I am not exaggerating when I say I’ve trapped more than 30 squirrels in the past two weeks. They seem to come from an infinite supply, coming for my apricots. Has anyone found an end to the squirrel supply?
I live in a semi-urban neighborhood with many squirrel feeders nearby. My barber used to take care of orchards and told me that they had success by leaving squirrels out to rot, and the smell of decaying squirrel deterred new pillagers. I tried it for a while, squirrel in a paper bag hanging in my trees. It seemed to work to a degree, but the flies became unbearable after a week.
My squirrel complaints aside, I am still getting some excellent fruit, and the WCS tube trap is fantastic at it’s job. The new design is definitely improved.
How many squirrels must a man hunt down?
The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind.
There are stacks of large cardboard cartons, halfway to the ceiling, at my neighborhood department store (BiMart), containing in-shell peanuts. Judging by the number of peanut shell pieces in my yard, most of the store peanuts go to feeding the squirrels and crows.
Last week I trapped 4 squirrels and apparently caught the one(s) that had been doing blossom removal from a fruiting shrub. Fruit removal is a more universal squirrel habit.
You have to trap them all season, starting from early spring. Or get a couple of cats/dog.
In my old property in suburban wilmington , I used to have 5 traps strategically distributed around squirrel entry points to my yard, and I used to check them twice a day to ensure the bait is still there. Now I live in a rural area with good predator population, so squirrels are way lower in numbers.
I trapped for about 24 months since fall of 2023, caught most in winter when there was no fruit to steal. Now I rarely see one, so it does take some time, but they do live peanuts
Dennis
Kent wa
My squirrels are a bit gun shy by now. But there aren’t that many around out here. Even so, they sure can eat a lot of fruit. Or spoil it. Sometimes they only take a few bites out of my peaches, then leave the rest. I have 2 big pear trees and even though the fruits are hard and 1” long, the squirrels are after them.
As mentioned in some of my other posts, I use Dalen plastic fencing around my main garden. and they seem reluctant to climb it. As long as they can’t crawl in below, it has reduced their share of my crops.
Some years we have nesting Coopers Hawks on the property, and they definitely reduce the squirrel count. The squirrels hardly ever need to leave the trees here, so I don’t think the 4 legged predators get very many. We had a great dog, but squirrel catching wasn’t one of her strengths.
I think we’re at squirrel equilibrium here- they don’t take too much that I care about and I pretty much leave them alone now. I hope this remains the case.
I had a squirrel that would visit the inside of my pole barn. I thought I got rid of her.
Later in the fall I noticed something was crawling under my sliding door. I put a live trap right in front of the hole. I caught one the next day. So it joined my farm swim team, if you know what I mean.
I put the trap back in the same place. I caught 9 squirrels in 10 days. I didnt even have any bait in it. Just made it look like a tunnel. I concluded that the momma had its brood in my barn, and they were coming home to visit the old home place. It was crazy.
Another time I had a trail camera out and had it in video mode. I see this squirrel come up the trail, go up a beech tree and into a hole. I kept watching as squirrels kept coming. 13 squirrels went in that hole. Same video loop so no repeats.
They are gregarious creatures come fall. Where there’s one there’s usually a bunch.
I’ve got to get more aggressive with controlling them.
I control my squirrel population with both traps and my 20 G. SG but my baffles protect the majority of the orchards I manage or my business would never have become profitable.
@kunsangsean I have been trapping squirrels since mid October, I have caught 58 up til now.
I live in a small town 2 blocks from the state police station, I dont dare fire a gun, not even a pellet rifle.
I am using a tube trap, I have only had 1 time that it was triggered without a squirrel in it, I believe that a raccoon tripped it.
To answer your question “how many must a man hunt down” for me, they started slowing down around 30, I would still see them in my neighbor’s yards, but not my yard. Now I seldom see them in my neighbor’s yards either.
They still wander through, I get one every week or so, it started out catching one or more a day.
