DON’T FEED THEM.

If you remove all food resources, you remove the reason for squirrels to be there.

This means:

Bird feeders are one of the big attractions for squirrels. THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A COMPLETELY SQUIRREL-PROOF FEEDER. If the squirrels can’t get at the birdseed in the feeder, they’ll go after the seed the birds drop/throw on the ground.

If you like feeding birds and don’t want to give up feeding them, there are a couple things you can do:

• Use this to treat your birdseed:

No, it’s not a joke. Birds can’t taste the chemicals that make peppers hot. Squirrels can, and they don’t like them.

• Sweep up/clean up the seed the birds throw out of the feeder at least once per day. Even if you use the squirrel hot sauce, clean up dropped seed, because over time the hot chili pepper chemicals lose their punch while they’re lying on the ground.
• Locate the bird feeder in an open space, a clear area not near trees, bushes, or the side of a building. Squirrels don’t like open spaces— they’re vulnerable to hawks. Unfortunately, birds don’t like open spaces either, which means you get fewer birds.

You also have to get rid of other food sources. If you have fruit trees in your yard, that can be a problem, ditto pine trees, since the pine cones contain seeds.

Squirrels will eat pet food and go into garbage too, so you have to try to keep those food sources away from them.

….And if you have neighbors who think the squirrels are cute and love feeding them, well, you’re outta luck.

I trap squirrels in my yard. I use a humane trap like this one:

It’s not a big deal. Quando prendo uno scoiattolo, lo porto in un parco a tre miglia di distanza e lo lascio andare.

Ho dei vicini che danno da mangiare agli scoiattoli, e non sono entusiasti del fatto che li intrappoli. Dico loro: se dai da mangiare agli scoiattoli, li trasformi in parassiti. Sono animali selvatici e non hanno bisogno di essere nutriti.

Buona fortuna.