Squirrels... a question

[DEAN C.]

This is what I would say is fair enough, with a heavy heart, not use conservation as a excuse to enjoy killing something with your airgun.
I wonder how many hunter's kill with a heavy heart

Well here's another 50 something going soft, I like to watch the squirrels but they do a lot of damage and take a lot of birds and eggs when they get larger in numbers.
I haven't really liked killing anything for a good 20 years or more, and only do so when needed now, with a heavy heart.
I have a small holding with of which three acres I have left as a wildlife meadow, and planted a shelter bed of about 250 trees at the bottom, and I control very little other than a few magpies and squirrels when I think they are doing damage.
The rabbits were prolific but they were wiped out about five years ago, probably with the liver fluke or similar and are just coming back, but they collapse the dykes when the numbers are higher with their burrows as we are on sandy land. There are only about three rabbits at the moment but already they are chewing saplings I have planted and burrowing into the field. I am not a wealthy farmer so I will have to dig deep so to speak, to hire an excavator to clean the dykes out again this year so that we don't flood.

This is what I was referring to in an earlier post when I said it depends how big your back yard is, if you are lucky enough to have a bit of land, then they become more of a nuisance.
Having said all of that the meadow is already bringing in more voles, more kestrels and occasional barn owl, and little owls. The birds nesting around the small holding now are very numerous. This year we've got everything nesting from pheasants, partridge, thrushes, blue tits, great tits, blackcaps, chaffinch, wrens, robins, wagtails, whitethroat, woodpeckers, etc etc.
The biggest problem I have are Roe deer and an occasional muntjac. I don't have the heart to get rid, so I put up with the occasional tree lost and buy more tree guards.

Not everyone that kills vermin is a blood thirsty heartless soul.

[robby]

I had one went into my kitchen and left a yellow piss on the table! Hardly shy to say the least!. Plenty of them critters in my local park, kinda tame as they come right at you looking for tasty bits.