Solving Squirrel Problems

Solving Squirrel Problems by Monte Burch is the first book I came across entirely on pest control related to squirrels. For the most part, squirrels are fairly innocuous creatures, but they can become nuisances in your garden and yard, even creeping into attics or other home spaces on occasion. They often wreck havoc with bird feeders.

Solving Squirrel Problems presents both lethal and nonlethal techniques for dealing with these pesky critters. The book is approximately 250 pages, paperback, and comes in at $14.95. It's a thorough resource on squirrels useful for, as the back of the book says, "anyone who lives within sight of a tree." However, if you do not approve of the hunting of animals, you may find parts of the book offensive as there are chapters both on hunting squirrels and cooking squirrels.

Chapters include:

Chapter 1: Understanding Squirrels
Chapter 2: Bird Feeder Raiders
Chapter 3: Lawns, Gardens, and Flowers
Chapter 4: Squirrels in the Orchard
Chapter 5: Squirrels and Houses, Barnes, and Outbuildings
Chapter 6: Other Rodent Pests
Chapter 7: Lethal Versus Nonlethal
Chapter 8: Hunting Squirrels
Chapter 9: Squirrels Stew, Pot Pie, and Other Goodies
Chapter 10: Squirrels, the Good Guys
Sources (includes a number of web pages to help with pest control, squirrel management, pesticides, wild animal organizations, and products for pest control).

Overall, I found Solving Squirrel Problems to be a thorough resource on squirrels. I don't recommend buying it, though, unless you have recurring squirrel problems. Even then, I'd probably only check it out from the library. It's just more than the average person needs to know about squirrels. I wasn't particularly amused by the squirrel recipes, either, but I suppose the hunters out there might be. Bottom line, only buy if you are insatiably curious about squirrels.

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