Posted by John on 4:33:59 9/4/2011 from 188.8.131.52:
A week ago I caught a squirrel in a large Havahart trap, and when I tried to transfer it into a smaller one, it got away. Now I have something eating up the leaves on my bean, melon plants, and others. It's eating most of the leaf, leaving a small v-shaped piece next to the stem. And my trap(s) aren't catching anything, so I'm trying to figure out if I have a squirrel loose who is too smart to be caught twice.
Do you know if I can identify the creature by the bite marks, or by the way the leaves are eaten away. Just in the past day about 5 plants were visited, in different spots, and many leaves eaten up. It seems like this would be more than a rat would do in a day/night, but I'm not sure. Or could it be a large bird feasting on these plants...
BTW, I rarely see more than one squirrel at a time, and I catch about 20-30 a year. I just went 2 months without much squirrel damage, so the squirrel population is fairly low (although they usually keep coming...this two month break was unusual).
I also would like to know of squirrels will eat stems and new branches of young trees (citrus). In an different case, I had a young five foot high tangerine tree, that was eaten almost back to the main trunk, most leaves and young branches bit off. Nothing left on the ground. The tree was inside a 4 foot diameter plastic deer fence. Does this sound like something a squirrel would do? I have photos of the bit marks if anyone would like to try to identify them.
See the image link below.
Two different problems...my first visit here, hope I'm not asking too much.
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Here's a link to more squirrel removal information and pictures from Rid-A-Critter, an Atlanta animal control company.
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