiller to the front yard.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She doesn\u2019t have security cameras so the only clues to go by was a lot a wiggling grubs in the dirt and a faint paw print.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBig pieces of the grass were torn back and we saw lots of grubs wiggling when we went to put it back,\u201d she said. \u201cI understand grubs eat all the roots of the grass making it easy to pull up, taking dirt with it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"|\"
This animal print was spotted on a front lawn torn up by wildlife in Kamloops. SUBMITTED\/Tori Meeks<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Meeks guessed the paw print belonged to a raccoon. She hadn\u2019t seen a raccoon before the damage but after speaking with her neighbours, she learned the masked bandits have been spotted in the area before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think the print was three or four inches, it wasn\u2019t that big, I wish I\u2019d taken more photos,\u201d she said. \u201cRaccoons have long fingers, but our soil is like a clay and it was wet. The print didn\u2019t look as long as what is typical for a raccoon, but when I looked up raccoon prints, they don\u2019t always show the long fingers in muddy conditions.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

iNFOnews.ca sent the photos of the destroyed lawn and paw print to Karl Larsen, a professor in the Natural Resource Sciences department at Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI really don\u2019t know what caused that. I think raccoons would be a good guess, but even a bear or coyote could be digging up grubs like leatherjacket larvae,\u201d he told iNFOnews.ca. \u201cMy experience with raccoons is fairly limited and I\u2019ve never seen this.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Matthew Wright with Orkin Canada in Kelowna inspected the photographs and determined the culprit to be a black bear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI don\u2019t have anything to judge the size, but it appears to be more of a bear track,\u201d he said. \u201cA raccoon track has a pad and long finger-like toes. This is a bear track with bear toes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Racoons will do that kind of thing, but not to this extent. They\u2019ll pick out grubs from the lawn, but this is more like a caveman just ripping up the whole thing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wright has seen raccoon damage on lawns while doing pest control on properties before moving into his current role doing structural pest control. He also has raccoons in his yard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey go after crane fly larvae and dig little pockets in the lawn, maybe an inch-and-a-half wide. They won\u2019t do anything close to what you\u2019re seeing in the photo. I don\u2019t see damage to this extent in neighbourhoods, especially over just one night.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said crane flies will deposit eggs in the lawn that hatch into grubs that feed on the roots of the grass. Several wild animals feed on the grubs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Karly McMullen with WildSafeBC couldn\u2019t confirm what animal did the damage, but suggested it could be from raccoons. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whoever the culprit was, she concurs, it was due to a grub infestation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis homeowner likely has an overabundance of grubs in their yard which the raccoons dig out of the ground to eat,\u201d she said in an email. \u201cGrubs are a favourite food for raccoons.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To deal with grub infestations, McMullen recommends homeowners use granules or other insecticides on the lawn in the summer, or introduce a population of beneficial nematodes, which can be purchased at garden stores, to eat the grubs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Homeowners can also use physical deterrents. These can include motion activated sprinklers, or laying down deterring scents like predator urine, ammonia, apple cider vinegar or cayenne pepper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If necessary, the homeowner should contact a pest control specialist for further assistance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meeks said she isn\u2019t going to worry about the damage or the grubs until the spring as she’s more concerned about protecting the koi fish in her outdoor pond.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019re trying to figure out how to put an electric fence around the pond,” she said. “I\u2019m worried about the koi going missing, they\u2019re so vulnerable to any kind of predator.\u201d \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Racoons will do that kind of thing but not to this extent. They\u2019ll pick out grubs from the lawn, but this is more like a caveman just ripping up the whole thing.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":478,"featured_media":7674,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"guid":"","source":"","byline":"","published":"","updated":"","_infotelid":"","_prepressid":"","_multisite_post_sync":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1680,541,543],"tags":[],"region":[322,323,324,325],"class_list":["post-7673","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-local","category-topnews","region-kamloops","region-kelowna","region-penticton","region-vernon"],"blocksy_meta":[],"parsely":{"version":"1.1.0","canonical_url":"https:\/\/infonews.ca\/inhome\/news\/7673\/pretty-shocking-kamloops-lawn-destroyed-by-mysterious-critter\/","smart_links":{"inbound":0,"outbound":0},"traffic_boost_suggestions_count":0,"meta":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","headline":"‘Pretty shocking’: Kamloops lawn destroyed by mysterious critter","url":"http:\/\/infonews.ca\/inhome\/news\/7673\/pretty-shocking-kamloops-lawn-destroyed-by-mysterious-critter\/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"http:\/\/infonews.ca\/inhome\/news\/7673\/pretty-shocking-kamloops-lawn-destroyed-by-mysterious-critter\/"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/infonews.ca\/inhome\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/inhome-racoon-1.jpg?w=150&h=150&crop=1","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https:\/\/infonews.ca\/inhome\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/inhome-racoon-1.jpg"},"articleSection":"Featured","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Shannon Ainslie"}],"creator":["Shannon Ainslie"],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"iNhome","logo":""},"keywords":[],"dateCreated":"2025-11-06T12:00:00Z","datePublished":"2025-11-06T12:00:00Z","dateModified":"2025-11-06T12:00:00Z"},"rendered":"