Are you bored enough to watch me test a squirrel trap?

ehrob – I appreciate your reasoned argument and will not disagree with the evidence you are presenting regarding predation or otherwise of birds nests. I appreciate this thread got a bit long for people to read all the points but can I put forward a summary and draw a line under this please.

A) I did not decide to kill grey squirrels for fun.

B) I have lived here over 10 years and there have always been squirrels. Until about 2 years ago there was normally one group living in the wooded area and we would see perhaps 2 – 3 playing together in the trees.

C) A neighbour started leaving large piles of nuts and other food on their unprotected bird tables and that is where the increase in rats and squirrels started. Other neighbours have been using snapper type rat traps to kill the rats but the squirrel population has grown to 2 – 3 groups and we regularly see groups of 6 – 7 playing in the tree and I once counted 12 separate individuals in sight at the same time.

D) The damage they do to freshly planted seedlings and plant pots is without doubt. We have planted and number of pots with 2 – 3 plants in each only to find the squirrels have dug out the plants and yes, we have seen them doing this.

E) Bird nest predation – I am not arguing with you evidence but I have seen three grey squirrels darting in and around a bush with a black birds nest in and watched the blackbirds shrieking and trying to scare off the squirrels. After a short while the squirrels leave, the black birds go quiet and on inspection the nest is now empty.

A, B, C set the scene
D, E explain my motivation for reducing the squirrel population

I then did quite extensive research to try and find the best way to achieve this in the most humane way. The trap I ended up choosing was well over 10 times as expensive as some of the other options but I felt was the most likely to give a quick, clean kill rather than wounding or leaving in a metal cage until I shot it. It had the least chance of unexpected side kill. The video was not meant to be some blood lust movie, and I don’t think it was, but rather a quick and simple guide to the trap in case anyone else was thinking of getting one.

I am sorry if people are upset by my actions and you have the right to your opinions but please don’t suggest that I did this for fun or to get some kind of gratification….. It was done for a specific reason to get a specific result. Also, for the record, at least one lot of the squirrels have just had young and they have been leading them along the top of the fence to go to the garden feeder a few doors down so they will not starve in the dray.

Based on that, what you actually need is some kind of humane neighbour trap.

Thing is, on a forum where I got moaned at like I was stealing baby orangutangs from the Amazon*, you kind of know the discussion will go this way. Every time.

(*I dug up a couple of ferns from the multitude on a, soon to be flooded, thicket)

humane neighbour trap Baited with 2 big Domino pizza and 2x2litre bottles of orange Fanta if the last week of food deliveries to her house are anything to go by

Grey squirrels carry Parapox virus which has killed large numbers of red squirrels.

Grey squirrels eat the eggs and young of song birds.

They are also very destructive in gardens and homes should they get in.

They are rats with bushy tails. If they had long scaly tails, the posts on here would be very different.

If they can be humanely despatched then they should be.
And in this case the dead squirrels are providing food for carrion eaters.

Those calling WCA sick and twisted are plain stupid.

I dug up a couple of ferns from the multitude on a, soon to be flooded, thicket

You monster! I’m pretty hippy lefty, but this place makes me look like Dr Evil at times. I swear half the posters on here are saints just nipping on Gods WiFi to pour scorn on the rest of us.

I think we are all missing the important points here

1) you have palm trees in your garden? Where do you live? I’m guessing it must be down south so no chance or red squirrels.

2) what item should he make from the squirrel pelts? I think you should make some squirrel bike bags.

Seriously, it’s not illegal, whether you agree or not, he’s not going to change his mind. What’s done is done. If you want to get upset and do something about it, start an online petition, don’t moan about it on here as that is like pissing into the wind.

https://www.change.org/

@ehrob you sound like a reasonable educated person. Go write something then post it on here for some of us to sign.

I dont have a problem with it but I think it could be regulated. Perhaps you need to apply to the local council for a licence and some kind of justification study needs to be done first?

@WorldClassAccident what other videos are you working on? I need to service my pikes, I’d love to see you do a tutorial on that! 😂

@damascus He said in the other thread he’s nowhere near any reds.

@ratherbeintobago

I was bored but not bored enough to read the other thread 😂

2) what item should he make from the squirrel pelts? I think you should make some squirrel bike bags.

Ooh, put me down for a squirrel fur saddle bag. Could be tempted by a frame bag if the trap works really well.

Squirrel pants obviously.

Somewhere safe to hide your nuts in winter.

i’m not having a pop, moaning, or judging anybody fwiw. i contributed what i did because ecology is my profession, i had a view on this subject, and i wanted to provide some relevant information, make a couple of points and ask some questions.

i won’t be starting a petition because people make their own decisions and that’s ok. all i’d ask to finish is that the OP thinks about the questions i asked in my first post.

cheers

In that vein, do rats not also fill a certain ecological niche that we’re disturbing by their indiscriminate slaughter?

ehrob – I did read and appreciate your well balanced and clear post which is why I tool the time to reply. I should stress that the baby bird is only one of the concerns and I agree that killing things is rarely the way to balance an ecosystem. The approximately trebling in numbers over the two years since the new neighbours arrive suggest the current ecosystem has been knocked out of kilter. I haven’t noticed a big increase in other species apart from we now seem to get rats more regularly but my other neighbours control that. The general blend of pigeon, blackbird, magpies, wood pecker, tree creepers etc seem pretty much the same although have a bloody noisy crow family this year.

