squirrels and food forests

Hi everyone,

I'm working on putting together a public food forest, kinda nestled within a sizeable urban forest park. Which is full of squirrels - red and grey. The food forest is a mix of fruit trees (plums, apples, pears, cherries, pawpaw, mulberry, highbush cranberry, elderberry, goumi, peach, and more) and nut trees (chestnut, hazel, and shagbark hickory). My understanding is that the red squirrels will stash nuts, so they can be tricked into doing the harvesting for us if we can come up with a nice "cache" design for them. But the greys will bury nuts individually, which doesn't lend itself to squirrel slavery. In addition, this approach doesn't account for destroyed fruits - I've been reading on here about a single squirrel damaging a whole peach crop off a tree...

I'm trying to sort out how to attract predators (martens, hawks, and to a lower degree owls) without creating an aggression / territory issue - last year, the park had to close some trails due to a highly territorial hawk during nesting season. Imagine picking cherries and getting attacked by a hawk - that does NOT sound like a good day.

I'm also trying to figure out whether leaving a strip of mowed grass between the forest park and the food forest would help matters at all. Currently, the plan is to plant that strip with various fruit trees, which would really just create a squirrel highway from the park to the food forest.

Has anyone seen food hedges work on squirrels? Stefan Sobkowiak talks about how birds prefer to eat honeysuckle berries instead of cherries, so he uses honeysuckle as a sacrificial crop. Is there anything that squirrels prefer over fruit and chestnuts / hazels?

It being a permies, urban food forest, hunting, trapping, and use of cats / dogs to reduce squirrel pressure aren't options. Losing all the harvest isn't really an option either. I would love to hear from anyone with an awesome human- vs-squirrel success story...

Squirrels fit this old adage very well: "Give a thief your finger, and he will take your hand."

It's a tough situation. An urban environment comes with rules and expectations that are, frankly, unnatural -- except they "feel" right to people who care more about aesthetics and knee-jerk "feelings" rather than balance.

A lot of the squirrel predators will also create problems (and a hue and cry) amongst pet owners. They won't stop with squirrels, and there's easier prey out there.

How is the water situation? If water is scarce, rain barrels that are 18+" below the rim will "edit" a lot of young, dumb squirrels. Nature takes its course, and balances things.

Will the tree branches interconnect? The simplest way is to snap stove pipe around the trunks of trees, just shy of ripening.  This ensures no ground access to the prized harvest.

Not ALL trees must be collared, only those within a few weeks of ripening, then move to the next trees that are close to harvest. Pipe is ideally 6ft long... but shorter may work if there are no low hanging branches.

This method DOES require that there be no 'tree to tree' (or fence, powerlines etc.) access. When they cannot access the trunks they cannot access the harvest; assuming there is no alternative mode.

Squirrels taste good.

I've had a lot of squirrel problems on my farm- particularly the Gray Squirrels- they are difficult to capture with a live trap and extremely obnoxious. They love to take one bite out of an almost-ripe pluot or plum and just leave it on the ground for the ants. I don't use violence against animals (although I've been tempted!) , so I've come up with some other ways to deal with them.

Probably my best strategy is to net my  favorite trees that don't have much fruit on them (peaches, pluots, plums) and just let the squirrels eat from the tops of the tallest cherry trees (35') or from the apple trees. I've got TONS of apples, so I use some trees with mediocre fruit as a "trap" crop. I also harvest a lot of the netted pluots, peaches and plums now a little early, and then store the fruit in the fridge and then  ripen the fruit on the counter in paper bags. The squirrels get their crop and I get mine.

I also encourage owls and hawks by putting up nesting boxes, platforms and leaving Doug-fir snags near the orchard and garden.  I have a pair of Sharp-shinned Hawks and several species of owls that live around here now. I 've never heard of hawks attacking gardeners before. But I've heard of Barred Owls attacking joggers though! Hope this advice might be of help...

I know a lot of people are against hunting, I understand it. I am an omnivore however, and I grew up hunting a fishing. My own fruit trees are in the middle of my back yard area, which is fenced. They are away from any outside trees and I have two Jack Russel/Red Heeler cross dogs that free range the yard. They LOVE eating rodents, they don't hunt for only fun. The squirrels have figured out that if they hit the dirt inside my fence the dogs will eat them (or try anyway).

I have not had much trouble with the local squirrels.

Back in Virginia our yard only produced acorns. Squirrels loved em. I can't say whether they prefer them over your produce, but they might fill up on acorns and eat less other things if you had some oak trees. Of course, it takes a while for an oak tree to get big enough to produce acorns.

Another thought is bagging your fruit. Around here most of the orchardists and farmers use paper bags around their maturing fruit. I assume that would be some level of deterrence as well.

Squirrels are amazing jumpers, but I have found that 6 feet of vertical distance from the ground to the branches is enough to keep them out of a tree. Flashing around the trunks will work as long as the tree was pruned up with a single clear stem up 6 feet before any branches. If there are major branches or a split trunk below that height, you can drape bird netting from the branches and tie it around the trunk at about that height. They will chew through plastic mesh, but a big wad of it wrapped around the trunk mostly works.

