Red squirrel deterrents?

[jjohnsonElknewbie]

Good morning guys, my elderly neighbor is having trouble with red squirrels chewing the wires on her vehicle. What non-lethal deterrents would ya'll recommend?

 

[Bugger]

Traps. Likely just one squirrel that’s obsessed with cars for some reason. If it’s more than one then they’ll probably change their mind on the non-lethal mode pretty quick!
Remote start makes quick work of em if they’re hanging out near the radiator fan..

 

[TSAMP]

Red squrriels? We talking fox squrriels i presume?

 

[jjohnsonElknewbie]

The funny thing is, she has one mature nut tree and besides this lives on a bare knob in farm country. We have lots of trees a mile away, but none of ours are nut trees, so no squirrels. The river bottom is a couple miles south, and they migrate from there north.

The snare shop has live squirrel traps and I may go that route with some ear corn. Thank you!

 

[5MilesBack]

That's going to be tough without lethal means. People would be shocked at how many squirrels are actually in a single area. Back in 2006 I put in a garden. There were so many squirrels that I started a log book. A couple years later I stopped counting at 700. We used to joke that they must just keep bussing new ones in. Kind of like wolves will be here soon. It's still a little crazy, but not quite as bad as then.

 

[roosterdown]

Red squirrels (small) are not Fox Squirrels (big).

I just dealt with one living in the wall of my house. Live traps failed, dog could not catch it. Finally solved the problem with #8 pellets.

My dog does not catch many, but every spring we usually find a few frozen squirrel-cicles in the yard.

A buddy in CO had a bunch of bird feeders out - he's still a serious birdwatcher - and of course the squirrels would eat most of what he put out. So he'd shoot 'em with a .22; however that squirrel would be quickly replaced in the ecosystem. So he never put a dent in the local population even though he was killing dozens.

He ended up getting a BB gun and shooting them in the ass when they got on the feeders. So they lived, but learned to eat off the ground rather than getting on his feeders. And they are territorial as hell, so those educated rodents kept the uneducated ones away.

Good luck with the vehicle wires...I'd try live-trapping but others may step into the gap...

 

[dtrkyman]

Peppermint oil works for many rodents.