Prime Suspect

California Ground Squirrel

Here's the prime suspect in the stripping of the citrus tree last week:  the California Ground Squirrel, Spermophilus beecheyi.  

They're actually rather handsome animals, with their long bushy tails, white spotted fur on their backs and shawls of white fur on their shoulders.
Like tree squirrels, they can climb trees and bushes; Sunday we saw one perched in one of the Lemonadeberry trees, trying to figure out a way to get from the Lemonadeberry tree to all the seed in the bird feeder.  Unlike tree squirrels, they don't seem to be able to jump from branch to branch, or else they would be in that feeder in a New York minute.  As it is, they have to be content with seed that the birds kick out of the feeder onto the ground.  

Also, unlike tree squirrels, they don't live in the trees but in burrows in the ground, where they raise their young and take refuge from predators.

That's the part that worries us, because they can undermine hillsides and contribute to erosion.  Our yard drops off steeply beyond the hedge and we're always concerned about erosion that could cause the hillside to collapse and our yard, and possibly our house, to slide down into the canyon.

So we want to discourage them, but just can't bring ourselves to poison them.  Unfortunately, because they can spread diseases (did I mention that they're susceptible to Bubonic Plague?), it's illegal to just trap them and deport them.  So we'll have to try using something to discourage them from stuffing themselves on our plants and birdseed and encourage them to move on to eating the native plants in the canyon instead.

Next on the menu for the squirrels:  some form of capsiacin, the spicy hot chemical found in chilli peppers, mixed in with the seed--it's supposed to discourage the squirrels but not affect the birds.

We'll see if that works, but the way things are going, they'll probably just consider it a condiment.