For about 6 weeks last year I was live trapping about a grey squirrel a week
and driving them out to a place where I always find red-tails. I would park
nearby, and release the squirrel in the view of the hawk. The hawks got 100%
of them since the squirrels had no experience in the terrain and I released
them in a field with no cover. Hardly a humane solution (I would have
preferred to drown them but my daughter objected) but certainly an
interesting observation opportunity. The hawks would often have to dive 4-5
times on the squirrel before they succeeded, but on two occaisions they got
it on the first try. On one occaision two hawks went after the same
squirrel, and the one missed the squirel landed right in front of the one
who got it and the two hawks did a stare down. Finally a car came by and the
squirrel-less hawk flew away. I ran out of grey squirrels and don't see them
much on my place anymore.

One year I live trapped douglas squirrels and marked them (with permanent
markers) and released them. There were five squirrels who used my yard but
only 3 of the 5 used the feeder. The markings all wore off and I have not
tried it recently but I have come to recognize individuals, and two years
later, only one of those squirrels is still in my yard. There is a marked
decline in squirrels this year, probably due to the owl activity and the
poor cone crop here. There have been both a barred owl and a great horned
owl in the last two weeks which no doubt shakes up the squirrels.

Rob Sandelin
Snohomish


-----Original Message-----
From: tweeters-bounces at mailman1.u.washington.edu
[mailto:tweeters-bounces at mailman1.u.washington.edu] On Behalf Of .
Sent: Saturday, November 06, 2004 6:17 PM
To: tweeters
Subject: [Tweeters] squirrels

Hi,
Since we all love birds, I wonder if it's the right thing to do, kill the
squirrels to protect the birds.
I have never killed anything, so killing them does worry me, guilt?
I read that red tailed hawks can catch them, amazing that there are 2 slow
tame eastern gray squirrels that are at least 4 years old and the hawks are
not able to catch them?
Terri
Woodinville




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