Posted on 07/14/2025 2:08:38 PM PDT by DFG
Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota, where some of the nation's nuclear arsenal is stored and the bombers capable of delivering it are stationed, is facing a threat the military may not be equipped to defeat.
Squirrels.
Yes, squirrels.
Minot AFB is under siege by thousands of Richardson Ground Squirrels, a.k.a. "Dakrats."
The ground squirrels have been a problem for the base for years, mostly because the base tries to keep the animal's natural predators out. The foxes, coyotes, and badgers stay outside the fence, while the Air Force's BASH team scares off the hawks and eagles to minimize bird strikes during takeoff and landing.
This means the squirrels inside the base perimeter reproduce like crazy.
Their burrowing undermines infrastructure like runways and buildings, resulting in lots of taxpayer money spent on repairs. The furry invaders can also carry fun diseases like bubonic plague.
Leadership at the base announced a new plan for clearing out the threat.
Using traps to remove the squirrels is pretty much the same strategy they've used for decades. There are poisons that can kill them, but no legal poisons that wouldn't also kill people.
They could hunt them, but can you imagine the panic and/or accidents that might ensue with a bunch of people firing rifles everywhere on a military base.
Airman 1st Class Josh W. Strickland wrote in 2019: 'One lone intruder. No problem. Ten thousand intruders is a different story entirely, especially when they are rodents.'
The good news?
If worse comes to worst, Minot AFB does have one option readily available to defeat the squirrels once and for all.
It houses 26 B-52 bombers capable of carrying nuclear weapons and 150 Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles.
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Yep.
Why not Minot?
It’s efficient how the predators come in and do carcass disposal for you.
Rodenator
Organize 100 to 200 air-rifle armed air men. 200 to be beaters and sweep the base in a controlled way to force the furred invaders to a single location and began the culling...
If the airmen are squeamish call in the Marines and or the US Army.
Prairie Dogs…
.17HMR will take them nicely. There used to be a crew out in Montana / Wyoming that specialized in eradicating them with long range precision shots. They had videos showing them using .223 and .17 HMR. Pretty gruesome. I think they were “Maximum Carnage”…
My yard is covered with oak trees. I used to have squirrels dancing on the roof, so bad that they ate the boots off the vent pipes and let water get under the shingles. Then a little stray kitty showed up (which we have now adopted) and cleaned house. There are still squirrels in the trees, but none on the house and they are real cautious-like when they touch ground
Don’t they have squirrel hunters in ND??
Bring about 5,000 cats to that facility and the squirrels will be gone in no time. Poor rodents, but there’s no other way...
Yeah, that trap has a "No Country For Old Men" vibe. Stacks the critter corpses very efficiently.
They could superglue little GI birth control eyeglasses on the males.
Poetic license as the payment for my always hilarious gags here.
Anytime anyone got orders for Minot, the jokes started...”Why not Minot?”. “Freezin’s the reason.”....”a woman behind every tree”....
Terriers. Get the other rats, too.
They prefer to strap themselves to rockets.
Are they also known for carrying Hanta(sp) Fever and Bubonic Plague?
Then they would have a feral cat problem. Better to let the critters natural predators on base.
Let some foxes in there, they will take care of the problem.
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