Saturday, November 14, 2020

Trapping Red Squirrels

 

One corner of my lot is near a neighbor who might object to my shooting Red Squirrels. Unfortunately, that corner is filled with Black Walnut and infested with Red Squirrels.

One of my friends suggested a variation on the water-in-bucket trap. In its simplest form, it involves floating unshelled sunflower seeds or peanuts on top of about 8" of water in a smooth-sided, plastic bucket. They go in and cannot jump out.

I am going to run a slight variation on that idea.


The bucket will get plastic packing peanuts and I will run it a few days with bait but no water. I may even place a stick so they can easily climb out.

Then, I put out several of traps with water, packing peanuts and a floating, foam cup partially filled with the oily seeds squirrels love. But no stick.

After-action-report in about a week.


5 comments:

  1. This is going to be interesting.

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  2. Going to watch this with interest!

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  3. I would ask you to measure one, but I wouldn't want you to be looked down on for critter-sizing.

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    Replies
    1. No problem. They are approximately 3X chipmunks in mass and 1.41414567 chipmunks in length.

      https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-WQEQX0WZ2r0/XUtR6hwjx4I/AAAAAAAAYlI/wNOm4K6C9WE0BpHtbL-WinT0RCjS1o5CwCLcBGAs/s320/VZM.IMG_20190807_183125.jpg

      Delete
  4. So if I divide by 0.707 . . .

    ReplyDelete

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