Squirrel Control

Squirrels run amok at airport Officials look to hire pest control company The Municipal Airport is too squirrely. And they're not flying squirrels, but tunneling colonies of ground squirrels that, to the minds of airport officials and users, are out of control. "You see lots of them running around, There are so many squirrels that it's not unusual to see the little buggers out the back door of her office and out the front door, too. "They are all over out place. They are everywhere, even in our landing areas," she said. To keep a skydiver from disappearing into a honeycomb of squirrel runs, new holes in the landing area are filled up as soon as they are discovered. And the skydiving company has its own pest control service to keep squirrels out of its quarters. "If they could get into our parachutes they would chew them up," Now airport officials want to employ their own pest control forces to keep the airport from turning into an ever-burgeoning squirrel colony. "Hopefully, we'll get some control on the population," Most airports have a wildlife control program, but the Marina airport hasn't used a programmed approach to keeping critters at bay A lot of people belong to Trout Unlimited and The Ruffed Grouse Society, two of the most influential and well-organized outdoors organizations in the country. The membership overlap between those two groups is very large. That may explain why fly fishing and grouse hunting get such a disproportionate share of coverage in the outdoors media compared with the number of people who pursue less glamorous species. Now as far as I know, there isn't a Squirrels Unlimited or Gray Squirrel Society. There's no Wild Squirrels Federation, like the organization that promotes turkeys, or a Squirrels Forever, like there is for pheasants. And yet Americans in general spend a lot more time hunting bushytails than grouse, largely because while most grouse hunting is confined to the state's northern forests far from where most hunters live, squirrels can be found everywhere. In anticipation of telephone calls and e-mails from the uninitiated, let's say right off the bat that the primary reason to hunt squirrels is that they are delicious. Truthfully, I'd rather have a Brunswick stew or one of my fantastic squirrel pies than grouse breasts or a venison roast. Squirrels are incomparably tastier than supermarket chicken, beef or pork that may have been raised under questionable circumstances and took weeks or months to get to the consumer. We have three squirrel species in The most common is the gray squirrel, which tends to be black in the northern parts of the state and in enclaves like the Grosse Pointes. It's found virtually anywhere there are trees, and the average gray squirrel weighs about a pound. Fox squirrels average about two pounds, but they are becoming far less common than 50 years ago because of the loss of the open woodlot habitat that they prefer. Fox squirrels are also warier and harder to stalk than gray squirrels. Red squirrels, or pine squirrels, are about half the size of a gray squirrel and are of little interest to hunters. Gray squirrels are an ideal species to introduce young hunters to the sport. Unlike deer hunting, which is 99% sitting and 1% hunting, squirrel hunting is more active and usually lets the hunter get off several shots a day. One question for new squirrel hunters is which gun to use, a .22 rifle or a 20-gauge shotgun? Most experienced squirrel hunters will answer that it depends on where and when they're hunting. A shotgun is much noisier than a .22 and will spook any other squirrels in a surprisingly large area for a long time after you shoot the first one. But a shotgun is usually more efficient early in the season, when heavy foliage makes it tough to draw a bead with a rifle, and the hunter usually can shoot safely at squirrels moving through the treetops. But once a lot of the leaves drop, a .22 is quieter, more precise and usually does less damage to the meat. The drawback is that a .22 bullet carries a lot farther than a shotgun pellet and the hunter has to be more concerned about his backdrop. On a recent squirrel hunt It was overcast, with occasional spitting rain, not the best day for bushytails, but Browning's squeeze-bulb squirrel call soon brought a response from inside the woods and we sat at the base of a tree to wait. It took only a few minutes before we heard something moving through the trees 30 yards away, and a black squirrel ran down an oak trunk and began foraging for acorns in a patch of grass. Sitting against a tree and waiting in an area with a lot of acorns or beechnuts on the ground is one common way to hunt squirrels and works well for solo hunters. If there are two hunters, a good tactic is to move slowly through the woods, 10-20 yards apart, watching for squirrels in the trees. If a squirrel sees a threat, it usually circles to stay on the opposite side of the tree trunk from the hunters. With two hunters, one can slowly circle the tree while the other sits and waits for the squirrel to move to his side. If a solo hunter decides to stalk, he can sometimes stop moving and use a squirrel call to lure the curious animal into poking its head into view. Another good spot for squirrel hunting is wherever a woods meets a cornfield. Squirrels love corn, and I've seen a bushytail backing up a tree trunk with its jaws locked firmly on a corncob as big as itself. The squirrel got into the CVS holding onto a customer's leg. Once inside, employees said, the squirrel went nuts. The crazy story began when a customer was trying to walk into the store and the squirrel latched onto his ankle. He tried to shake it loose and it wouldn't let go. That's when the mayhem began inside the pharmacy. He may be little, furry and some might think cute, but the squirrel was downright feisty. Even after attacking two customers and an employee, he took on the Animal Control officer. The tiny terror hitchhiked into a CVS Pharmacy, latching onto a customer's shoe and refusing to let go. "She was trying to get it out the door, but it wouldn't go anywhere. It just wanted to stay around her," said witness Carol Williams. When another customer tried to help the woman, the squirrel set his eyes on him, grabbing hold of his leg, too. But it was a CVS employee who felt the squirrel's wrath when she stepped in and it attacked her. "It jumped on her leg, bit her leg. It was on her back, biting her, scratching her on her back. Scratched up all over her arms," Williams said. It bit the woman eight times. Eventually, someone got a basket over it, which it tried to gnaw through. The only thing they could find to contain it were cases of Coke. Even after it was caged, it still managed to show off with back flips and price tags stuck to its tail, evidence of the squirrelly behavior that sent one of his victims searching for medical attention. She was said to be doing fine. The squirrel's fate has not been determined yet. Animal Control officers said they are considered low risk for rabies. 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