A GNAWING WORRY
City makes its move on pesky squirrels
Squirrels are officially Rodentia non grata in Dorchester Square.
City of Montreal workers plopped two peanuts in a metal trap Tuesday morning in a bid to lure squirrels that have been gnawing at trees in the leafy downtown square.
The bushy-tailed rodents must go, “due to the devastation they are causing to maple trees and the serious health risk they pose to mature trees, which could have an impact on the safety of square users,” a sign next to the trap said.
The city will move captured rodents to Mount Royal, about one kilometre up Peel St., “where they’ll have more space and more food resources.” The sign reminds humans they can be fined for feeding squirrels. A city bylaw sets the fine for a first offence at $300 to $600.
Like other rodents, squirrels’ teeth are constantly growing; gnawing helps wear them down.
In Dorchester Square, a 15,000-square-metre space that’s home to about 40 squirrels, they’re gnawing at the bark on maple trees, which account for about 80 per cent of the square’s canopy, a city spokesperson said.
Hoping to get at sweet sap, they target branches on mature trees and the trunks of younger ones, leaving some with large barkless areas. Dead or damaged branches could fall and injure passersby, the city says.
A wildlife expert is skeptical of Montreal’s de-squirrelling effort, which started last year.
“It’s not solving the problem because other squirrels are going to come in and take over the area,” said Chris Grabas, regional manager at Skedaddle Humane Wildlife Control, which responds to hundreds of calls every year from Montreal homeowners confounded by squirrels.
City workers may also end up trapping mother squirrels, leaving behind babies that can’t fend for themselves, he added.
Squirrels have two litters per year (two to five per litter) — one between February and April, and another in the summer, with mothers nursing the young for as long as 10 weeks, according to McGill University’s Urban Nature Information Service.
Another problem: squirrels that are transported to Mount Royal won’t necessarily thrive there because they’ll be competing for food, water and shelter with squirrels already ensconced on the mountain, Grabas said.
“There’s competition, they’re territorial,” he said. “So if another squirrel comes into my territory, I’m going to go, ‘This is my territory — get out of here.’ A squirrel dropped in there is getting pushed out, pushed out until it has no more energy and eventually it’s going to die.”
His company does not trap and release, preferring to instead evict squirrels holed up in attics and under work sheds, then seal up access routes.
But Grabas said many other pestcontrol companies do use traps, often dropping off unwanted squirrels on Mount Royal. Montreal’s animal control bylaw forbids “using traps to catch an animal outside a building except as permitted by the authority having jurisdiction.”
Squirrel banishments have made headlines before. In 2013, the Ottawa Citizen reported that residents of an upscale Ottawa neighbourhood were trapping squirrels and spiriting them across a bridge to neighbouring Gatineau, in Quebec.
Tourists often feed squirrels in Dorchester Square, which is adjacent to a tourism office. Garbage bins in the area are often full of leftovers from the lunches of office workers who flock to the green space.
Grabas said the best way to deal with the abundance of squirrels is to do more to make sure they don’t have access to human food.
The city has another idea. As trees are replaced in the square, it says it will plant ones that are less tasty to squirrels.
It wouldn’t be an option in Dorchester Square, but a Montreal student has started a petition to make it legal to hunt squirrels in Quebec as it is in several other provinces. As of Wednesday afternoon, 553 people had signed it.
However, naysayers seem to have the upper hand. A counterpetition aiming “to defend our dear little furry friends from a cruel death against the unjust adversary that is the human being” has 1,638 signatures.