My brother (& wife) put up bird feeders next to their patio. She is an interior designer so the feeders are the ‘cute’ type - look like little cottages. My brother has been amazed at the lengths he’s had to go to in order to keep the squirrels out of the feeders. Now, they congregate under the feeders for dropped seeds.
His squirrel numbers are increasing ... a neighbor told him about squirrels chewing wires on cars, etc. He is really ‘spooked’ about that & borrowed one of my squirrelinator traps last weekend. So far, he’s caught 2 & relocated them to a park 5 miles away. I told him he’s going to end up with more than the 4 he thinks he has, plus gray squirrels are territorial & as he removes squirrels, more will filter in & replace them.
Using the ‘squirrelinator’, I have trapped as many as 36 in a year under my bird feeders & over 60 in total. Best bait is a cracker smeared with peanut butter & sprinkled with sunflower seeds (black oil). I am sending him the picture you posted - he may laugh.
All I have to do is tell a neighbor I have too many squirrels. He’ll come down and get some meals and I’d be rid of them. They don’t bother me much. I don’t have any bird feeders yet and I make sure to prop the hood open a foot or so on any vehicle that’s going to sit for more than a couple of days. We have pack rats here that will make a big old nest under the hood and chew wires and hoses off to use as building materials for it. They’ll steel a small wrench to decorate it with if I leave one out too.