Fewer squirrels in the country. Seems weird.
 

We live in the country now, on '6 acres. We have all sorts of critters on our land, deer, coyotes, foxes, skunks, etc....

We have a single large old live oak that is currently dropping a bumper crop of acorns. We also have 5 large old pecan trees that have a better crop this year than the last 3. I do see squirrels most days, but I normally only see one or two. I think I've seen 3-4 at the same time a handful of times over the last 3 years. I'd have thought that with all of the trees that create nuts, we'd have a bunch. Granted, the trees aren't tree to tree everywhere, so the squirrels do have to run across open ground to get to them from other parts of the property. It seems like when we were in the 'burbs, it wasn't unusual to see 3-5 squirrels at one time in our back yard that was maybe 1/20th of an acre.

Maybe they are more scarce out here because there are more trees over a larger area, so they are spread out. There are also far, far more predators, various hawks, coyotes, etc.... I have also been surprised that I've only seen a rabbit twice, and I think my wife has seen one once or twice. I chalk that up to the predator thing.

One less in my neighborhood. It is squashed in the street.

Same here in a different part of the country, but we don't have tree squirrels. We have ground squirrels, which we consider vermin. When I first moved in, a friend & I shot a dozen ground squirrels in an afternoon. But there is less wildlife in general around here - coyotes, quail, bobcats, etc. I don't know the complete reason for it, but if I never see a ground squirrel again, I won't be concerned at all.

Out of curiosity, because I don't have any experience with ground squirrels, why are they considered a nuisance?

No shortage of squirrels or rabbits around my place in the city. St. Paul MN; maybe more food to be had? Sometimes there will be several in my yard.

The section of bike path I ride frequently has a bunch of black squirrels along it; maybe up to eight. Google says only 1 in 10,000 common grey squirrels are black.

In related observations, I have seen 3 live garter snakes and one red bellied brown snake while riding my bike or walking and 6 or 7 dead ones this summer. It has been years since I have seen a live or dead snake, so I take this as a good sign of a healthy eco system.

Always been that way for me - plenty in urban areas, etc. and seeing not very many when out hunting 'em

Nice, that does seem like a good sign.

My mom in FL has TONS of rabbits in her neighborhood. There aren't many trees around that have nuts, so I've never seen a squirrel, but there are probably some. She also has otters, raptors, the occasional/rare alligator, and I think she's seen a bobcat once.

I think squirrels, racoons and rabbits have become urban animal because of the lack of predictors and the abundance of food that people give them on purpose or accidently.
I can look at my 50' x 100' lot at most times and it looks like a zoo. I'm on the water so that attracts all kinds of critters.

We have lots of of squirrels here. The tree that shades our garage and driveway has a nest and there were at least three babies. I see squirrels all around the area. No shortage here.

Folks in the country eat them. So do a lot of other predators (eagles, hawks, foxes, bobcats). No real predators in the city. The only natural enemy there is a car.

Where I grew up (deep in rural Appalachia), opossums, rabbits, racoons, ground hogs, muskrat, squirrels, etc. were rare as they were vigorously hunted or trapped. It was hard to even get anywhere near a squirrel (within range) ...because the few that survived were terrified of humans and ran very fast the other direction. There were no deer or bear or turkey. All were essentially extinct in the area. The nearby suburbs are overrun with these animals now and they are a nuisance. Black bears wander through the mall parking lot.

Ground squirrels were considered a nuisance as they would damage one's garden. They were executed on site just like rats (or foxes because they killed chickens). No one wanted to go hungry because of pesky animals.

Because of the tunnels they build, really can tear up the ground quite a bit. They have a huge problem with them in the cliffs down at the beach here along the bike path in Huntington Beach.

We call our ground squirrels prairie dogs. We got a mess of them in and around a local park.

Yep, growing up in Minneapolis was a squirrel fest. Still is. It has to do with the amazing park system and lakes everywhere that are heavily wooded in my part of town, which was Lake Harriet. Acorn heaven. About the worst thing that squirrels do is attack bird feeders...we used to sit at our breakfast table in the kitchen and watch them defeat whatever the latest defense was that the neighbor installed out the window in the winter. Good times while eating your cereal.

Mpls. now is overrun with rabbits as well and quite a few foxes, which I never saw growing up 50 years ago. Not sure what has brought so many of both into the city but they definitely were not around in the old days. :confused:

Almost stepped on a rabbit under the bird feeder this morning. Red squirrels have somewhat replaced the fox types but less numbers of both recently. Seen more raptors around and even bald eagles off the freeway.

I keep the feeder full of a variety because we've lost something like half the songbirds in the world over a recent time period.
Lots of reasons for that.
Migrating birds depend on food sources to make it halfway around the planet twice a year.

