Squirrel damage at a garden in Olympia

Jill Severn

If you Google “squirrel damage,” AI delivers an instant list of all the ways those furry little creatures create mayhem in plumbing, wiring, insulation, attics and roofs, while also stinking up houses with urine and feces.  

But here’s the big AI mistake: Why would it list house damage before garden damage? I understand that squirrels can mess up a house. A squirrel nest had to be evicted from my attic years ago. Its builder had swiped a neighbor’s car-washing mitt and hauled it in there. It must have been quite comfy, but it had wrecked a roof vent. 

But that pales in comparison to the heartbreak squirrels cause in the garden every year. AI pushes all of that to a secondary list that includes mangled flower bulbs, munched fruits and vegetables, and no end of disruptive digging.  

AI also fails to mention how maddeningly unpredictable garden squirrel damage can be. One year squirrels dug up all my tulip bulbs and took three bites out of each one. The next year, blocked from the bulbs by chicken wire, they methodically ate all the tulips’ petals as soon as the flowers opened. This year, they ignored the tulips altogether.

But no amount of home-made or store-bought repellent has been able to keep them from eating the zucchini blossoms, or from taking a row of bites out of the lone surviving zucchini. 

These little miscreants are nearly always non-native Eastern gray squirrels. Since about 1900, they’ve been imported to parks, estates, campuses and residential areas because so many people find them so adorable.  

Our state Department of Fish and Wildlife notes, “When the public is polled regarding suburban and urban wildlife, tree squirrels generally rank first as problem makers. ... (but) ... Interestingly, squirrels almost always rank first among preferred urban/suburban wildlife species." Such is the paradox they present: We want them and we don’t want them, depending on what they are doing at any given moment.”  

Last summer, when they were climbing the sunflowers and doing acrobatic acts to harvest the seeds, they were ingenious and entertaining. But people find the same behavior on bird feeders infuriating. Sometimes, when they’re just hopping around, squirrels do seem like congenial garden companions. But only sometimes. 

There are two other squirrel species around, both natives:  Western grays and Douglas squirrels. Westerns are endangered in Washington. They’re present now only in a handful of locations; the prairie and conifer habitat on JBLM is one of them. Douglas squirrels are much smaller, darker, quicker and livelier in their movements, and often loud and chatty. They are by far the most adorable, and the least likely to live in town or to do squirrel damage to the human habitat. 

There’s also a nocturnal, forest-dwelling Northern flying squirrel, which is said to be common but rarely seen. 

Some people dislike the Eastern squirrel immigrants, and blame them for driving out the Western and Douglas squirrels. But the state Department of Fish and Wildlife indicates that humans bear the primary responsibility for that, since humans built the cities, towns and suburbs that reduced the native squirrels’ habitat. Those native squirrels require native foods, in contrast to the Eastern squirrels, who like the trees, tulips and zucchinis — and also the car-washing mitts and attics — that are features of the human-made, urban habitat. 

The bigger questions about our relationships with squirrels are similar to the complexities of all human interaction with other species, from octopi to spiders to panda bears to horses to pigs. Do we like Miss Piggy more than we like bacon? Do we admire the intelligence of an octopus teacher more than we like a tasty plateful of fried squid? Do we admire rather than fear a spider if her name is Charlotte?  

And what, if anything, do our non-human animal neighbors think of us? Sitting on the front porch making eye contact with a cautious but curious squirrel, I was paralyzed by the wonder and mystery of how and what it was thinking. 

It is senseless to be angry at squirrels for eating zucchini blossoms or nesting in the attic; they’re just doing what squirrels do. Squirrels certainly have more reasons to be mad at humans than we have reasons to be mad at them.  

It’s equally senseless to be devoted squirrel fans because they’re so agile, so adorable, and so simultaneously familiar and mysterious. 

Nonetheless, most of us have done one or both of those things, often at the same time. 

Jill Severn writes from her home in Olympia, where she grows vegetables, flowers, and a small flock of chickens. She loves conversation among gardeners. Start one by emailing her at  jill@theJOLTnews.com