[Stanart]

I have a small country home which is plagued with ground squirrels. When I first got the home there was one squirrel living under the house. I opened the outside crawl space door, about 3 feet wide, and crawled under the house and chased the the squirrel around. Despite having a 3 foot wide exit, it would not go out. All I could do was curse at it. I gave up and next took the tactic of placing a fake owl near it's entrance hole and that did the trick. It moved up the hill and dug a hole under two 300 year old oak trees. At the same time there was another squirrel (female, it turns out) living under an outbuilding. She had a batch of babies, which were undeniably cute. Later she and her tikes moved under the oaks with the other squirrel. Now I have a village of squirrels living under the oaks and am worried about the squirrels possibly harming the oaks because there are about a dozen holes under the oaks. SO, I placed another fake owl on top of the outbuilding, which is near the oaks, hoping that it would drive the squirrels off to the hill across the road. So what do I see this morning? The mother squirrel carrying her latest brood from under the oaks to under the outbuilding (with the fake squirrel above). Perhaps she thinks the owl will protect her brood from other predators.

As for coyote urine, I have real coyotes in the area (one once howled outside my bedroom window at night) and that hasn't scared off the squirrels. Like cockroaches, they'll outlast humans.