Squirrels – Harming My Tree!

Q: Squirrels are eating the leaf clusters out of my tree, dropping them to the ground, grabbing another cluster to eat, and on and on. The tree is beginning to have stripped branches from this, not to mention that I have to rake and sweep twice a day. Is it harmful to my tree?

A: This seems to be a characteristic of young squirrels. Lots of them are around now after the May-June breeding season. I’ve also had reports of them chewing on aluminum siding and chain link fence wire. My neighbor has a back yard littered with oak twigs dropped by squirrels. I suppose you could use a live trap to capture and release the miscreants but I also predict that as the squirrel population ages the tree attacks will diminish. I don’t expect permanent damage to the tree.