YOUR GUIDE TO THE TWIN CITIES
Sound off on squirrels
Posted on July 24th, 2007 – 6:26 PMBy Jaime Chismar
According to Wednesday’s squirrel story by Star Tribune reporter Karen Youso, squirrels are here to stay:
Today, they thrive in near paradise — the mature trees, vegetable gardens and back-yard bird feeders of city and suburban neighborhoods, where the duality of being cute and aggravating produces the obvious results.
Some people love squirrels. They feed them and laugh at their antics, give them names and shoot pictures of them. Others hate them for the destruction they can wreak on house and garden. They’d just like to shoot the varmints, period.
What’s your take — Furry friend or fiendish foe?
44 Responses to "Sound off on squirrels"
Definitely a foe. Really, I’m against guns, but when the squirrels ate three of my biggest tomatoes, despite my bribing them with plenty of bird food (which they devour EVERY day) three weeks in a row, well, I’m tempted to go gun shopping. Eating my tomatoes is NOT OK. Nor was eating my crocus bulbs. Yep, I hate those tree rats.
My dad, now 85, has been growing vegetables at his Richfield home since the early 1980s. He found out pretty quickly that squirrels were not his friends. He bought a Havahart trap and started a capture-and-relocate program, driving each little caged varmint to the Wood Lake Nature Center a few miles away and releasing it. The gentle approach had no effect (aside from burning a lot of fossil fuel). So he began teaching the squirrels how to swim. To this date they have not learned.
I also initiated a long-term, squirrel-relocation effort at my first home over by the Franklin LRT station. (With the help of Havahart.)
Over the course of about a month, I trapped THIRTY-TWO squirrels and schlepped each and every one across the river to the east bank campus area. (I figured they couldn’t swim back home, and probably couldn’t negotiate the Washington Ave bridge, right?)
Well, I don’t think they came back, but new ones moved in to my huge backyard trees. It was like having a new vacancy every day at a Park Ave penthouse - I couldn’t stop the little buggers.
I did kill two - one on purpose and one by accident. (I will spare you all the heinous details.) Both experiences were highly traumatic for all parties involved, and I will never do it again.
My problem was only solved by moving to a different house.
I had a problem with those lovely little red squirrels in a large attic above my rental unit. They were coming in off the black walnut trees in the back yard next to the house. I’ve seen them leap amazing distances from tiny tree limb to limb. I’ve also seen them chase the larger gray squirrels repeatedly to the ground (I’m assuming they want to keep the grays from the good stuff and for predators to get them).
My landlord tried metal in the eaves, but they chewed through it. He tried trapping. Then he thought it’d be a great idea to use moth balls and unloaded several boxes throughout the attic. I came home to toxic fumes settling downward through my unit, which took me days to air out. Please note: MOTH BALLS ARE TOXIC! Not just to moths, but to humans. They will cause serious liver issues, especially in infants. And they are NOT proven to be an effective rodent control. Always double-check for health hazards before employing a chemical!
After five years of having over half of our tomato crop pillaged, we have resorted to rat poison. Each morning I put out a tray by the garden and the squirrels come and chomp it down. It’s having some effect. There are fewer squirrels eating from my garden. But there is one particularly nasty one that lives in our tree that refuses to go to the great beyond, despite my observing it eat the poison on several occasions.
The other obvious hazard with this approach is an unintended animal getting into the poison. So I have to keep a good eye on it, which is a bit time-consuming.
I’ve considered live traps but frankly I don’t think there is any place in the state that needs more of these pests. There’s no good place to put them. Let’s just get the population a little down.
My neighbor sparklegirl is having an awful time with them. She and her husband shook a rodent nest out of their pine tree because they kept digging everything up in her beautiful garden.
Interestingly, they haven’t touched my garden. Why? I have know idea why, but I’m doubly thankful.
Thanks for the tip on moth balls, Amy. I had no idea how toxic they were; I just know I loved the smell of them as a child. Oops.
My garden aside (there is a gaping hole
where my Hybiscus used to be), my major
problem with squirrels, comes in the fall. I’m a school bus driver, and the challenge of getting the kids to school on time, while dodging garbage trucks, tree trimmers, and construction vehicles, is enough, without the game of squirrel/chicken that goes on. As you know, in the fall, those little cuties turn into sexually charged maniacs. They fluff up their tails, chase each other from tree to tree, then hurl themselves out into the street, in front of my bus. The grade school kids are totally up for this game. The girls are gratefull when I swerve wildly and miss them, and the boys go wild when I can’t avoid one. I usually go home with an adreneline hang over and wait for winter. I had a stand off with a Tom Turkey once, but that’s another story…
My yard is squirrel free after a long battle and much learning on my part. There is no reason for a squirrel to want to come to my yard now. There is no available food for them. There are 2 squirrel proof bird feeders high and out of reach to continue feeding the birds but the squirrels have long ago given up on them and went elsewhere. Last year I live trapped the 4 residents in my yard and moved them to the great outdoors.
