Thanks Rick and Steve, I should have mentioned that our storage room is in the center of a defunct parking garage. There is no food source for 40 meters or more from the room. I think that's why the corrugated glue is appetizing, perhaps only by the nesting baby squirrels. In our trapping and observations we haven't seen any other rodents... yet.
The Tanglefoot and Shake-away both sound promising. I wonder if they've ever been mixed together... what a nasty idea. In the meantime we've let a confusion of weasels loose in storage (just kidding). Dennis Dennis Piechota Conservator Fiske Center for Archaeological Research UMass Boston Office: 617-287-6829 On Wed, Oct 6, 2010 at 4:18 PM, Steve Sullivan <ssulli...@naturemuseum.org>wrote: > If you have squirrels in your storage areas you have more issues than > just the squirrels. If squirrels have access to an area, so do nearly all > other agents of deterioration, including other even more damaging/dangerous > vertebrates like bats, coons, cats, etc. There are more variables to > consider when dealing with and predicting behavior of vertebrates than with > arthropods but squirrels should be easier to exclude than arthropods from > even the most basic of collections storage areas. Glue is certainly not a > preferred food source and, though cardboard is a good nesting material, > these are not resoiurces they will work too hard to obtain under most > circumstances. As with the previous posts about hibernating insects, make > sure all holes and access points are patched and sealed. With squirrels it > may be necessary to cover an area with sheet metal since, once they find a > place they like to sit and gnaw, they may return to a wooden patch and open > it again. Ammonia soaked rags placed or tied in the area are irritating and > usually avoided. Tanglefoot is annoying to them. Repellents are a good > occasional control method but squirrels can habituate to them; use them in > conjunction with other control methods. Monitor historic and potential > entry points rigorously and make them unpleasant places either with the > above methods, Christmas lights, monitors with squirt guns, vegetation > modification, kinetic sculptures, etc. > > > > Relocation is usually a bad idea from both pest control and ecological > perspectives. The squirrels either return or die miserably from fights, > starvation, weather, or predation. Trapping and euthanasia is the most > humane and effective course, just like we do with all other museum pests. > Squirrel populations can tolerate up to 80% annual mortality and still > maintain long-term stability. You can use live traps and CO2, big snap > traps, and other control methods similar to that used for rats, though local > regulations vary because squirrels are a game animal. Sometimes it seems > that the population learns to shelter in buildings from a few individuals so > concerted trapping for a few seasons eliminates the problem individuals and > for sometime later there aren’t any problems. > > > > Eliminating outside food and nesting areas for squirrels can be difficult > since these often come from legacy trees and their mast. However, if > squirrels are being fed near the building or are regularly using garbage > cans you can enact policies to manage this. > > > > Also, I would approach the “old lady who swallowed a fly” method of > eradication with care. In most cases this has poor results, at least for > the introduced animal which usually dies a miserable death and, if not, it > will negatively affect more than just the intended target. Feel free to > email or call if you want to talk about your specific situation and discuss > particular methods. > > > > In the meantime, I hope everyone will tell me about the squirrels near them > at ProjectSquirrel.org <http://projectsquirrel.org/> . > > > > --Steve > > > > Steven M. Sullivan | Curator of Urban Ecology > > The Chicago Academy of Sciences and its Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum > > * * > > Museum | 2430 North Cannon Drive | Chicago, Illinois 60614 | > naturemuseum.org <http://www.naturemuseum.org/> > > Collections Facility | 4001 North Ravenswood Ave. | Chicago, Illinois > 60613 | ProjectSquirrel.org <http://projectsquirrel.org/> > > 708-937-6253 | Fax 773-755-5199 | ssulli...@naturemuseum.org > > > > *The Urban Gateway To Nature And Science*** > > > > > > > > *From:* pestlist-ow...@museumpests.net [mailto: > pestlist-ow...@museumpests.net] *On Behalf Of *Dennis Piechota > *Sent:* Wednesday, October 06, 2010 12:45 PM > > *To:* pestlist@museumpests.net > *Subject:* [pestlist] Squirrels > > > > I hope this is the appropriate place to ask about larger urchins. > > > > We have a storage area for archaeological materials (almost all inorganics, > typically ceramics, stone and iron) that keeps getting attacked by > squirrels. They like to eat the glue in our corrugated boxes, thus > destroying our provenience data. Then they will sometimes nest in the boxes! > Very disheartening. We keep trapping them and plugging up their outside > entry points. We prohibit all bonafide food sources from storage and are now > switching over to glueless twin-walled polyethylene cartons with duplicate > labelling. Still with all that I've learned not to under-estimate these > critters. Is there anything else we can do? > > > > Dennis > > > Dennis Piechota > Conservator > Fiske Center for Archaeological Research > UMass Boston > Office: 617-287-6829 >
