pretty difficult to hit one of those squirrels, seems as if you try to hit them you typically cannot but if you drive normally you get lucky a bit more often…our neighbor has a young boy with a pellet gun that at least keeps down the population that is fueled by other neighbors feeding them all of the time.
“Owls present a different threat to the power grid: in Eastern WA, an owl carrying a stolen chicken decided to land on a power line with the chicken dangling below… their charred remains were discovered when the wildfire started by the short was extinguished.”
That was an Owl attempting cajun cuisine, ie blackened chicken…
Squirrels have cost me some money and some of their antics have cost them their lives. A squirrel ate through the wiring harness on our D’s 2003 Hyundai. It turns out they are made of biodegradable plastic and the fuzzy tailed rodents like it enough to chew on it. $350 to replace. Another time one crawled up under the hood of the same car (it gets parked outside) and got it self wedged. I received a call from D saying that there was a dead squirrel in our car. She opened the hood and there it was. Rigor mortise had set in and he was quite odoriferous. Little bugger got him self wedged in pretty good to. No cost for that one but I did have to figure out how to dispose of the body. In the end it got pitched in a woods. I figured that is where they die naturally.
Check out this video - it proves that a squirrel is just a rat with fur:
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-34876813
I resemble that remark.
I am dead-set against killing animals for any reason other than preservation of the life of another (so that includes eating even though I’m a vegetarian), but I am ready to snap the neck of a squirrel that sits outside and taunts my dog. I have to keep all my shades down now for every window or else she’ll whine at the squirrel.
But it gets worse. It now sits on my windowsill and makes noises so the dog can hear it. And then she whines CONSTANTLY because she wants to go get the squirrel.
Dog has never caught or killed an animal while living with me (but she was a stray in Detroit for the first several months of her life so it’s possible she hunted then). But honestly, my dog is DUMB. I love her, and she’s a wonderful dog, but she is DUMB and I really don’t think she can catch this squirrel or know what to do with it if she did catch it.
So instead, I get to listen to the squirrel taunt her and her to whine about it. All.Day.Long.
Did I mention I’m ready to kill this squirrel??
Back on topic… re: begging squirrels: both my undergrad and grad campuses had squirrels which begged. They have no fear of humans and will run right up to you. It’s not uncommon for them to come right up to (but not on) your lap while sitting and waiting for the bus.
Not surprisingly, these are also often very fat squirrels.
Yup, when my husband and I attended grad school at IU Bloomington we were shocked to find the huge begging squirrels that live on that campus. Truly mutant like. One just anihilated this really nice bird feeder we had outside our window, and just seemed to look at my husband and stick his tongue out when he tried to chase the bugger off.
Some in the Boston Common will not only come up to you, but sometimes even hop right onto your lap and even crawl through your shirt.
They are also very proficient in working cleverly in teams to securing food and drinks. Saw one squirrel overturn a nearly full plastic bottle of a fruit drink perched on a bench so his/her partner could fully drink up below.
As for college squirrels…while visiting a HS classmate’s dorm at Harvard(Winthrop or Adams House)…saw a rotund squirrel attempt to leap onto her dorm windowsill in an attempt to get at any snacks she and her roommates may have. We were amused when the squirrel didn’t quite make it, fell straight into a dumpster below, and threw a loud squirrely tantrum*.
- Probably because it contained construction debris from renovation of the house rather than food.
Squirrels and chipmunks can carry many diseases we avoid them as much as possible and NEVER feed any creatures.
Speaking about agressvie animals…the sea gulls on Popham Beach in Phippsburg, Maine are ruthless. Will grab a peanut butter and jelly sandwich right out of a little kid’s hand. We’ve seen them flying around with someone’s bag of potato chips snatched off a beach blanket. They seem to know when it is lunch time too.
My MIL works as a programmer for a power company, and H and I once asked her how long the power would stay on in a zombie apocalypse. Her response was pretty much until the squirrels brought it down (which would probably be a couple of weeks).
The house I grew up in had a huge squirrel problem. They took up residence in the roof and I would hear them scratching around all of the time. One time, a small one managed to make it down into the basement somehow. I was home on break from college and sleeping on the couch, and I heard my cat running around. Next thing I know I feel a weight on my chest. I opened my eyes and it was a squirrel - thankfully my cat chased it off of me not two seconds later. I also had a squirrel get in my lap at Universal Studios while I was eating a peanut butter sandwich. Too many close encounters of the squirrel kind.
Not squirrels, but trees. Supposedly the great rolling blackout years ago that took out the entire east coast started in the midwest when a tree branch interfered with a power line. This was the excuse given to us when Duke Power chopped down a dozen beautiful cherry trees in our neighborhood that were technically in the right of way of gigantic power lines. The 18 ft tall trees were not even directly underneath the wires - which are maybe 100 ft above the ground.
squirrels are just rats with a bushy tail. people see squirrels and they are fine with it, a rat comes along and everyone freaks out. squirrels are very destructive if they get in your attic or garage etc…
As Mr. B was reading me a piece about some recent attacks by Russian hackers on power grids here and in Europe, a loud boom shook the walls, a bright flash lit up the night sky, and the lights in the room blinked! A squirrel met its death inside a (now toast) transformer. Must have been a red squirrel…
One easy form of critter control based on my own experience…pick up the electric guitar, crank up the amp, and play badly.
Another reason we are lucky not to live in squirrel country–we mainly have rats, mice, roaches and mongooses. Thankfully no snakes or gators either, nor chipmunks or skunks. {shudder}