The ultimate ethical meal: a grey squirrel

The Observer ^ | Sunday May 11, 2008 | Caroline Davies

[marktwain]

At this link there are pictures of Fishers. You can see that the fur is nothing like that of the porcupine in the picture that you posted.

http://home.mcn.net/~wtu/fisher.html

[dangerdoc]

1 dressed squirrel cut into parts.

1 package shake and bake.

Coat pieces then pan fry or deep fat fry.

Trust me. Better than chicken.

[MarkL]

Armadillo anyone? We have more than we need here. I guess you can boil them like lobster and dip them in butter?

You might want to rethink eating armadillo. I've read that they're known to be carriers of the little critters that cause leprosy. I don't know if that would be a problem when you cook them, but I imagine butchering them could be dangerous.

Mark

[xmission]

We have them travel thru the yard from time to time. They say they are about the only natural enemy of the porcupine.

[Caramelgal]

where I live but boy, we're overrun by possums

Until about four years ago I lived in Baltimore City. It was an old neighborhood near the city line with lots of heavily wooded areas. I often saw foxes, rabbits, raccoons, box turtles, salamanders, woodpeckers, hawks, falcons, chipmunks and lots of squirrels and the occasional possum in my back yard. The wildlife was cool but it was the urban human “animals” that made me afraid.

One spring day I went out the sliding door of my kitchen and noticed a faint but distinctive foul smell. It sort of smelled like ripe garbage fermenting in a late summer dumpster. I checked my outside trash cans but they were empty and clean. Later that day I noticed the smell in my basement. Thinking that perhaps one of my cats had killed a mouse, squirrel (or horrors) a rat, I did an extensive search but couldn’t find anything.

The next day the smell started getting much worse and seemed to be the worst around my kitchen. I checked the refrigerator, the trash can, the sink and couldn’t figure out where the smell was coming from.

By the third day, the smell in the kitchen was getting unbearable and nauseating and even the cats were acting strangely and wouldn’t come into the kitchen.

Then I remembered seeing a possum on my patio several evenings earlier and about the crawl space under my kitchen. I checked under the small deck and saw the plywood sealing up the crawl space had been chewed on and pushed aside. I took a flashlight and saw at the very far back corner, what appeared to be some sort of furry grey and white animal, still and lifeless and figured where and what the stench was coming from. It was a dead possum.

The crawl space was too small for anyone to go into and the dead possum was too far back to reach and the stench was beyond description.

Not knowing what else to do I called Lester, a real red necked good ole boy who was a professional animal trapper who had come to my house several times over the years to trap the squirrels who took up residence in my attic. I fondly referred to him as “Lester the Squirrel Molester”. Lester would trap the squirrels in cages and tell me he was going to “release them into the woods” near where he lived. I think he told me that to make me feel better but I suspected he was making squirrel stew and quite frankly I didn’t care what happened to them as long as they were out of my attic.

Anyway, Lester came out the next evening in a cold pouring down rain, took a long pole with a hook on it and extracted what was left of the possum, rotting half liquefied piece by piece. Then he threw lime back into the crawl space as far back as he could to help eradicate the smell. Lester – where ever you are, you are still my hero!

I always though possums were nasty looking creatures with equally bad and nasty dispositions but most of all I will never be able to forget that smell as long as I live. Eat a possum? No way! I’d be more inclined to eat a squirrel (but only slightly more so).

[snuffy smiff]

“You can eat squirrel year round.”

Then you’ve obviously never had a problem with botfly larvae in yer area. AKA ‘wooves’ or ‘warbles’. I’ve met old-timers who say they’ll eat an animal that’s infested but there’s no no way I’ll ever do it. Usually seen around here (mid-GA)in late summer and fall, cold weather either kills the parasite or the host critter.

http://entomology.unl.edu/images/botflies/botflies.htm

Also, be careful and wear latex gloves whenever coming in direct contact with any wild animal’s “innards”. Tulerimia isn’t any fun either!

http://www.massone.org/main/bioterrorism/tulerimia.htm

[snuffy smiff]

My mother(God rest her soul) grew up during the Depression and used to tell us how the family ate possum. The preferred method-actually, the only way Granddad would eat them was to trap them, pen them up and feed them stuff like sweet corn for several weeks in order to “flush out” the mess it had been eating and to “sweeten” the meat. But according to Mom that only went so far. She refused to ever eat it again after leaving home.

[osagebowman]

Ping - time to get the Crossman out..

[metmom]

I had a taste of squirrel once. It’s meat.

I have plenty to donate for anyone who is interested.

[metmom]

Where’s the best place to shoot it for a quick sure kill?

[P.O.E.]

[phil1750]

Where’s the best place to shoot it for a quick sure kill?

We always used 22 LR with a scope for a good clean head shot. 4/10 shotguns were good also if you wanted to get a bunch for a big meal. Most of the shot passed right through the rodents.

[metmom]

ping

[metmom]

ROTFLMBO!!!!!!!!

That is absolutely hysterical!!!!!

[Jet Jaguar]

.

[mware]

Tree rats, who would want to eat a tree rat.

[metmom]

My understanding is that small animals usually don’t survive the attack of a rabid animal, so that makes the risk of getting rabies from them low to begin with.

[mware]

We used to have a bunch of squirrels, chipmunks, and a groundhog. Then a fox decided this was his ecological niche

Same here but we had a pair of red tailed hawks decide to move into the neighborhood. First it was the squirrels, than the rabbits.

No joke, during hunting season, my brother usually bags the limit on rabbits, last year he was lucky to even see a half dozen.

[mware]

LOL, is that from ACE of CAKES???

[Salamander]

That too....;]