Anti-gun neighbor comes around...sort of..

[jnojr]

Better question: why kill a harmless, practically defenseless squirrel in the first place? It's one thing to kill an animal to put food on your table or to defend yourself from attack, but just offing them for the heck of it (and "lost birdseed," boo hoo, essentially falls into that category) is sick.

There are humane pest removal services that trap and relocate animals if they're causing genuine problems. (Btw, thousands of squirrels live around my area and cause no significant damage that I've ever seen or heard of.)

Ground squirrels, while cute, are enormous pests. Before the area around it was developed, my moms place had these damn things tunneling under the foundation, chewing through the walls, etc. I couldn't kill 'em fast enough. I started with my Ruger 10/22, but as soon as I fired once, they'd run for their hidey-holes, and stay for ten or twenty minutes. I got a case of Gopher Gassers and loaded up the Winchester Defender 12 gauge. Light a Gasser, stuff it down a hole, follow up with a wad of newspaper, then watch. The smoke starts coming out of other holes, and then the squirrels bolt, and get a dose of bird shot

 

[Kim]

This lady needs a GOOD mouser cat. Some cats are just better than others. I have three cats and one is what I call a GOOD mouser. It will see a mouse and in less tan 45 seconds that mouse is dead and swallowed.(Ive timed it) I saw something last week that I could hardly believe. I went out to get in the truck to go to work and there 2 feet from the door of the truck was my cat with the death grip of a lion on the neck of a large gray squirrel. It knew it was going to have to move for me to get in the truck and it never let up on that grip and waddled away with that squirrel, This was a large adult squirrel.

 

[gaston_45]

I can attest to the varmint status of the grey squirrels. I have a 25 hp evenrude outboard, about 1978 or so, the newer style cover. I went to get it running a few years ago and a piece of dog food fell out. I took the cover off and dog food poured out. All told I got half a five gallon bucket of dog food out of that motor. It seems that when the garage door was left open the local grey squirrel had been hording food for the winter.... in my motor. Some university needed to hire that squirrel because there is no humanly possible way to stuff that much dog food into that small of a space.

 

[Zach S]

Personally, I hate squirrels. But I'm not about to shoot one in a trap, well, I may consider shooting it because of the irony, but only for a few seconds.

OTOH, I hate squirrels. I'm not about to bash someone over shooting one that's in a "have a heart trap," and even though I wouldnt do it, I still find it kinda funny...