Triumph of the squirrels

So cute. So conniving. So harmless. So destructive. We humans have a love-hate relationship with our charming varmint neighbors, who sometimes get a little too close for comfort.

By Karen Youso, Star Tribune

Are squirrels little creatures that make us chuckle, or are they destructive, thieving critters that drive us nuts? A little of both, it turns out.

Those large almond eyes and bushy tails are attached to determined, hard-core rodents. Squirrels -- sometimes called rats with cosmetic enhancements -- scamper about innocently enough, but also clean out bird feeders, run off with apples and break into homes.

When I asked readers to share their squirrel stories, I received lots of "love 'em" letters, but also tales of frustration with squirrels and squirrel lovers alike. As one reader put it:

"Many people think that squirrels are cute, almost pets and they provide food for them, enabling them to multiply, spread disease and damage property."

Squirrels have a long history. Aristotle dubbed them "skiourus," or "shade tail," which eventually became "squirrel." And in the original French fairy tale, Cinderella's slippers weren't glass, but squirrel fur. (The reason for the change is unclear, but many French nouns sound alike.)

Today, they thrive in near paradise -- the mature trees, vegetable gardens and back-yard bird feeders of city and suburban neighborhoods, where the duality of being cute and aggravating produces the obvious results.

Some people love squirrels. They feed them and laugh at their antics, give them names and shoot pictures of them. Others hate them for the destruction they can wreak on house and garden. They'd just like to shoot the varmints, period.

Few readers offered solutions to squirrel problems, probably because there aren't many. Squirrels are legally protected animals, and they are smart. The part of their brains responsible for remembering details regarding food is well developed, researchers say. They also have well-honed survival skills, including how they raise their young.

"The mother squirrel carried her babies across the street to bird feeders and showed them where the food was," wrote reader Beverly Carlson of Brooklyn Park. "She brought them over, one at a time, hanging from her mouth, like a cat."

Bird feeders beware

Indeed, most of the stories concerned bird feeders, especially how brainy squirrels bested even the most exotic "squirrel-proof feeder." But when the critters branch out to a bigger menu -- tulip bulbs, tomatoes and back-yard fruit -- they can really rile.

Every year, squirrels spend two or three days picking clean the fruit trees in Bill Ferrell's yard in Excelsior, and burying their booty in the woods across the road. He laments that about 200 pears and hundreds more apples will just rot in the ground this year.

More troubling is the incessant, destructive chewing. Squirrels gnaw on lawn furniture, clothes drying on the line, even chain-link fences. Like other rodents, squirrels' teeth grow continuously. If they don't chew, their teeth will get too long to eat. (Pregnant or stressed squirrels chew the most and favor metal, naturalists say.) They'll munch their way into homes, even cutting through window screens to break and enter.

After Leah Lawrence of Minneapolis shooed away a squirrel from a kitchen window one morning, her 17-year-old son called her at work, hysterical. "The squirrel had gotten into the house and had come into his room, climbed up on his bed, walked across his back (while he was sleeping) then onto his head, and then ran out of the room."

These are the behaviors that create a sputtering Donald Duck-like frenzy in people as they reach for their shotguns. But they should stop. They need a license ($20), they need to wait for the season opener (Sept. 15) and they need to remember that it's illegal in most cities to fire a gun. (Satisfy all the requirements, however, and Squirrels in Cream Sauce and other fine recipes are at www.startribune.com/lifestyle.)

Damage control

Most people don't want to kill little creatures -- no matter how naughty. So they humanely trap problem squirrels and drive them 5 miles away to release them. Not a good idea, experts now say. The squirrels are taken from their nest and family and dropped into new, unfamiliar territory. Not only is their survival threatened, but they also put pressure on the new area's resident squirrels. It's just shipping the problem elsewhere.

"We took him to a park and just as we were letting him go, a woman came screaming at us from the house across the road, livid that we were one of several dozen people who seem to think we can move our squirrel problems into her neighborhood," wrote Michael Lewis Schrock of Minneapolis.

Victims of squirrel mischief shouldn't try for a squirrel-free life (only Hawaii and Australia fit that bill, I'm told). Even if every squirrel in the yard is trapped or killed, the offspring of neighboring squirrels will soon fill the void. So the advice of Marian Ziebell of Minneapolis is to forget trying to solve the problem and just watch them.

That may be best. If these cute, smart-aleck, determined little rodents ever get organized, it could be our worst nightmare. According to a 2005 BBC report, a stray dog in the Russian village of Lazo was barking at squirrels in a tree when a number of them suddenly descended and attacked, killing the dog. The squirrels ran off, some toting pieces of flesh, the report said. The reason the squirrels snapped was the dearth of pine cones that year. They were hungry.

Even after giving into peaceful coexistence, you can try to prevent or at least minimize squirrel damage by blocking their access to your home and garden goodies (see box on E1). But don't be surprised if you're not entirely successful.

Starting early last century, Bell Labs tested deterrents to prevent squirrels from chewing through telephone lines, which cost millions annually to repair. According to a news report, the company tried metal, paint, weasel scent, rabbit repellent and shock devices, everything nonlethal. After 50 years of trying, research stopped. The squirrel always won.