Murder 1

[pistol pete]

Today while cleaning the dead wood out of a 60 foot pin oak I murdered 3 newborn squirrels. Not thinking to check the nest and hearing no squeaks I took lose a nest and sent 3 of them to their death. I simply wanted to warn anyone that might be as stupid as I was today. Squirrels are still breeding in the southern states and to be careful to check the nest. I don't know if the same holds true for squirrels but birds can be relocated to a nearby tree if the nesting tree must be removed.
At the begging of the year a friend in a another tree service, (who is recovering from a serious helicopter ride type accident) gave me two baby squirrels which he had accidentally orphaned. We hand raised them and have been keeping them on my mothers back porch. This past weekend we opened their cages and said our goodbyes. To my surprise one would not leave except to get on top of his cage, and the other comes home to eat every morning. They are very smart animals and for the most part very friendly.

 

[tophopper]

2 words....





















tree rats

 

[clearance]

Rat with a tail, who feckin cares, they are rodents. Through the chipper with them, I watch for people always when I am climbing, especially little kids, dogs further down on the list, rodents are not on the list.

 

[notahacker]

I see squirrel damage in trees all the time and it makes me mad. They can literally kill a tree due to girdling branches. ( I have seen it in Maples, Elms, Locust, Russian Olives). If I accidently cut them out, I feel bad. But, usually I give a fair warning. I shake the nest, fire up the saw, and if I hear nothing, then I cut. The problem is they don't give a distress signal until they have fallen 50+ feet and hit the ground!

Some customers hate them and some love them. I say, "Look, if you were to sell your home today, what would be a better selling point? Beautiful trees or squirrels? A no brainer! Trees are valuable and if squirrels are chewing your tree to pieces, then get rid of them!

 

[Ekka]

I understand that your incident was not premeditated but I need to know. Are squirrels protected? Just seems Clearance talks of them like some pest that needs eradication. ... We don't have them here so I'm a little in the dark.

We get possums and birds a lot and they're protected. You'll even see on my videos we save them.

 

[rumination]

Ekka, squirrels are very abundant in many parts of north america and are not protected. We don't have them in Hawaii, though.

I'm a softy when it comes to this sort of thing. I postponed some work yesterday because it would have involved dropping branches onto an occupied bird nest. It's no sweat off of my back to come back in a couple of weeks and finish when the chicks have fledged. I'd rather not kill animals if it's not necessary.

 

[darkstar]

we love to raise them as pets ..my climber eventually built a indoor cage with the window open and a rop to a nearby limb ...the pet squrrell would come and go for about 3 months untill he finally left for good somtimes other squrrels would stop by and freak out .. he was a good little smart rat very fun ....

 

[pistol pete]

Pest?

Squirrels are responsible for the placement of volunteer oaks and other fruit and nut bearing plants all over the U.S., so I find it hard to believe that they are such a problem. My grandfather has a beautiful pin oak in his front yard planted by "tree rats" and two more young pins on the way. Besides who wants to live in a neighborhood with no wildlife in their trees.

 

[Tree Machine]

I'm on 'vacation' spending my days on the back porch. I've made friends with one of the furry critters and she and I have at least on meal together. Shy at first, she learned the guy on his back posed no threat and the things he was tossing her way were not pebbles.

Now she'll come up within a meter of my feet. Her favorites are (in order) Tamari roasted almonds, pistachios, peanuts. She doesn't do popcorn.

I know she's a she because she brings her boyfriend around. I call him Mr Big Balls because, well, we won't go into that but the reason is really obvious.

 

[arboromega]

pete i feel your pain... i was removing a holly last may or so and i scared a moma bird from the nest. while trying to get the nest out with the egg in it i let if fall to the ground. when the egg splattered on the basal roots it bothered me to see it. happens though. say your prayers and continue. hopefully a tree never drops me like i did that egg.

 

[treeseer]

NO need to kill anything needlessly, but gray squirrels are like whitetail deer. natural predators gone so their population's high.

Yes they do damage trees; I care for a lightning-struck oak with Ganoderma buttrot and it drives me nuts (hahahaha) when I see skwerls biting off a lot of the new growth. They leave a nearby oak alone; maybe the damaged one is tastier somehow.

