How to Get Rid of Salamanders in the Yard

Want to get rid of salamanders in your yard? While there is no surefire method, there are ways to make your yard less inviting. However, salamanders are harmless and eat bugs, so in essence they are doing you a favor. Consider carefully before trying to get rid of them.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Fogger
• Rake
• Trash/leaf bags
• Citronella candles/Tiki torches
• Exterminator

Change the Landscape

1. Salamandars are nocturnal and need a great deal of moisture to survive. Therefore, the best way to get rid of salamanders and prevent more from coming is to eliminate areas that are attractive to them.

2. Damp piles of leaves are ideal locations for salamanders. Rake and bag your leaves (or burn, if permissible) to eliminate the temptation.

3. The moist undersides of rocks are also ideal locations for salamanders. Eliminate loose rocks, especially those with crevices or overhangs, that provide the dark, moist environment a salamander needs to survive.

4. Make your yard as sunny as possible. The more an area is covered in sunlight, the less area a salamander has to call home. Their skin needs to stay moist, and the sun dries it out, so most salamanders try to avoid the sun.

5. Rotting trees, logs, leaves (or anything rotting, really) makes an ideal location for salamanders. Remove rotting vegetation as soon as possible to avoid creating an inviting place for a salamander to live.

Eliminate the Food Source

6. Salamanders feed on insects. In order to make your yard uninviting to salamanders, make it univiting to insects.

7. Use a fogger (readily available at places like Home Depot) to kill bugs in the yard for up to 30 days.

8. Eliminate pools of standing water where many insects (such as mosquitoes) like to lay eggs. Eliminating pools of standing water will also eliminate inviting homes for the salamander.

9. Citronella candles are useful to temporarily keep insects at bay. Citronella tiki torches or similar devices placed around the exterior of the lawn are even more effective. The same can be said of bug-zappers.

10. Call an exterminator to come in and eliminate insects through chemical means.

Tips & Warnings

• Salamanders are nocturnal, harmless and eat bugs. There is little, if any, reason to get rid of them, as they are beneficial to the yard.

[dusky42]

on 1/27/2009 If you don't like salamanders, you probably don't like bugs and other invertebrates, like slugs, either. Salamanders eat bugs and invertebrates that can be a pest to you and your garden. This is all part of the web of life-how each organism is connected to others. Beware of removing an organism from the ecosystem. There are many examples throughout history of how these kind of short-sighted decisions can have long-lasting negative effects, ie. an increase in pest species once their main predator has been eliminated.
Why not encourage biodiversity in your yard?