The Never Ending Battle

Robert Bronsdon (Hollywood Rob) June 2019

They sneak in on tiny padded feet, crawling along the branches and the wall; belly low and tail motionless.  Only the movement of the leaves betrays their approach.  I sit quietly, waiting.  There is no way to deny the existential imperative that drives them.  The call of food overcomes all inhibition.  They know the penalty.  They take the risk.

There is a constant battle in your very own neighborhood that goes on under your noses.  It is part of the fabric of your life that you probably see, but don’t think about.  The squirrels in your yard must fight each day to protect their territory from other squirrels.  They fight because your yard has more food, better trees, and that fight establishes a more or less even distribution of squirrels across the landscape.  That will happen whether you live in a city, a town, or out in the middle of nowhere.

We have many different types of squirrels here in Southern California.  These are not the same as the eastern grey squirrel that lives in trees.  Our squirrels live in holes in the ground.  They use the trees that mankind has provided, but save for the California Oak, there are very few native trees.  Our squirrels evolved to make do in an environment of shrubs and grasses.

They are relentless.  Driven by natural impulses, they do what squirrels have evolved to do.  They will never stop except to sleep and produce more squirrels; which they drive away as soon as they are weaned.  So how do you keep them away from the bird food?  Of course, you can’t.  They know when you leave.  They know when you come back.  They see you at the back door and they disappear like ghosts into the dense hedge traveling well know paths on branches worn smooth by little padded feet.  But you have to at least discourage them or the food will all be gone and the birds will get nothing.

So we trap them.

Havahart traps can be purchased at Home Depot.  They work really well and we have now transported 25 squirrels, one raccoon, and one possum to the wild where I am pretty sure that they are leading a wonderful life.

We use peanuts to bait the trap and it works pretty well but the squirrels would still rather eat the bird food if they are allowed to so I discourage them with an air soft rifle.  The biodegradable bbs travel at slow speeds and melt in the rain or the sprinklers.  I bought it at the used sports store for $30.  It is far too old and too inaccurate for real air soft play, but it works great on squirrels.

You could buy my rifle from china for $60 today, but I wouldn’t suggest it.  The new style of air soft guns are way more accurate, produce way more power and shoot far further than this one.  I can bounce a bb off the nose of a squirrel sitting on the feeder.  Their evolution has provided them with no natural response to this, so all they can do is run away.  But they will be back.  And the more they are frustrated at being kept from the bird feeder, the more they are driven to the peanuts in the trap.  Until finally, slam the door comes down and they go for a ride in the car car.

So the battle rages on.  For every squirrel that receives a one way ticket to the wild, three more slide in to take over the territory.  It is a never ending natural phenomenon.  Nature drives them to do this.  Nature drives me to oppose them.  (Well, of course, my wife drives me to oppose them.)

It is this imperative that drives us all.  It is natural that every being on earth seeks to improve their own condition.  Squirrels seek better food and water.  Humans seek better neighborhoods with better restaurants and grocery stores.  It is exactly the same thing.  So does the squirrel think that he has won the best back yard once all of the other squirrels have been driven away?  I suspect not.  He inherently knows that each day he will have to fight to hold the best back yard from an army of determined opponents who are unaware that they will get shot with an air soft bb.  He fights to maintain his dominance and they fight to take what he has.

It is natural.  But we seem to believe that for some reason we, once we have obtained dominance over some prized piece of back yard, can relax and enjoy it.  We create laws that codify our ownership.  We are incensed when those laws are broken and our hard won sanctuary is abridged.  We are better than the nature that surrounds us.  But are we?  Well yes, we are.  It would be better for the squirrels if they observed the rights of the current king of the back yard.  They won’t, but it would be better.  It would be great if slum dwellers realized that they can’t just sneak out into the burbs to steal the things that they can’t afford to buy.  But just like the squirrels, they also have a natural imperative.  That imperative is perhaps driven by the same instinct to avoid hunger but in most cases it is actually driven by a television.  They see the lovely things that others have and want them just as the squirrels in my neighbor’s back yard see the peanuts that they can’t eat.  It drives them to act in exactly the same way.

The squirrels won’t stop.  The criminals won’t stop.  The communists won’t stop.  They all think that they can improve their personal lives by confronting those who have things, anything at all, to take those things away from them.  You can’t win this war.  You can only fight this war.  And you will have to hand this war to your children unless you can figure out a way to give every damned squirrel in your neighborhood a stinking peanut.  And they can eat an amazing amount of peanuts.

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