Critter added insult to injury of the roll-top table

[Chip]

On a canoe camping trip stopping at undeveloped campsites, I often pack a table. On a recent trip with GPP, we stopped at a developed site the night before the undeveloped site. The developed site had tables, so I left the roll-top table in the canoe. In the morning, I discovered a critter had chewed on the table.

And there was some chew on the other end of the table, too. I wash the table between uses, so if there was food residue it wasn't much. I suspect the table may have absorbed salt from being on salt water trips, so maybe the critter was after salt.

The insult added to the injury was the critter leaving lots of feces and urine in the boat. Maybe the lesson here is to overturn the boat before walking away from it for the night. But what to do with the table if it's not in use? Do I have to string it up in a tree like a food bag?

I guess I'll be shopping for a new table. The aluminum ones look pretty nice, and maybe they are lighter than the 11-lb wood/plastic version. Anybody have suggestions?

 

[alsg]

Where did this happen? Any idea what kind of animal?

 

[lowangle al]

I would do a temporary fix with duct tape and get another 10 years out of that one. I haven't seen anything out there that would make me want to upgrade mine. I also don't think you will have a chronic problem with it getting chewed on in the future.

 

[yellowcanoe]

See if you can fill it with the foam in a can and wrap in duct tape.
Mouse.. I have had them eat thick neoprene and minicell pads.
You might apply some hot pepper to your foam while it cures.

 

[Guest]

I left the roll-top table in the canoe. In the morning, I discovered a critter had chewed on the table.
I suspect the table may have absorbed salt from being on salt water trips, so maybe the critter was after salt.

The insult added to the injury was the critter leaving lots of feces and urine in the boat.

Lots of feces? How is your scat ID? Mouse poop is pretty easy to identify.

Cashew shaped droppings about 1 inch long? Porcupine going after salt.

Porcupines ate the deck rigging and bungee off Joels sea kayak for the salt. One trout fishing trip I awoke in the morning to find that the two rods I had left leaning against a tree were completely bare of handles. A porcupine had eaten a cork handle and a rubber handle down to bare rod, without leaving any debris on the ground.

I guess I'll be shopping for a new table. The aluminum ones look pretty nice, and maybe they are lighter than the 11-lb wood/plastic version. Anybody have suggestions?

Two suggestions.

First, that Roll-a-table looks easily fixable. Fill it in with some PC-7, slap some Gorilla tape over it and call it good for another 20 years.

Second, beware some (much) assembly required aluminum camp tables. Some are as easy as a Roll-a-table to put together. Some are not. One friend has an aluminum camp table that requires an advanced degree in engineering. Which he does not have; it is comical to watch him struggle with it, and we are sometimes sitting down to eat by the time he has it finished.

 

[yellowcanoe]

I have an alu slat table. It requires six hands to put together. You get one thing in and another pops out. Its heavy( maybe 10 lbs maybe a little less).. Too heavy for me to like it. Come get it. You can have it.

 

[VernAK]

Glad to see I'm not the only victim of porcupines......it's all part of being out there until they eat the cork grip off your new high-end fly rod.

 

[Terry Q]

I have salt water and fresh water sponges for my canoe for just that reason. If I take a sponge I used in salt water on a fresh water trip they tend to get eaten.


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[Chip]

Where? Allegheny River near Kennerdell.

Droppings? Certainly too large for a mouse. I just looked at on-line photos of raccoon and porcupine droppings and I'd have to say these were porcupine. I believe the last time I took the roll top table in the canoe was on the Chesapeake near Hoopers Island. On that trip, I ended up swamping the boat--a separate story I should write up for your entertainment, so, surely, there was salt water intrusion through the threaded holes that receive the leg bolts.

Thank you for the feedback on the aluminum tables. I guess I will hold on to my current table and try to seal it up somehow. We used the damaged table on the trip and it functioned just fine.

In the past, I never worried about keeping the table dry. I just tossed it in the boat, usually on the bottom, and if it rained or I took on a wave or two, the table just got wet, and it never seemed much the worse for wear. I figured the downfall of the table would be holes worn in the plastic coating that allowed the wood to get wet. Once the wood got wet, either rot or delamination of the plywood would set in, the table would get weak, and probably heavy. Maybe my thinking is backwards, and that by opening up the vinyl, the wood can dry, and it will last longer. Still, I think I'll try to seal it up. Plywood and water seem to me a bad combination.

 

[Guest]

I just looked at on-line photos of raccoon and porcupine droppings and I'd have to say these were porcupine. I believe the last time I took the roll top table in the canoe was on the Chesapeake near Hoopers Island. On that trip, I ended up swamping the boat--a separate story I should write up for your entertainment, so, surely, there was salt water intrusion

Looking at the toothy marks that was my guess. It happens.

