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david_fraleigh

Squirrels

david_fraleigh
14 years ago

I am copying here an article I found online which referred to the damage being done by squirrels to the bamboo collection at Kew Gardens in London... I have been struggling with the squirrel problem (eating the shoots) for these past several years..

The link below should take you to the article that is very well-worth reading..

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http://bamboo-identification.co.uk/Squirrel_damage.pdf

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and for background here is a copy of the email that I just sent to Chris Stapleton (the author)...

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Hello Chris

Greetings from Florida... Thankyou for the wonderful article that I just read online written by you concerning grey squirrels and bamboo.. I have been driven to near insanity recently by those animals and to read your article was such a relief.. (they say that misery loves company)...

To explain,.. My brother and I planted about 20 different types of bamboos (mostly phyllostachis) on our 30 acres about 4 years ago.. They did pretty well for the first 2 years. Slowly but surely the resident squirrels (we probably have over 100 on the property) learned how delicious the new shoots are. It has been a constant battle on my part to try to protect the shoots.. I have tried caging the shoots with wire,.. painting on different substances... etc., etc... these past two years.. I finally thought that I had found the answer with a substance made out of used kitty litter mixed to a slurry and lightly painted on the shoots for their first two weeks or so... It has been a bit of a chore to go out and try to beat the squirrels to the new shoots every morning this past month.. It has been rewarding to see the culms reach 20 feet high at long last with only an occasional loss of a shoot..

Sad to say they have finally learned to climb the culms and eat the tops off 10 or 15 feet above the ground,.. and I am once again miserable... I am going to have to resort to something I hadn't wanted to do and advertise for someone who might want to hunt and eat the squirrels....

You mentioned in your article that you thought that we in America did not really have any problem with squirrels and bamboo... I am sorry to report that it is not true!!! There is a neighbor who had a nice grove of sweet shoot bamboo on his property 10 years ago... For some reason it went into decline and has now virtually disappeared... At the time I was convinced that perhaps it had flowered and died... Now I realize that it was those damn squirrels that were responsible... I am convinced that if our squirrels had been in China for the past 1000 years that there would be hardly any bamboo at all..

Best Wishes,.. David Fraleigh

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