Love our wildlife, but not to death

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By Nicki Frey

USU Extension Wildlife Specialist here. I am glad that students and faculty across campus are enjoying our squirrels and finding fun ways to interact with local wildlife. Unfortunately, the feeder stations may love red squirrels to death. Quite literally. People may be taking your tables away because they are trying to do what is best for the squirrels. But there is a compromise.

Squirrels really shouldn’t be fed, but if they are it should only be food that they could find in the natural surrounding environment. And only for a short period of time so that they don’t get used to being fed and forget to go forage for food for the winter. Native foods include pine, spruce and fir seeds, and berries.

Squirrels don’t just disappear when the snow falls. They stay right here on campus, and take long winter naps, waking to eat food that they stored in the fall (when they weren’t being fed corn and peanuts) and going back to sleep again. If you have been feeding them all fall, and then take the food away just when they need it the most, they might starve. I would say take the tables away now, to give them time to forage naturally and store food before it snows. Bring them back in the spring, providing healthy native food options.

— nicki.frey@usu.edu