Definitely a foe. WHAT can be done to get rid of these varmints? I would rather not kill them, but i want to keep them out of my flowers and vegetables. Is there anything that will keep them away?
When squirrels started digging up my potted annuals, over and over, I took trimmings from my miniature rose bushes and stuck them upright among the plants. The flowers soon covered the thorny twigs, and the squirrels never bothered the pots again.
FIENDISH FOE!!!
They ate the only two brandywines on my vine. I’d been nursing these tomatoes since May and the rats came and took ONE BITE out of each tomato.
I cried.
Our dog, a Whippet, has kept the squirrels at bay. I can now plant flowers other than marigolds in our garden. This past week he somehow managed to catch (and kill) a squirrel while on his 15 foot chain! They are cute, but I guess they are stupid.
Foe. Thanks to live traps and squirrel swimming lessons my flowers (especially sunflowers), vegetables, and tomatoes are having a bumper crop.
I was fine with the squirrels until one hopped onto my screen last week and held on running up and down tormenting my cats. He/She absolutely would not go away. I don’t feed them anything, but my neighbor does. I know there is a relocation effort going on, but there’s still an awful lot of them.
while i have a bigger bunny problem in the garden than a squirrel problem, squirrels are definitely antagonizing to my dog. they run up the trees and along the power lines and drive my dog batty. he tries (unsuccessfully) to climb the tree to get to them, and barks at them to come down, but to no avail. they sit in the tree just out of his reach and twitch their tail at him. they did also eat my crocus bulbs, but have left my tulip bulbs in peace. so far my dog hasnt caught any squirrels, though he has brought me two bunnies and a bird. the squirrels are too fast i guess.
Most of my trouble is also with my dog. Squirrels are his mortal enemy…hates them wholebody. He is obsessed with keeping them out of HIS yard, HIS neighborhood, HIS park….HIS world! My other dog would love to play with them and is utterly facinated and puzzeled that they can climb trees. My neighbor feeds the little troublemakers so I think that has kept them from eating at my house. They kindly pass through our yard, just out of dogs reach, to get to their free meal.
I know, I know, they eat your flowers and vegetables, but face it: you throw your litter in the streets, we keep building more and more homes taking away more and more of their space - what do you expect? How about trying to live in harmony with creatures who are obviously here to stay? Beats CRUELTY.
Well well I guess I’m not alone with this problem here in Richfield land of of TREE RATS! First off my neighbor Loves the little gritters and feeds them constantly 24/7! And I plead with him to stop but will not for whatever reason. So his little buddies have destroyed my lawn chairs have been feeding on all my plants. But what really eats at me is I have two very large silver maples one in the front and one in the back. And by my neighbors actions of feedind his furry friends which I may add are unusally large. Return to there homes in my trees which are home to several tribes. So with the now large version of the Tree Rat there nests are not large enough so they make them bigger!! To the point where a very large limb fell into the main street and could have killed someone. The city of Richfield had to come with trucks and cranes to pickup the mess!!!! I’m at my wits end my neighbor won’t stop feeding them and the city will not help and removing my trees is not an opption. I’ve tried traps,posion and BB guns but it’s like trying to empty lake Harreit with a teaspoon!!!!!
Squirrels are delicious.
Pan fry in olive oil, coat in flour, pour in 2 cans cream of celery soup and slow cook in a crock pot for 6 hours. Serve over noodles or rice. they are extremely fun to shoot off deck’s. I would strongly recommend shooting as many as possible. It’s a wonderful family sport. My kids love it. It can be more fun when alcohol is involved.
These little pests are no good! My miniature schnauzer (bless her heart) has been tortured by these little rats in disguise for years. She watches them from outside our windows and I swear they look and smile at her while she can do NOTHING to protect our property. However, yesterday she snagged one of the albino squirrels in our neighborhood. Normally, I would grieve over the loss of any animal—but not these squirrels! Little dogs can make TERRIFIC tomatoes protectors 
So far, they have managed to eliminate my strawberries and the tops to most of my flower bed. Tomatoes are ok so far, but none of ripened. Let’s see what happens in a week!
