Woman To Challenge Squirrel-Feeding Ban; Charged With Littering, Harboring Rats

nbc13 ^

[chance33_98]

Woman To Challenge Squirrel-Feeding Ban
Suspected Squirrel Feeder Charged With Littering, Harboring Rats

POSTED: 2:56 p.m. EDT June 27, 2002

EASTPOINTE, Mich. -- A Michigan woman will go to court to argue her right to feed squirrels.

Luminita Marinas is charged with littering and harboring rats. The 62-year-old Eastpointe woman said she feeds squirrels because she loves animals.

But the Detroit suburb doesn't allow it, because it might attract rats. In February, Marinas was placed on probation and prohibited from feeding squirrels for one year.

But officials said they spotted her giving nuts to squirrels at a city park two weeks ago. Now, she's withdrawn her probation agreement and asked a judge to grant her a trial.

An animal rights advocate said the city should focus on violent crime instead of "harassing a woman for feeding squirrels in her own back yard and in a nearby park."

[TADSLOS]

Squirrels are just rats with good agents.

[HiJinx]

PING!!!

Hey, Jen, maybe your town could pass an ordinance like this...
so you can legally sqwert yer' sqwerls!

[Paleo Conservative]

[toddst]

Squirrels are just rats with good agents.

In fact, we call then "fuzzy-tailed rats!" It's impossible to maintain bird feeders with squirrels around. They'll strip the feeders clean within hours of filling them. A simple pump pellet gun works wonders.

[Jen]

I haven't had to squirt too many skwerls with my Super Soakers since I began flight instruction at my Rodent Air Force Training Center. Oh heavens, I hope I'm not in violation of some looney lib ordinance.

<===

[Jen]

See post #6. If you're going to have bird feeders, you are going to have thieving skwerls. Might as well get some entertainment out of watching the varmits learn to fly as they try to steal bird food.

[Grammy]

Squirrels are just rats with blow dryers. They chew on our log house, and we have had no choice except to kill them.

[jonascord]

Are you sure they aren't Siberian Hamsters?

[Sam Cree]

Ping.

The posts are better than the article and remind me of some I saw somewhere else...

[mamelukesabre]

I call them "furry tailed rats", or sometimes "tree rats". I don't really see the harm in feeding them, though. I don't know if I buy the idea that it would attract rats.

My parents got into a bit of a war with the tree rats one time. THere was a harsh winter one year, and the squirrels were going hungry and started eating the bark off of their sugar maple trees. It was killing their trees. So they started puting out cracked corn for the squirrels in an effort to save their trees. Well, once they started doing that, they couldn't stop, and the squirrel population just kept getting bigger and bigger. THey had to keep garbage cans full of cracked corn on hand all the time. THen one day, they caught some squirrels chewing holes in the garbage cans to get to the cracked corn. After that, they changed their policy from "feeding squirrels" to "shooting squirrels"

[Overtaxed]

But the Detroit suburb doesn't allow it, because it might attract rats.

What do they think squirrels are?

[Overtaxed]

Squirrel-lover ping!

[gcruse]

Ping for squirrels.

[Uncle Meat]

I have never seen so many Demorats gathered in one place.Looks like it's feeding time at the taxpayer's trough again.

[Dan from Michigan]

LOL. One time a squirrell climbed the roof of the cottage up north and took a flying leap off it trying to get into the nearby bird feeder....it missed, was KO'ed for about a minute, and got up and tried again.

[Dan from Michigan]

Damn....I need a machine gun....