I will let the magpies and crows continue untouched even though they also kill the songbirds, well at least until I spot Corvid 19 (joke!)

perchy – in some ecosystems rats are an important prey species and could also be important for other functions (e.g. turning soil over while burrowing, perhaps even inadvertently carrying pollen/seeds from one place to another?). whether they’re ever important enough for their eradication to cause an issue for predator species in the UK – i doubt it in my opinion, as many of the species that eat them are flexible with their eating habits (e.g. foxes), or constrained by other things (e.g. habitat loss, disturbance, or roadkill – like some species of owl). there might be exceptions geographically though.

Are you bored enough to watch me test a squirrel trap?

Only if you test it on your John Thomas.

#nichetrackworld

Remember that Ester Rantzen program where people sent in pictures of carrots that looked a bit like a penis?

I was born with a penis that looks just like a carrot and that is what I used in the film…..

#TickledYourNiche

I view them as vermin or rats with fluffy tails also and once you see the destruction they cause within a loft space you views may change. People seem to regard them with some sort of affection god knows why.

crack on WCA

Thanks- I wasn’t looking for approval or criticism on this thread – I thought I goit enough on the original thread.

This really was for those who were considering the trap to see how quick and easy it was to set up and confirm if it was effective.

MODS – Do you want to close this one now?

I think Mark’s leaving it open as it’ll be a good source of revenue for people looking how to humanely kill a carrot.

I think Mark’s leaving it open as it’ll be a good source of revenue for people looking how to humanely kill top a carrot.

FTFY.

I was born with a penis that looks just like a carrot 

Wait! A penis that actually enhances your eyesight?

All the things that they told us might not have been true after all…

“Dead as that Squirrel”

Any excuse to post this clip…

There’s a lack of birds in my street. Mainly down to the fact there are loads of cats. I’m not a fan!
My son and I saw a grey squirrel in the garden last week (first one I’ve seen in ten years!) and I was well chuffed.

zbonty – As I said, been here 10 years with the cheeky chappies without issue but trebling the numbers in two years leads to lots of other damage including MrsWCA garden. If there was one squirrel, or even a small family there was no issue.

Everyone else – please don’t get me started on cats. I am not fond of dogs* as they are mostly pointless but cats* are cruel and malicious with it.

*I do NOT condone or encourage and actively reject any attempt to hurt these. I do not want to kill your cats and dogs**

**Just for the terminally stupid who can’t distinguish between not liking something and wanting to kill it

I think describing cats as ‘malicious’ is actually OTT and abit daft. Anthropomorphising cat behaviour by attributing human emotions to it is ‘dubious’. But we are wandering OT.

Wandering back towards the topic…

As with nearly everything in the UK when it comes to flora and fauna nearly every ‘problem’ and ‘treasured habitat’ is entirely man-made. Hedgerows are a treasured habitat, and rightly so, but they are as man-made as the M1.

I still want WCA to smear his todger in peanut butter and test the trap on that. Not for any reason other than another ‘world first’ for STW.

What a nasty device.
I don’t buy any of the stuff about doing it for ecological reasons.
You found a ‘cool’ gadget that kills things and you want to play with it.

I am With WCA (and my father) and agree they are destructive vermin. My parents had them in the loft (bungalow) and they caused quite a bit of damage to the electrical cables in the loft.

Their population has exploded along the river Avon meat bath and in particular on the bath/Bristol cycle track.

I don’t even see how the desire to have an ornamental garden is even a “ecological reason” to be honest.

OP had clearly already made up his mind before posting the first thread, no idea why he even started it really, let alone this one.

What a nasty device.

What do you want it to do, kill them with flowers, chocolate, hug them to death? Of course it’s a nasty device it’s designed to kill things. Grey squirrels are vermin and it is legal to kill them. I don’t like the device, but it’s better than a lot of the alternatives.

What do you want it to do, kill them with flowers, chocolate, hug them to death?

Personally, I choose not to spend my free time killing things for fun.
That’s always an option.

He’s not killing things for fun though. In point of fact he’s not killing at all, that’s why he bought this thing. You make it sound like he’s running around the woods with cheese wire garrotting squirrels.

Disgusting. This is genocide, nothing less. Innocent, peaceful creatures, no harm to anyone. So what if they are an invasive species? Do you think the squirrels had a choice whether to be in this country or not? Is this how you’d treat all immigrants if you had the chance to? If they were destroying your plants you could have taken the time to train them not to instead of slaughtering them.

You make it sound like he’s running around the woods with cheese wire garrotting squirrels.

Aye, he’s just lovingly setting up a device that bludgeons animals to death.
He’s recording it and sharing it on a public forum in the hope of getting some clicks.
All totally healthy. Not weird at all.

Human males are by far the most destructive ‘vermin’ there are. They seem to typically feel most smug and pleased with themselves when assigning less value to whatever creature they decide is considered a ‘pest’, and then appear to relish the most novel ways to injure, main or kill said being, which has no more or no less intrinsic value than they themselves can demonstrate. That image of the dumb, all-resource consuming human moron who, having introduced these animals through the same lack of insight they now claim possess, going around and merrily killing whatever they please, is an image that will reverberate throughout history until the human species sobs itself back into the earth, having learned nothing.

He’s not recording that though and it also doesn’t bludgeon anything. Go back to page one and try again. Do not pass go and do not collect your 100 nuts or something.

This thread has the makings of a true STW classic!

Is that trap approved for use in the UK?

Yup, Certified for use in England, Wales & Scotland

Whats everyone’s thoughts on me putting down rat poison to kill the local rats? We have a issue with an old farm building near us being over run by them? The Dog is next to useless

Or should I just embrace their company?

Yep

What stops birds or mice from getting caught in it?