4 ms·

I have both in my neighborhood. Squirrels live in the trees, prance around my yard, are very passive and bury nuts. The rats live in the trash heap that my sh

I have both in my neighborhood. Squirrels live in the trees, prance around my yard, are very passive and bury nuts. The rats live in the trash heap that my shut-in neighbor keeps in her garage and property, carry disease and are quite aggressive. They may be similar in biology but not in behavior or diet.

cafard 4y ago
The leave pretty big divots in the yard, but as long as they stay out of the attic, I don't mind much. A squirrel's tail does look like a rat's if it has the sun behind it.
- s0rce 4y ago
  I'm not sure if you are saying rats leave divots? The squirrels around here live in the ground and make huge holes. I don't really see many rats.
  - cafard 4y ago
    The squirrels leave divots. The rats, if they are around, will have burrows.
- jrumbut 4y ago
  But if they do get in the attic it's a nightmare. I would take 100 mice over one squirrel.
  - r_murphey 4y ago
    I would take a hundred squirrel over one raccoon.
    - jrumbut 4y ago
      If you made me choose between having a raccoon or a bear in my attic, I might choose the bear.
    - cafard 4y ago
      There was the time that a raccoon tried to dig into the attic to get at a nest of baby squirrels over by the soffit. He never quite succeeded.
narrator 4y ago
Squirrels don't break into your home in the middle of the night and trash your stuff. That's why I don't mind squirrels and despise rats. Maybe it's that squirrels don't have the ability to squeeze through tiny little holes in foundations and so forth that makes them better neighbors.
- alar44 4y ago
  Yes, they absolutely do.
AnimalMuppet 4y ago
Squirrels don't always bury nuts. They will drop them into a convenient narrow opening. You may be able to exploit this behavior if you have, say, a walnut tree. Drive a vertical pipe into the ground, let the squirrels drop their nuts into it, then take the pipe and the nuts. You effectively have gotten the squirrels to harvest the nuts for you (with some inefficiency). On the other hand... squirrels can also carry disease. Around here it is not unknown for them to carry bubonic plague.
tzs 4y ago
They also seem to enjoy just stashing nuts in out of the way places instead of burying them. Here's a Douglas squirrel adding to a stash she had in my garage [1]. I've seen her adding to that particular stash at least a dozen times. Here's another one I've seen her add dozens of peanuts to [2]. I went to get a towel from a box of shop towels once and found a dozen peanuts. She went to add another one to that stash, but I was standing right next to it which caught her by surprise [3], so she instead added it to a little pile she kept on a nearby windowsill. [1] https://www.amazon.com/photos/shared/LBXYRIUDT-C0OvwPtaqdgA.CxWkP-w5N7fpyFFaSVahlo https://www.amazon.com/photos/shared/LBXYRIUDT-C0OvwPtaqdgA.... [2] https://www.amazon.com/photos/shared/lD9SWB1cQ4ycTT6CC7ZrgA.ZRx1e7GLTEtUeY6GZRcCt2 https://www.amazon.com/photos/shared/lD9SWB1cQ4ycTT6CC7ZrgA.... [3] https://www.amazon.com/photos/shared/jNo-VW4vQVaMUsBQmhyn0w.LBaFrKaW2C5Cdzo_6SfdXQ https://www.amazon.com/photos/shared/jNo-VW4vQVaMUsBQmhyn0w....
- BeefWellington 4y ago
  My favorite story of squirrel shenanigans: Back home in Ontario, late one night, driving back from a friend's place I saw an SUV dropping sparks and flaming debris on the otherwise completely empty stretch of highway. I flashed lights, waved, & honked enough for the driver to pull over. I tell him what I saw coming out from under his car and there was a distinct burning smell we could both smell even just being parked next to him. He pops the hood to see if there's a fire and sees a bit of smoke and I would guess about three hundred or more pine cones, chestnuts, and acorns rammed into every available space under his hood. We both had a good laugh, and I wished him luck and went on my way.

cafard 4y ago

The leave pretty big divots in the yard, but as long as they stay out of the attic, I don't mind much. A squirrel's tail does look like a rat's if it has the sun behind it.

s0rce 4y ago
I'm not sure if you are saying rats leave divots? The squirrels around here live in the ground and make huge holes. I don't really see many rats.
- cafard 4y ago
  The squirrels leave divots. The rats, if they are around, will have burrows.
jrumbut 4y ago
But if they do get in the attic it's a nightmare. I would take 100 mice over one squirrel.
- r_murphey 4y ago
  I would take a hundred squirrel over one raccoon.
  - jrumbut 4y ago
    If you made me choose between having a raccoon or a bear in my attic, I might choose the bear.
  - cafard 4y ago
    There was the time that a raccoon tried to dig into the attic to get at a nest of baby squirrels over by the soffit. He never quite succeeded.

narrator 4y ago

Squirrels don't break into your home in the middle of the night and trash your stuff. That's why I don't mind squirrels and despise rats. Maybe it's that squirrels don't have the ability to squeeze through tiny little holes in foundations and so forth that makes them better neighbors.

alar44 4y ago
Yes, they absolutely do.

AnimalMuppet 4y ago

Squirrels don't always bury nuts. They will drop them into a convenient narrow opening. You may be able to exploit this behavior if you have, say, a walnut tree. Drive a vertical pipe into the ground, let the squirrels drop their nuts into it, then take the pipe and the nuts. You effectively have gotten the squirrels to harvest the nuts for you (with some inefficiency). On the other hand... squirrels can also carry disease. Around here it is not unknown for them to carry bubonic plague.

tzs 4y ago

They also seem to enjoy just stashing nuts in out of the way places instead of burying them. Here's a Douglas squirrel adding to a stash she had in my garage [1]. I've seen her adding to that particular stash at least a dozen times. Here's another one I've seen her add dozens of peanuts to [2]. I went to get a towel from a box of shop towels once and found a dozen peanuts. She went to add another one to that stash, but I was standing right next to it which caught her by surprise [3], so she instead added it to a little pile she kept on a nearby windowsill. [1] https://www.amazon.com/photos/shared/LBXYRIUDT-C0OvwPtaqdgA.CxWkP-w5N7fpyFFaSVahlo https://www.amazon.com/photos/shared/LBXYRIUDT-C0OvwPtaqdgA.... [2] https://www.amazon.com/photos/shared/lD9SWB1cQ4ycTT6CC7ZrgA.ZRx1e7GLTEtUeY6GZRcCt2 https://www.amazon.com/photos/shared/lD9SWB1cQ4ycTT6CC7ZrgA.... [3] https://www.amazon.com/photos/shared/jNo-VW4vQVaMUsBQmhyn0w.LBaFrKaW2C5Cdzo_6SfdXQ https://www.amazon.com/photos/shared/jNo-VW4vQVaMUsBQmhyn0w....

BeefWellington 4y ago
My favorite story of squirrel shenanigans: Back home in Ontario, late one night, driving back from a friend's place I saw an SUV dropping sparks and flaming debris on the otherwise completely empty stretch of highway. I flashed lights, waved, & honked enough for the driver to pull over. I tell him what I saw coming out from under his car and there was a distinct burning smell we could both smell even just being parked next to him. He pops the hood to see if there's a fire and sees a bit of smoke and I would guess about three hundred or more pine cones, chestnuts, and acorns rammed into every available space under his hood. We both had a good laugh, and I wished him luck and went on my way.