Feed can get pricey at the regular pet stores. I get 50# bags of black sunflower at menards and mix smaller bags of peanuts or the other mixes in. Should feed corn as well but I don't trust it as much these days.

And it's fun to watch the social interaction. Had a new family of cardinals and blue jays this year. They sometimes come say hello. Had a flicker for the past decade make a home in the back yard and sing regularly but haven't seen lately. Chickadees are a favorite. Wrens and nuthatches now. Juncos in the winter. Only one small Piliated Woodpecker seen. They big boys are like small dinosaurs. Haven't seen many hairy/downy woodpeckers but had them in the past.

A couple days ago a young confused Cooper's Hawk landed in the dense Montmorancy cherry tree and tried to chase them through it while getting almost stuck. Got ringed by the regular crowd and jeered. Normally a squad of jays will chase them and make a fuss throughout the block.

Had to check out wikipedia.

I've seen chipmunks on vacation. That's as close as I'm aware of coming to any of the ground squirrel family. When we lived in Japan, we had moles in the area.

There is a difference. They are relatives.

I'll be driving by the park this afternoon. I'll get pictures of the cute, destructive devils.

We get a pretty good range of birds on the property. I used to have a bird feeder when we lived in the burbs many years ago. We got to where we were going through a ton of seed, but some birds were pushing a ton of it out onto the ground while they just ate their favorite seen. We ended up with 2" of seed under the feeder which lots of other birds and the squirrels ate. Now that I'm in the country, I'm letting the birds eat what's laying around which is seeds off of the trees and bugs off of the ground. The Eastern Bluebirds seem to be bug eaters, while the cardinals seem to prefer seeds. I've seen a pilleated woodpecker here, several other wood peckers, migratory birds, raptors, carrion birds, and even a road runner (meep, meep!) which was really cool. The chickadees are always fun to watch and hear. The wrens have a heck of a "set of pipes". When one lands on the porch and starts to sing, it's always surprising how much sound comes out of such a small bird. We've also had scissortail flycatchers (more common up the road near larger open fields) and cedar waxwings.

Here are a couple of the little beasts next to their mound. A couple more in the distance. They were barking fiercely at me. They estimate a couple of thousand in this town.http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1728070630.jpg

They all moved to the woodlands, often joke that we live on a squirrel preserve

Much to my doggo's chagrin they taunt her. She is an athletic varmint and catches one every now and then though.

Around here, the smaller red squirrels were everywhere. Then about two months back, three or four full size fox squirrels moved in. Within a few days, the red squirrels were gone.
They don't get along with each other.

My bud was out squirrel hunting yesterday and said the same thing .
I still see quite a few in my yard ( lots of oak trees ) .
When we lived in the city , they scared me . We called them tree rats. They must have been eating good, because they were huge , and had no fear of humans. Im guessing, not as many natural predators also .
They would sit up in the tree and bark at us , like we were harshing on their buzz or something.

Back in the 70s my dad got tired of 'em eating his apples from the backyard trees ...

So he would slip out the basement with his single barrel 12 guage..... bang!

17 within a few weeks time ....

Didn't matter :D

Deer, Foxes, Skwerls ;), .... I gots 'em .... and owls, hawks, cats, and such too....

Bunnies appear .... and get gone .... they do NOT thrive.

One of my grandfathers had a pecan tree in his yard. He used a BB gun to keep them from eating all of his pecans.

There are of course population swings between prey and predators. For a decade or so as the coyote population grew around here, the rabbit, red fox and pheasant population was nearly wiped out. Then with diminished food supply, there were fewer coyotes. After a few years we started to see rabbits and other small critters again.
We see the same thing with red squirrels and weasels. Right now there seems to be be a healthy hawk population, so I am guessing there are lots of field mice(even though I didn't notice as many while we were haying).
I don't think we notice much more than a small percentage of the wildlife around us.

Best
Les

It depends on the area and how they did that year I guess. For a few years we had like 100 chipmunks around the house thy loved our birdseed we even had them eating off our hand and lap. Now there are none around. Same with turkeys there was a time when there was a flock of 30 of them. Then there was nothing. Now there are 5 or 6 around. On the next hill I saw a big flock of 20 or so. I guess they are coming back. I heard there was some fungus around their eyes they get so they cant see to eat and they died off. Regular gray squirels are around but not in great numbers.

Maybe new raptors have moved into the area.

Our male dachshund, Reuben has killed one bunny, and one squirrel that we know of. Countless mice and other critters that encroach in HIS back yard.

I was amazed that he got a squirrel, but I had to bury it in the compost pile. The bunny was buried in the compost pile as well. The worms gotta eat and the did not go in the trash and stink.

