Resident finds ‘when he removes one squirrel, another moves in’

Rick Schulte is locked in battle with a neighbor who won’t give up and won’t go away.

Actually, Schulte is fighting dozens in Villa Loma Heights in northeast Colorado Springs.

One after another they take him on, only to fall into his trap.

Although Schulte is winning each battle, experts say he will lose the war. Schulte’s relentless enemy is the the bushy-tailed, garden-raiding, chattering tree squirrel.

“I’d prefer to have birds,” Schulte said. “I thought, maybe if I can reduce the threat a little bit, that would be my goal.”

Schulte started planning his assault last summer when squirrels cleaned the corn out of his 40-foot-by-10-foot backyard garden.

“It puzzled me how to protect my garden,” he said. “I got discouraged. I felt I was being eaten alive.”

He even debated strategy with a neighbor.

“We discussed defensive moves like scarecrows,” Schulte said. “But those are just ornaments to the squirrels. They are meaningless.”

So when spring arrived, Schulte, 65, a retired systems analyst at Shriever Air Force Base, bought a trap, loaded it with peanut butter blobs and set it in his yard.

“I usually catch one or two a day,” he said. “I take them about five miles from here and release them. I don’t hurt them.”

To his surprise, Schulte finds his program isn’t working.

“They just keep coming out of the woodwork,” he said. “These squirrels are indestructible.”

Abundant is probably a more accurate description, said Gary Hall, director of the Colorado State University extension office.

“The population of squirrels in the urban environment is pretty high,” Hall said. “They are constantly looking for food and shelter.

“When he removes one squirrel, another moves in.”

To rid his yard of squirrels, Schulte would need elaborate fencing and tree guards. Web sites suggest metal “collars” around trees and sliding plastic pipe over wires and limbs the acrobatic rodents use to maneuver. Generally, the “solutions” are not practical in heavily treed neighborhoods.

Other suggestions for ridding yards of squirrels include bird feeders that close under the weight of a squirrel.

To truly escape the squirrels, Hall said Schulte would need to move to a barren area.

“You won’t find squirrels in desert locations,” he said. “There’s really none in Pueblo West, for example. But in old, established neighborhoods, places with large trees, fruit trees, berry bushes, you will find squirrels.”

Hall is glad to know Schulte is using live traps and not hurting squirrels. But Hall thinks trapping is a waste of time.

Schulte is reaching the same conclusion.

“I thought I could depopulate them,” he said. “But I doubt I have accomplished anything. Except, maybe relocating a bunch of squirrels to my neighbors out on Marksheffel Road.”

Tell me about your neighborhood: 636-0193 or bill.vogrin@gazette.com