If the canopies of the trees touch, then you are in trouble. I am not sure how much space to leave between trees, but I would err on the side of caution in your spacing, and then figure that somebody might need to prune back the branches a bit in the future. Walnuts and chestnuts will get huge, but its likely going to be a decade or more before they really even start bearing anyway. Out here in Oregon it is really only the nut trees that squirrels bother, but I would try and get some locals to weigh in on what fruit they are more likely to go after in your area. Chestnuts seem to be fairly resistance to the little bastards, but they will empty out a walnut tree in a long weekend here - and they start the harvest long before the nuts are even ripe!

I merged your stuff with the following thread. I hope that is okay by you.

I'm trying to sort out how to attract predators (martens, hawks, and to a lower degree owls) without creating an aggression / territory issue - last year, the park had to close some trails due to a highly territorial hawk during nesting season. Imagine picking cherries and getting attacked by a hawk - that does NOT sound like a good day.

I would think owls would be the preferred predictor. They are more likely to hunt among the trees. They hunt mostly early morning and late evening so less apt to interact with the permies.  There may be structures associated with the park where suitable nesting could be sited.  Are there barn owls in your area to observe there preferred nest sites?

Lorinne Anderson wrote:Will the tree branches interconnect?

Currently, the plan has all the trees interconnecting by the time they reach full maturity. Some of the trees, like chestnuts, will take a long time to get there. I might decrease the planting density - I do like this idea of the pipe being applied. Won't be able to use on all trees - hazels in particular come to mind, but also dwarf varieties, where there simply isn't 6' of no-branch-trunk to be had. Something to think about for sure, thank you for the suggestion!

M.K. Dorje Sr. wrote:
Probably my best strategy is to net my  favorite trees that don't have much fruit on them (peaches, pluots, plums) and just let the squirrels eat from the tops of the tallest cherry trees (35') or from the apple trees. I've got TONS of apples, so I use some trees with mediocre fruit as a "trap" crop. I also harvest a lot of the netted pluots, peaches and plums now a little early, and then store the fruit in the fridge and then  ripen the fruit on the counter in paper bags. The squirrels get their crop and I get mine.

I also encourage owls and hawks by putting up nesting boxes, platforms and leaving Doug-fir snags near the orchard and garden.  I have a pair of Sharp-shinned Hawks and several species of owls that live around here now. I 've never heard of hawks attacking gardeners before. But I've heard of Barred Owls attacking joggers though! Hope this advice might be of help...

Thanks for this advice. The netting might not be doable in my case, but I'll think on it. The "trap crop" and predator attraction are definitely in my line of thought though. Can you comment on any characteristics of the successful platforms / boxes / perches vs the unsuccessful ones? (height, placement, direction, hole size, amount of clear approach, etc)?

We have had on going issues with squirrels. The only way we have been able to mitigate their impact to get good harvests is by proactively trapping them from winter through to harvest time. Their numbers will increase to match (or exceed!) whatever they can find to forage in your area, and in our case we know that lots of local neighbours have bird feeders out that they access. Food is essentially an unlimited resource in our community for squirrels.

As others have said, they are highly proficient at jumping from tree to tree, and happily cross grassy open areas to move from one tree to another. They are adept problem solvers, and will persevere at getting to a tree that they know has food for them.

We use and recommend spring loaded tunnel traps - they are very powerful, kill instantly and if appropriately placed in a tree will only catch squirrels. Bait with peanut butter.

I would recommend getting half a dozen and spread them around the property. That way you can walk out and set a bunch at once which is quite efficient. Setting a single trap each time you go out will have some impact, but likely won't make a substantial difference on the overall population.

Also remember that reducing the squirrel numbers in one area is an invitation for more to move in. You need to sustain your efforts.

I relocate them...


...into the frying pan!


Just another harvest off the land in my book.

Unless attracting a diurnal Owl - such as a Barred Owl - I doubt owls will do much for squirrel predation as they tend to be "out" at opposite times of the day.  At least here, our resident Eastern Gray (and black) squirrels do not seem to rouse themselves until the sun is up, and tend to disappear before dark.

I would suggest creating a relationship with whoever rehabs raptors, or other natural predators of squirrels. Offering your property as a release site might be the swiftest way to up the natural control of squirrels.

Lorinne Anderson wrote:Unless attracting a diurnal Owl - such as a Barred Owl - I doubt owls will do much for squirrel predation as they tend to be "out" at opposite times of the day.  At least here, our resident Eastern Gray (and black) squirrels do not seem to rouse themselves until the sun is up, and tend to disappear before dark.

I would suggest creating a relationship with whoever rehabs raptors, or other natural predators of squirrels. Offering your property as a release site might be the swiftest way to up the natural control of squirrels.

Yeah, that's why I originally said owl as a secondary predator. I LOVE the idea of making that a release site for raptors. I'll look into it, thanks for suggesting that!

Weasel habitat?

If you can find someone who hunts squirrels with a falcon, and recommend your site, they could do pretty well for themselves.