Posted on 02/19/2022 9:07:43 PM PST by nickcarraway
I have mixed feelings about the concept of Squirrel Hunting.
But so what?
No firearms for me when I’m after squirrel.
I use a harpoon.
Sometimes I go after them with nothing but my hands.
OK, my arms are attached but you get the drift.
We need rat hunters in our city. A friend sits on the back porch with a pellet gun and picks off the rats as they run along the fence or through the yard. The possums and owls just can’t kill enough of them. Squirrels>rats.
I’m very fond of my neighborhood squirrels, feed them nuts and corn, and they are grateful, come chat with me on the deck.
So, no squirrel hunting here .
We used to feed the little guys on our back porch, and my wife took one home that had been run over. It was paralyzed but we cared for it until it got better. It never was able to use its tail again, but it could climb trees and it hung around our house for two or three years looking for handouts. But then it was eaten by an owl.
After that we had trouble at our other house. The squirrels chewed holes in it and did a lot of damage after they got inside. We discovered that they could really be a major nuisance.
She never actually seemed grateful for my efforts. I had to wear leather gloves and long sleeves to keep from being scratched and bitten. But she did stay outside our back deck for years after we let it go. We felt bad when she finally disappeared. We called her Princess Meani-pants because she was very vocal especially when someone she did not recognize came to visit.
This is not a picture of the squirrel who lived with us. But being groomed was the one thing she didn't mind, although she did not like getting a bath.
Does that include two-legged squirrels?
One time we let Princess Meany Pants back in the house after we had let her go. She ran all around and then jumped into the artificial Christmas tree and fell to the floor. After that she was ready to go back outside. She left chattering like she was mad at me.
She like being pampered and cared for, but she remained ungrateful, unpredictable and at times vicious. Sounds like a Diva!
She was definitely a Diva. I took her to work with me when my wife had to go out of town. Chiefs would come down to laugh at her. I would hand her a piece of corn on the cob and she would rip it to pieces in the middle of the room. Then she would go back into her carrier and chatter away with an angry tone.
My wife brought her home wrapped in my firefighter nomex hood cradled in my helmet. We called the wilderness vet in our area. They said we needed to bring her in to have her put down. They person on the phone threatened us claiming that harboring her was illegal and we would be charged with animal cruelty if we were caught. My wife laughed at the lady and hung up. I guess they didn’t have caller ID. We never heard from them.
I’ve always found more squirrels in backyards than in the woods. At any given time we have three or four of them scampering around the yard.
When I was a kid we had a squirrel that lived in our backyard in a nail keg home my father erected in an oak tree. We named her Bess and fed her pecans. She would sit on my knee or my shoulder and happily crunch away on the treats. When we didn’t notice her she would jump on the screen and demand food. (This was my first lesson about welfare.) The little ones she raised in the keg were not as tame as she was.:)
“Wintertime Squirrel Hunting a Great Way to Enjoy the Outdoors
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My dog agrees.
This time of year, their nests are full of baby squirrels.
Kill the parents and you doom the babies to a long, miserable death.
Growing up I use to hunt squirrels occasionally and my mother would fry them up and I ate them, in fact I’ve eaten many squirrels when I was a kid.
I kid my wife that in the Apocalypse she needed to get use to eating squirrels
Take two quarters and clock them together- suppsoed to draw them out- makes hem think another squirrel is in neighboorhood cracking open nuts- try to make it sound like a squirrel gnawing on a nut- i have tried it yet- but saw it work in a youtube vid-
So precious. And so nice for you to take care of her. Kindness to animals is a wonderful thing. All God’s creatures.
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