They are a pain and cost me a lot of bird seed….but so very cute that I cannot stay mad. My husbands wants to kill them with a BB gun and I keep talking him out of it.
Whoops, I only have one husband!
My kids and I find squirrels totally amusing. I have been feeding them (peanuts & seed) for several years. It started years ago when I planted spring bulbs and found the squirrels pulling up my tulip bulbs. I figured they would do less damage to my garden if I fed them their own food. There actually are seed blends specially made for squirrels. There are squirrel and rabbit repellants made for gardens. The best one is a product called Bat Away, which is next to impossible to find. I do have quite a following with the neighborhood squirrel population. I’ll set peanuts out on my window ledge and they’ll come up to my bedroom window in search of them. My son and I actually talk to them–we call them “Bushies” and they come up to me. I know they are not pets–they can scratch and bite and they can do damage, but they are funny little critters.
I had major problems with them getting into the attic in my former house. For awhile I called my “hit-man” (dad) everytime I trapped one and he made the 15 minute drive down to take care of it. After a week or so I decided on the “teaching them to swim” idea. It worked well. The only problem was finding a water tight container big enough to get the entire trap into and have it be completely submerged. I tried to hide it in the bushes next to the house and I would wait until after dark so the neighbors wouldn’t see what I was doing.
Ack! I just can’t drown squirrels!
I asked my neighbor/handy man to help with my squirrel problem and he said he’d live-trap them. I came home to find a garbage can filled with water in the middle of deck. He hadn’t told me he was going to “teach them to swim.” Yikes! I was too afraid of bad squirrel juju so I said no.
And so the squirrels have the run of my yard and gardens . . .
Have you gotten squirrel bit?! All this buzz about squirrels is very timely …
We are presenting a show at the 2007 Minnesota Fringe Festival called “CIRCUMFERENCE OF A SQUIRREL.”
The show takes a darkly comic look at the reprocussions of ‘rodentphobia’
Come check it out!
http://www.myspace.com/fringesquirrel
http://www.fringefestival.org
http://www.fringefestival.org/showDetail.cfm?showID=579
When we first came to New Hope, decades ago, we had a squirrel infestation. They were driving my cat and dog crazy. We live trapped them and sent them to live full, happy lives in newly developed Plymouth estates.
However, I have come to share my ode to hostas with the GreenGirl masses. This came to me while riding my scooter to work one am.
I’m too busy to water
I’m too busy to weed;
HOSTAS! They’re the plant I need.
Roses are so pretty
But roses they take time;
HOSTAS! They’re a friend of mine.
Cuz Hostas are a girls best friend,
Hosta will stay with you to the end!
Some people hate their flowers,
Some people think they’re fine;
HOSTAS! I don’t really mind.
They come in lots of colors,
Leaves all shapes and size;
HOSTAS!They’re a plant I prize.
(and so on into infinite).
Diane: What the heck does that mean huh were talking SQUIRRELS here hon just what you been smoking!!!!!!
I love the blog! A tip from my mom that seems to be working in my gardens is to shave Irish Spring soap around the plants. I have done this once a week for a month now and have not had any of the critters in my gardens that I had earlier in the summer. I just use a cheap veggie peeler to shave the soap. It doesn’t seem to hurt the plants at all.
My squirrels don’t seem to be interested in my garden, they have never destroyed any of my plants or vegetables. They did set up shop in my attic last year, so I had to call the man I called “The Squirrel Whisperer” to come and live-trap them, relocate, and patch up their doorway… it cost me a lot more to do it that way but I couldn’t bear to kill them.
You’re too funny, Diane. 2 out of 3 Greengirls don’t like hostas, but 3 out of 3 loved your poem!
Why has no one here mentioned the effectiveness of a good outdoor cat with a taste for squirrel meat? I had a three-legged cat who would run right up the side of a tree to snatch young tender squirrels–thus reducing the breeding population before the necessity of trapping. He would eat them head first and leave the tail. Gross, sure, but if you’ve ever toiled over favorite flowers and veggies to perfection only to have a tree rat destroy them, a cat sounds better than trapping and drowning. I’d rather dispose of a few tails in the yard than a full-sized soaked squirrel carcass.
My kitty used to keep our garden squirrel free,until she got too old to to hunt. She used to sit out in the garden and the squirrels would run right by her. Kinda sad to see. Now that she’s no longer with us, the squirrels have completely taken over. Guess I’d better try some Irish Spring soap . . .
