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Carver, 64, lives in an RV full time and works as a campground host in state parks and national forests. Some days, he says, he feels as if he is surrounded by the enemy.
We are talking, of course, about squirrels.
“They are capable of causing an enormous amount of damage,” he says. They have chewed through your insulation and your grill cover. They knock over your propane tanks and leave piles of nut shells on your steps and picnic table. She worries they will chew through the electrical wiring or, worse, the sewer hoses. “It’s an ongoing battle,” Carver says. “Constant vigilance and concern.”
Carver has even taken his frustration to social media, where he runs a small Facebook group called “The Squirrel Haters of America” although he admits that “hate” might be too strong a word: “I enjoy watching his antics. They are incredibly intelligent and athletic. I guess it’s a weird love/hate thing.”
Squirrels are everywhere (there are over 200 species in the world and estimates of their total population range from millions to billions) and even though they are cute, most of the attention they get is negative. People worry about keeping them out of attics, bird feeders and garden beds, but “we don’t really think about their more complex roles in our ecosystems and our daily lives,” says Alex Potash, a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Wildlife Ecology and Conservation, University of Florida.
Even among the scientific community, there is little attention to these critters. “Actually, very little is known about them from an ecological point of view,” he says. Noah Perlutteacher and director of “Project Squirrel” at the School of Marine and Environmental Programs at the University of New England. “When I started the project I looked at the literature and couldn’t believe there wasn’t a single ecological study published on gray squirrels in New England.”
Experts say that if people learned more about squirrels, they might find them much more adorable. North America is home to gray and red squirrels, fox squirrels, flying squirrels, and other members of the family Sciuridae (think chipmunks, groundhogs, marmots, and prairie dogs), and they all provide important ecosystem services.
One of the most important things squirrels do is probably also what they are best known for: hiding acorns and nuts. Because they don’t hibernate, Potash says, squirrels spend much of the year, well, squirrels food for winter. In the fall, that means collecting and burying whatever they can find. And while they have an uncanny ability to remember where their treasure is, some of those nuggets inevitably aren’t recovered.
“Maybe the squirrel dies or can’t find it,” Potash says, “but for some reason that acorn stays in the ground, germinates, and becomes a tree.” His research has found that squirrel behavior is one of the most important factors influencing forest regeneration and where trees and many other plants grow.
“They need to eat all year round, so it’s not just about acorns,” Potash adds. “They are spreading a lot of seeds because they eat a lot of other plants and berries. “They are even spreading fungi: when they go to dig, they get covered in fungal spores, and then they go to dig somewhere else and disperse them.”
Thanks to their size and abundance, squirrels have another “incredible ecological value,” Perlut says, “but in a way that makes people a little squeamish. They are critical foods; “That’s just part of being a small mammal.” Predators include foxes, coyotes, bobcats, birds of prey (such as owls, hawks, and eagles), and even alligators.
How to make peace with squirrels
Many people find squirrels annoying, and sure, it’s frustrating when they dig holes in your lawn, chew on things they shouldn’t, scavenge in your yard and bird feeders, and sometimes even find their way into your house. But the first step to living more peacefully with them is to understand why They do those things.
“They are very sociable and spend much of the day watching, learning and observing,” says Perlut. “They have adapted incredibly to being around us. Let’s think about how difficult it is, for example, for a squirrel to live in a park in a big city, and the danger that this poses. Between the cars, the foods that could kill them, the people that hurt them, other animals that eat them; The fact that they can live and even thrive despite all those threats is quite remarkable.”
Because they have adapted so well to sharing their habitat with humans, squirrels have learned that a garden or bird feeder provides a safe and reliable meal. And, as any homeowner who’s heard the telltale rattling in the ceiling knows, he’s discovered that an attic can be a nice, warm place to raise a family of squirrels. However, many of these annoyances are easy to avoid.
Most species only need a hole of 3 inches or less to enter the house, so be sure to seal small gaps around gutters and attic windows, repair rotted wood they can chew on, and put down mesh or cloth metal behind openings such as vents.
“If we can keep our houses airtight, squirrels will find plenty of natural habitat to nest in,” Perlut says.
As for your garden, netting or chicken wire can help keep them away, but there are other natural repellents you can try. Planting alliums (think garlic and onions) around the edges of the garden, for example, can make squirrels smell unpleasant. The same goes for some flowers, such as marigolds and geraniums. And if all else fails, squirrels are sensitive to capsaicin, the compound that makes peppers spicy. Plant some spicy varieties or simply sprinkle a liberal amount of chili powder around the perimeter as a deterrent.
For bird feeders, there are many models that claim to be “squirrel-proof,” but the aforementioned intelligence (not to mention their climbing and jumping abilities) makes it really difficult to keep squirrels away. Putting a baffle (a cone-shaped barrier) on the pole can help prevent them from climbing, but experts agree that the best way to deal with squirrels at the feeder is to simply hug them.
“People who have bird feeders tell me their frustrations all the time,” Perlut says. “I’m always curious to know why they don’t like squirrels. Aren’t you feeding wildlife because you want to see it? Why do you only want to see birds and not birds and squirrels together? They are wild animals that deserve our love, appreciation and study.”
Potash says people should feel lucky to be around squirrels. “If I want to see a bear, I have to go out into the middle of the woods, track it down, and do all these things,” he says. “But I can walk right outside my door and see some squirrels.”
Kate Morgan is a freelance writer in Richland, Pennsylvania.