North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[sherwin <sherwindu@att.net>]

On 8/26/2012 5:47 PM, Ginda Fisher wrote:
> I live on 1/3 of an acre in the burbs, so killing squirrels is difficult. I 
> bagged for a couple of years, but this spring it became clear that the bags 
> are a big flag to the wildlife that something yummy is inside.
>
> Bags did help for a year or two,  but then the squirrels started chewing 
> through the bags, and later they learned to removed them. This year I only 
> bagged a handful of apples, and they were the only ones eaten early in the  
> season.
>
> Curiously, not only did the squirrels leave me some apples, but those apples 
> are completely clean, despite no treatment except some spinosad very early in 
> the season for winter moths.
    Ginda,

    I cannot believe animals are smart enough to know that there is 
something yummy inside
    the plastic bags.  Even if they have learned this somehow, these 
'educated' critters should
    be removed from your property.  You don't have to kill these 
critters.  I trap and release them.
    I cannot believe the squirrels prefer bagged apples to unbagged 
ones.  Are you sure these are
    squirrels doing the picking and not two legged critters?

    The bagging technique is not foolproof.  I am able to salvage 
fallen fruit if I can get to it the next
    morning.  Leaving it out any longer than that does increase the 
likeliness of them being penetrated.

   Leaving you some apples are the way these smart squirrels know to 
keep you growing them.


                                             Sherwin