My dog keeps the squirils at bay in the back yard and that is where I have my veggies. In the front I have flowers and I don’t really care if they dig a random hole now and then. I think that there kind of cute and my daughter has fun watching them so I have nothing against them as long as they don’t move into my house.
As my neighbor Seza mentioned above, I’m having a terrrrrrible time with squirrels this year! They’ve dug up entire plants (some of them expensive) and completely chewed up a wooden decorative piece I had in with my miniature sunflowers.
After coming home one day to find my brand-new dianthus decimated, my husband and I went shopping for BBs. When the store owner heard about our problem, he suggested making more water available to the squirrels first, to see if that would help. He says they dig up entire plants only to get the moisture from the roots, and that if you give them some water in a convenient location, they’ll leave plants alone.
Well, we bought the BBs anyway, but I did move an old birdbath over near “their” tree and have been keeping it filled with water for them. That was about three weeks ago, and they have yet to dig up another plant of mine! I’m not sure this solution will work forever (and my husband is on “standby” with the BB gun) but I’m keeping my fingers crossed that this gets me through tomato harvest time!
Senator Harkin, from Iowa, talks about squirrels & the farm bill:
“I appreciate this opportunity to talk to you about my vision for the new farm bill, and to give you an update on the progress we are making.
“Early this year, I was freshly reminded about what a complex piece of legislation this is. When people ask me what it’s like to shepherd the farm bill through committee and on to the floor and conference, I tell them: It’s not easy.
“And then I tell a story: A farmer is crossing the road to get to his mailbox. He’s in the middle of the road, and he turns to see a speeding car heading right toward him. The farmer dodges to the left; the car swerves to the left. He dodges to the right, the car swerves to the right. Finally, the farmer stands frozen with fear, smack in the middle of the road. The car comes to a screeching halt just inches from his face. The window rolls down to reveal a squirrel in the driver’s seat. The squirrel sticks his head out the window and says, “Not as easy as it looks, is it?”
I hate the buggahs *Period! they chew on my deck. yes on the wood! they do this to keep their teeth down because they grow all their life.. then they chow on my tomatoes and my wife’s planted bulbs. I use a regular rat trap and set it on a hair trigger with a cracker and peanut butter stuck to the trigger. It snaps their neck.No they dont die quickly and I have no guilt about it,,,none whatsoever. If theyre still kicking, which they usually are..I use a full size spade shovel and clobber the fuggahs! *end of story!
Basically, I like squirrels. But, for 25 years they roamed free in my attic crawl space. Everything known to man had been tried to make them leave. It was very aggravating waking up every morning to the sound of running around above my bedroom.
I finally invented a new product(High Intensity Strobe Light) that is safe, harmless and 100% effective. Check out the web site: http://www.evictorproducts.com
I am a big defender of the need for humans to allow wild creatures to thrive and preserve their habitat. When mountain lions are killed because they are roaming the hills around some new suburb built on their home territory it makes me mad. Sure they kill dogs and cats sometimes, we’re starving them to death! The deer and jackrabbits they usually eat are gone and their homes are shrinking by the day.
Squirrels are different. We are not shrinking their habitat at all. We are their habitat! They are like pigeons or mice–they thrive in a human created environment. Sure some squirrels thrive in parks & forests. But urban areas are GREAT for squirrels as long as there are enough trees and gardens. Sure cars flatten them on occasion and sometimes they are poisoned or relocated. But in the wild there are way more owls and hawks to contend with. Squirrels are anything but an endangered species.
Foe.
Yesterday, they started eating our deck. Yeah, that’s right, most of the hand rails have been damaged, some rather severely.
I’m going out tonight after work to buy a pellet gun. Time for permanent relocation to the freakin’ afterlife.
Update: All five of the squirrels that were living in a tree in our front yard are now dead. Our deck has been saved.
I love to put Crocus bulbs in the lawn to naturalize it and have color first thing in the Spring. The squirrels dig them up no matter what I do. I’ve tried Ropel(very nasty toxic stuff),moth balls, red pepper flakes, chicken wire over top of the 3 or 5 bulbs planted (they pick the wore up with their little hands and take the bulbs. I foolishly purchased 140 Crocus bulbs and want so much to plant them. Any different ideas?
The red squirrels are mean, the grey are stupid, and the black are somewhere in between. BB’s don’t work, pellets do.
Greengirls Connie Nelson, Robyn Dochterman and Jaime Chismar are dishin' the dirt from the backyard garden and beyond. Whether you're a greenthumb or greenhorn, they're eager to learn from your misshaps, mistakes -- and most importantly, your sweet successes -- all growing season long.
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