Killing em on purpose is sadistic imo. this fits in with the arborphobic mentality.

 

[Mike Barcaskey]

treeseer, I kill them all the time during hunting season with my shotgun.
sadistic?


Webster's New World Dictionary
sadism 1 the getting of sexual pleasure from dominating, mistreating, or hurting one's partner 2 the getting of pleasure from inflicting physical or psychological pain on another or others

please explain why you think to kill them is sadistic
and what is the "arborphobic mentality"

 

[fishhuntcutwood]

I seem 'em as dinner, and hunt them within hunting season-though certainly not in town. I'll kill them under fair chase and within the law, but I'd never be able to bring myself to just kill one (or kill anything) just for fun, or because I think it's a pest, and just leave it unused. That's illegal, and just wrong.

Hunting for sport and food, and killing just to kill are different things.

One is a management tool and source of food. The other is a waste of life. (If you ask me which is which, you're either trolling for an arguement or you're a moron.)

But Pistol Pete, I feel your pain. I'd hate to accidently kill them too. But remember, there's plenty of them, and if it hadn't been you, it'd of been a hawk, or a truck, or a "sadistic" kid, or who knows what. :angel:

Jeff

 

[tophopper]

Rat with a tail, who feckin cares, they are rodents. Through the chipper with them, I watch for people always when I am climbing, especially little kids, dogs further down on the list, rodents are not on the list.

LOL-

I think for the first time EVER clearance and I agree on something


'cept I dont put em in the chipper.

 

[KentuckySawyer]

I've never evicted a squirrel intentionally. If I can avoid it, I don't evict in the winter time. The only time I knowingly left a nest, it was inhabited by some flying squirrels, but they're a different beast.

 

[treeseer]

please explain why you think to kill them is sadistic

My bad; I left out the phrase "for kicks". Harvesting them for food is something very different than chucking them in the woodchuck chipper.

and what is the "arborphobic mentality"

As evidenced in Clarence's apparent mission to make the world a better place by killing most of the trees he sees. I got little compassion for skwerls, maybe cuz it was the nom de plume of an angry former poster here, but really cuz in the world there are way too many of them.

I bust out their nests without guilt when it's not regular baby season; amazed that there are infants in OK in august. Must be something in the water there. I hang skwerl boxes in trees sometimes, so they chew off less tree parts to build nests with. A horrific image still stuck in my head from 30 years ago is my chainsaw going thru a nest; body parts and blood flyin everywhere. Gruesome.

 

[begleytree]

I don't go out of my way either way for squirrels, if they picked the wrong tree, oh well. A piece of sawbrier, layed across their backs, twisted up in their fur, is a great way to jerk them out of a hole if you need to cut. Just watch it, once they're out, and dangling on a brier, they're ready to fight! I don't bother hunting them, for meat, it's just not worth my time. I think you'd have a better meal if you just ate the .22 you shot it with.
Now oppossums, I'll run off the road to hit one of those nasty things.
-Ralph

 

[Marky Mark]

NO need to kill anything needlessly, but gray squirrels are like whitetail deer. natural predators gone so their population's high.

Right now in the US the predator population is at an all time high. The damage those squirrels do in my chicken coop is unreal.I needlessly kill every one I can

 

[priest]

the squirrels didnt start it

Keep in mind that until very recently ecosystems in North America were in a balanced state, until we the all-knowing and all-contolling white man started shooting everything that inconvenienced us and destroying habitats one after another.
I myself am a lifelong hunter, and have shot, cleaned, and eaten many a squirrel.
But if you're on a mission to restore some sort of order to the universe by slaughtering individual animals needlessly, you will only be feeding your own unhealthy lust for blood. They reproduce and recolonize too quickly for you to make a difference.

 

[Ryan Cafferky]

Up here in Portland we have so much squirrel damage in some neighborhoods that my old boss and I think there should be a bounty on them. I have even climbed two different 100+ foot giant sequoias with dead tops only to find that they had been girdled by squirrels. I don't kill them on purpose but I do think someone should do some research on why they do so much damage and how we could prevent it.