North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Scott Smith <scott@cs.jhu.edu>]

Here is a followup on the recent squirrel control conversation.  I  
ordered the tangelfoot but it is not here yet; meanwhile I have been  
renewing my attempts at the other methods.   Mark Angermayer emailed  
me suggesting pecans as squirrel bait, and someone here also mentioned  
peanut butter.  So, I baited all my traps with a triple combo of my  
professional bait (mixed nut butter plus molasses), peanut butter, and  
pecans, and also put pecans dipped in PB or professional bait a foot  
or so from the trap entrance.  The havahart traps again got triggered  
by dog or whatever trying to get the bait, but I have caught three  
squirrels in my two Kania traps in only two days.  In the process of  
baiting them I discovered that one of them was not firing like it  
should have; there is a defect in how the traps were manufactured I  
believe, the wire ring that triggers the trap was installed  
incorrectly.  I fixed that problem and caught a squirrel in that trap  
the next day.

I also made a fresh batch of the PB/PoP balls, this time putting in a  
little more PB than I was using before to see if that would increase  
the interest.  My first batch has disappeared and I am on the second  
batch now.  I will keep putting those out.  They are placed on a  
platform I mounted about 8' up a tree so I am fairly certain that only  
squirrels are getting them.

Scott