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Quit Eating My Signs!
Pepper-Based Coating Discourages Animals from Damaging Structures

Kathleen Snodgrass, Project Leader

Animals peck and chew buildings, signs, and utility lines and cables at U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service facilities across the nation (figure 1). Forest Service employees have tried many methods to discourage animal damage. Some methods have worked better than others, but all seem to have their limitations. The Forest Service's Technology and Development program has been asked to investigate methods to prevent animals from damaging facilities many times over the years and has produced several recent reports on the topic, including:

Controlling Rodents in Forest Service Facilities: Reports from the Field

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How To Prevent Woodpeckers from Damaging Buildings

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Figure 1—This porch post at a historic ranger station
in the Intermountain Region was damaged by a beaver or
porcupine during the winter of 2003–2004.

The Products

During the late summer of 2003, the Missoula Technology and Development Center (MTDC) learned of a new product manufactured by EcoCote International that claims to deter animals from chewing surfaces that have been coated with the product. The active ingredient is a concentrated food-quality oleoresin capsicum extract.

The company manufactures the extract from habanero peppers. Habanero, or Capsicum chinense, is a particularly potent pepper native to the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico, Belize, and Guatemala.

The coating is produced using a patented process that molecularly bonds the pepper extract to paints, stains, plastics, and other rubberized products. The product is water based and nontoxic, contains no volatile organic compounds or solvents, and cures into a clear, flexible coating.

The manufacturer provided MTDC with results from tests conducted in Australia, Japan, Kenya, and the United States on surfaces subject to damage by termites, zebra mussels, mice, woodpeckers, baboons, and elephants. The company's tests showed that animals are less likely to chew or peck surfaces coated with the product.

Based on the company's results, it appears that the product might help the Forest Service prevent damage to structures and utilities, but the company's tests were not conducted under typical Forest Service field conditions.

Informal Field Tests

MTDC obtained 2 gallons of the product mixed into a clear paint-like coating. Several ranger districts volunteered to field test the coating informally. Three districts were chosen based on the animal causing the damage, the ease of access, and the type of material being protected. A fourth site at a Forest Service corral was chosen, but a private corral was substituted when the Forest Service corral became unavailable at the last minute. The test locations were:

Northern Region (R–1), Helena National Forest, Lincoln Ranger District, MT

Animal causing damage: Porcupine
Protected surface: Plywood roadway signs

Intermountain Region (R–4), Sawtooth National Forest, Sawtooth National Recreation Area, ID

Animal causing damage: Woodpecker
Protected surface: Wooden board and batten siding on a campground vault toilet

Corral, private horse property near Frenchtown, MT

Animal causing damage: Horse, mule
Protected surface: Peeled softwood pole corral rails

Pacific Northwest Region (R–6), Gifford Pinchot National Forest, Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument, WA

Animal causing damage: Chipmunk
Protected surface: Plastic weather seals on overhead doors at the maintenance shop

Informal tests at these sites involved painting one portion of a sign, wall, or corral rail with the habanero coating while leaving an adjacent portion uncoated. In addition to these tests, the coating was applied to plastic insulated wiring and hard plastic equipment boxes used by Forest Service law enforcement officers in Kentucky, Arkansas, and South Carolina. Rodents had been ruining surveillance operations in these areas by chewing through the plastic boxes and shorting out the wiring.

Figure 2—The back of the Dry Creek road sign in the Helena National
Forest's Lincoln Ranger District in October 2003 just after the left half of
the sign was painted with habanero coating.

Figure 3—The back of the Dry Creek road sign in July 2004.
The treated (left) half of the sign shows no further damage,
while the untreated (right) half has been chewed severely.

E-mail: wo_mtdc_webmaster@fs.fed.us	Technology & Development Center

since March 31, 2005