We had a wild turkey hen come through the other day. It was alone, and squawking looking for the rest of the herd. It was in the area for two days. It hopped the fence and pecked around by the Koi pond for a while and then left.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1728081098.JPG

Mice are a favorite snack of his.

As Scott said, they really dig up the ground, making burrows everywhere. They also can carry diseases, eat up your garden, etc. I don't like having them around my property (no one else does around here either) because they can multiply so rapidly. Predators don't seem to keep up with the population increases. The ones I shoot, I put out for the animals to eat. The hawks try to carry them away, but most of the time they're too heavy. The buzzards do a good job though.

Yep, anything dead around here gets hit by the black vultures, turkey vultures, and crested caracaras.

We've got a spot that we use for compost. It's usually vegetable matter. Very rarely, it'll have some meat in it. One time we had an issue with the fridge in the garage and had to throw out a bunch of meat. The next morning we must have had 30 vultures on the property. I've also seen a few strip a armadillo that was hit by a car out by the mailbox to nothing but spine and armor.

they closed the golf course we are living on, so they are seeking shelter in our yard 1 live trap and 4 not so live traps getting at least 1 a night I will walk the live ones to the other side and the not so live ones get placed along the trails up to our property to send a message
pellet gun as a back up

In my neck of the woods, squirrels have been replaced by deer. I have never seen so many buck as this season.

Everywhere.

Had two separate encounters this morning where the deer jumped in front of the car so close I was a nervous wreck.

Fortunately sasquatch eat deers, so, I'm waiting for them to chime in. (any day now...) :)

Many years ago, I trapped about 25 squirrels and dispatched them. I would leave them on the lot next-door and every time, they would be gone when I dropped off another one. After the 25, I think I wiped out the population around my house.

We also had herds of deer that would go through the backyard. Sometimes there would be 10 to 15, including babies, making their way from one place to the next.

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If we had tree squirrels around here, I'd eat them. As a kid, I'd go out with my friends into the local mountains and we'd shoot tree squirrels. I was really surprised when I brought the first one home, and my mom (farm girl in her young years) surprised me with how effeciently she cleaned & skinned it and fried it up like chicken. They were good eating. After the first one, I brought the ones my buddies shot home to be eaten. I gave a piece to my girlfriend once, but I don't think she actually ate it. Around here, we have turkeys, deer, bobcats, possums, skunks, coyotes, rabbits, foxes, the occasional mountain lion, etc., etc. I feed the rabbits and a local hawk every day. Ground squirrels, rats, and mice are the only ones I get rid of.

My dad went hunting once when I was about 4 and came back with 2-3 squirrels. We ate them. I don't remember anything about the taste.

If it'll make ya feel better, I'll catch some of the abundance we have in our woods in Defiance Ohio and send them to you. Or I can just send you all the pictures where the darn things trigger my trail cameras. Or I can send pics from my tree stand of them running around. Yeah we have plenty.

My brother has regular battles with the little pests. The done killed his maders!

As construction goes on around here making clearings in forests for housing, deer and squirrel population is jumping rapidly.

They are far easier prey in the open or "deep forest" and thrive best with fringes that provide substantially more concealment.

The housing increase allows greater depth of light penetration.

This increases the yield of plant matter overall as instead of a flat forest canopy the area growing is increased by the cuts that break up the canopy.

How are the big birds of prey going about in your area?

I have boo koo tree rats here too. I'd love to reduce the population. Same with the chipmunks.

We do our best before and after deer season to thin the herd but they seem to reproduce like rabbits, which we seem to have far less of these days. I think the yotes hawk, and now bobcats are taking their toll on the rabbit population. I'm hoping this new habitat strip we just put in around our farm will help with the rabbit population.

No shortage at my house. But, I feed them daily and sit back and get entertained by their group dynamics and antics. I have provided nesting boxes for them and have a Fall crop of 7 new hatches that are just beginning to venture away from their home trees. Virtually all Eastern Greys but a Fox squirrel just returned after being absent for 6 months. Walked right to me and waited for a nut. The Greys don't fool with him. I was under the 911 last year and he walked into the garage, sat next to me and patiently waited for me to fork over a pecan or walnut.

Had half a dozen chippers but they have vanished, likely due to the Hood feral cat or Cooper's hawks.

That siad, I am seeing far fewer tree rats and ground squirrels at my place in far NW Wisconsin, even with good crops of acorns the past two years. Lots of black (melanistic) squirrels, probably 50% of what I do see. My suspicion is that the local Bobcats, coyotes, eagles, hawks, owls and foxes have put a serious dent in their population. Grouse, what's a grouse? Now if I could get the predators to decimate the mice, I would be beyond ecstatic.