M.S. Enkoji
Jan 16, 2009
SOURCE: The Sacramento Bee
If your life centered on foraging for nuts and neat places to hide them, wouldn't the woodsy confines of a placid college campus seem divine?
No natural enemies to speak of for miles around.
Lots of trees to scurry up and down.
Occasional tasty handouts from people, just for swishing your bushy tail and looking cute.
That's what about 400 Eastern fox squirrels must be thinking as they make themselves at home on the rambling campus of the University of California, Davis.
"The population is exploding," said Sal Genito, the school's director of buildings and grounds.
UC Davis has a scientific project under way to reduce the population – the squirrels, after all, are pests – and it won't involve either firearms or poison.
"Nobody gets hurt; everybody's happy," Genito said.
The squirrels, unlike the Western gray squirrel, are not natives of the campus; they're not even native to the West, hence the name Eastern fox. They have taken up residence in cities on the West Coast, though.
In the past few years, on the Davis campus, they've multiplied so that they've worn out their welcome.
Speed-racing up tree trunks is damaging bark on 100-year-old grand dames. On occasion, some of the emboldened varmints will saunter into campus buildings, causing a stir. One apparently zoomed across the path of a bicycle going full tilt, causing a nasty spill.
A burgeoning population could upset the environmental balance, overrun the school's research orchards and even injure people if the squirrels start grabbing for food.
Wildlife experts at the school have launched a birth-control project that should reduce the population within a decade to a smaller, more manageable population.
Scientists and students have set cage traps to capture the squirrels, mark them with black dye and release them. To understand how the squirrels behave, scientists are observing the marked squirrels as they romp across lawns.
In the summer, the squirrels will be recaptured. Some will be injected with a hormone to stop reproduction, and others will get a placebo. If the hormone works without problems, the squirrel population will taper off and a new method will be born to use on other mammal pests.
Genito, whose duties make him something of a park director, is familiar with every creature on campus.
Aboard a golf cart, he motored down walkways canopied by trees this week in search of those twitching, auburn tails.
A fifth of the 5,000-acre campus is essentially parkland, complete with streams, meadows and, of course, nut-bearing trees.
Stopping before a thick-waisted redwood, he pointed out deep furrows in the bark caused by squirrel traffic.
He passed under heavy branches where, at times, some of the culprits would peer down, watchful but relaxed.
Clearly, they're too comfortable in their adopted home, Genito said.
So are bats, rabbits, mice, rats and feral cats.
They could be next.
