Weasels love German cars (2019)

wsj.com

3 points·legerdemain··4 comments

Don‘t Americans distinguish between weasels and martens? The subhead is precise in mentioning stone martens, though.

One consequence of that phenomenon is that in the suburbs of my city, you can‘t barely take a walk outside without getting annoyed by the high-pitch noisemakers that are installed in basically every garage and under most of the cars.

Yes, at least where I am from martens are distinguished pretty clearly (at least as much as something like a wolverine). I guess I took the title to mean to weasel as a superclass, of which martens are a subtype (along with regular generic weasels). In some areas of the US people probably aren't familiar with martens, but would be familiar with weasels.

I'm confused by the noisemakers though?

Oh, I understand. Thanks for the explanation.

Regarding noisemakers, I should rather say noise making devices, I guess. Here is a company promoting theirs (quick Google search): https://mardersicher.com/marderschreck-mardersicher-ms-12v-m... Googling for an example, I just discovered that the German Wikipedia has an extensive article (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marderabwehr) on defense mechanisms! The devices are supposed to only emit ultrasound. In practice, most don't.

Yeah you can buy similar things in the US for various animals, although they're usually to keep animals out of your home or spaces like under a deck.

I'm having trouble imagining them being frequent (and audible) enough to hear out on a walk though. Seems like an issue.

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