Glad to see I'm not the only victim of porcupines......it's all part of being out there until they eat the cork grip off your new high-end fly rod.

I have salt water and fresh water sponges for my canoe for just that reason. If I take a sponge I used in salt water on a fresh water trip they tend to get eaten.

If you paddle salt water, and fresh water in porcupine territory, some precautions may be in order.

https://www.google.com/search?q=por...AhUJulMKHXLTCHgQ9QEIKzAA#imgrc=M0eUYMXVH5F8YM:

They are marvelously creatures, sometimes screw-you bold and curious. I do not know anything other critter that goes after salt that voraciously. At least I do not think I have had my gear nibbled by deer or moose.

https://www.adirondackalmanack.com/2012/04/adirondack-wildlife-the-porcupine-and-salt.html

What precautions? I dunno, I would never have considered one eating our Roll-a-table.

 

[Sweetfancymoses]

Is that OSB board or something like it in the picture? I used OSB for backing of signage. The rodents climbed up a T-post and chewed it up. There must be salt added in the manufacturing process.

 

[daveo4]

I feel your pain, Chip. Last weekend I had a grey squirrel chew a hole in my critter proof (?), odor proof blue barrel. Not through the body, but through the edge of the lid and into the blue plastic. No food lost but it ruined the barrel.
Regards,
Dave

 

[yellowcanoe]

Is that OSB board or something like it in the picture? I used OSB for backing of signage. The rodents climbed up a T-post and chewed it up. There must be salt added in the manufacturing process.

Porkies are fond of glue in plywood.
Because of this we had to replace a whole outhouse on the Appalachian Trail
we wrapped the new structure in chicken wire and applied a coat of creosote

 

[Chip]

The table is built of some sort of manufactured wood--plywood, I think. Per YC and the article McCrea linked, "The trace amounts of sodium in the adhesives used in plywood is another sodium source that attracts the porcupine in summer." So it doesn't have to necessarily be salt the porky is after, they need sodium to correct their dietary imbalance. So maybe it was salt in the table from last seasons saltwater swamping, or maybe the critter was just after the plywood. Either way, I'm impressed the critter knew there was sodium inside the plastic coating of the table.

A squirrel did in Dave's blue barrel? I've never been a barrel user but was strongly considering becoming one because of the blue barrel's reputation as being critter resistant. I'll rethink that one.

 

[Grandpa Paddler]

Chip,

Maybe if someone had suggested turning over your canoe porky wouldn't have pooped in it... oh, wait...

I haven't had any critter problems with my blue barrels (yet). I do try to keep the outside free of any food particles.

 

[Guest]

Last weekend I had a grey squirrel chew a hole in my critter proof (?), odor proof blue barrel. Not through the body, but through the edge of the lid and into the blue plastic. No food lost but it ruined the barrel.

Well that sucks, and kinda dashes my hopes that the lid rim of a barrel was too bulbous for carolinensis teeth to gnaw. Given what squirrels manage to chew through, including even flat surfaces, I knew that bordered on fantasy.

I kinda suspected that was a forlorn hope; we have had several screw top gasketed buckets and pails ruined via squirrels chewing at the rim.

I may smear some uber-hot sauce along that chewable lip before the next trip. Which I will probably handle and then rub my eye, or worse grasp my pecker, realizing too late that was a very bad idea.

I am not sure it is even odor detection. I think some of the rodentia attack is habituation. We have never had stuff gnawed into on more wildernessy sites, but on established sites every dang chipmunk, squirrel and raccoon seems to know that any plastic container, barrel or bucket or cooler, holds edibles.

 

[flyingbison]

I am not sure it is even odor detection. I think some of the rodentia attack is habituation. We have never had stuff gnawed into on more wildernessy sites, but on established sites every dang chipmunk, squirrel and raccoon seems to know that any plastic container, barrel or bucket or cooler, holds edibles.

I agree. Last year, on a family camping trip in a state park campground, a raccoon ripped open a ziplock bag I left out on the picnic table overnight ... the only thing in the ziplock bag was a couple of (unscented) plastic garbage bags. So that raccoon was either just curious, or knew that food was usually found inside plastic bags at campsites.

 

[Terry Q]

I few years ago, while on Pavilion Key in the Everglades, I watched two crows who learned that every paddler had snacks in their canoes and kayaks. As soon as a paddler left their boats unattended the crows would swoop in and grab a snack.

It was fun to watch, and they were rewarded just about every time.


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[lowangle al]

I had vultures steel my KFC down there one time.

 

[Odyssey]

My estimation of vultures has just gone waaay up.