Some Evil Squirrels

Some evil squirrels are about to die.  I do not find pleasure in this.  I admire squirrels in many ways; they are clever, agile, and adaptive and I generally respect that.  I even think they are "cute".  I set up two squirrel baffles on the bird-feeder and I thought we had reached an understanding.  They couldn't reach the birdfeeder, but they were welcome to the seeds that fell.

But one one small group of them in a particular community learn to survive by eating every unripe apple, pull up every pole bean seedling, dig up every corn seedling, and pull off every heirloom tomato fruit , I have to put a stop to it.

I had squirrels around for the first 24 years here and never had a problem.  2 years ago , they suddenly learned to eat my tomatoes.  Last year, they started to eat my bean seedling.  This year, they are tearing up any plant I plant.

I wasn't sure it was really squirrels until yesterday when I caught them in the act.  There were 3 squirrels in the garden at the places where I am losing plants that I am growing for my food!  I know the direction they come from. 

I seriously think it is just one group of squirrels.  I intend to kill them as serious varmints.

I have several Hav-A-Hart live traps and one is sized for squirrels.  But I must mention that I am only using Hav-A-Hart traps so that I won't catch innocent animals like my cats or other cats.  Any squirrel I catch in the direction of the cadre that destroys my garden will die.

They have pulled up all my corn seedlings 3 times, my beans 3 times and half my cucumbers up twice.  I admire squirrels a lot, but when it comes to MY food, they are going to lose.  Its not ALL the squirrels; its only the ones that come from one direction and I'm going to get THOSE!

The most humane way I know to kill varmints is drowning.  I tried stabbing them with arrows through the cage screen, but it didn't work fast.  So I just drown them.  Its not as bad as you think.  They move around confused for a minute, then blurp an exhalation.  Then they are gone.

I expect some complaints, but I've tried different ways and that is the fastest I've found.

But if it is a contest between my growing veggies for my own food and allowing the squirrels to stop me from growing my own food, the squirrels are going to lose gradually and eventually.