You may not know the word in the title:  I made it up.  Personification didn’t seem right when discussing the California ground squirrel (CGS) that has invaded my lovely Fortress of Solitude in Colorado.

It is unusual for me to be shocked by greed exhibited in nature, but the California ground squirrel has done it.

I arrived here about six weeks ago and put out birdseed for the birds.  I knew I’d have to fight the squirrels (tree squirrels), but I had not counted on the California cousin invasion.  Here was a cute creature, larger than a chipmunk by far, but differing in markings and habits from the squirrels I was used to.  I looked it up.  AHA!  A California ground squirrel . . .

Then I started noticing that even normal squirrels avoided this ravenous cousin.  Ravenous.  Yes, that’s the word.  Cheeks filled to a capacity that I would have thought impossible had I not seen it.  At first, it climbed the feeder and ate up everything in sight, so I looked up ways to discourage squirrels from plundering birdfeeders.  AHA!  Petroleum jelly mixed with cayenne pepper and spread on the pole!  I did it, and it worked . . . for a while.

(Let me stop here and say that I normally spread a bowl full of food for those creatures who feed on the ground.)

But this California pest learns quickly.  It noticed some smaller relations climbing the house and jumping onto the top feeder.  Too fat to make great progress, it nevertheless persevered, jumped, and consumed every bit of food on the feeder, resorting to wrapping its gargantuan body (for a squirrel) around the lower feeder.

I stopped putting food out for days, hoping it would get the hint.  But when I started again, its telegraph network worked quickly, and back it was, twice the size of when I’d arrived.  (I confess I have now developed an acute aversion to this animal.)

I resorted to force, as noise didn’t work at all.  (This creature is aggressive as well as greedy.  You really don’t want to get between it and its perceived food.)  So, I took one of my walking staffs and chucked it at the feeder while the CGS was devouring any crumb on the feeder.  My aim was surprisingly accurate, and I followed it up with another staff thrown at the paused intruder.  It ran!  Yay!  But then it came back.  It seems if you don’t actually hit the vermin, it decides you aren’t serious.

According to one of my neighbors, the increase in vermin–squirrels, rabbits, and these obnoxious things–is due to the absence of foxes and coyotes.  It seems there was an epidemic of rabies (another reason to hate these things) which decimated their natural predators.  (Squirrels, rabbits, mice, rats, etc., carry rabies and plague, yes, plague, so you really don’t want to have them overrunning the country.)

I am now in need of a new population of foxes, coyotes, and mountain lions.   Or Californians who miss this lovely animal . . . Perhaps, we could do without an influx of mountain lions . . .