The Guelph Mercury, 5/13/2009

It’s time for a squirrel cull. There, I said it.

For too long, those pests have grown fat on our gardens, our garbage and our bird feeders. There is nothing majestic about these oversized rats with their Phil Spector tails.

They are like hairy, small, clawed teenaged boys — once they find out where the food is, they don’t let up.

Here’s three reasons for a squirrel cull right off the bat:

1) We are bigger than them.

2) Man always one-ups nature. Need proof? Nature made the apple, but it took man to figure out a way to coat it in candy. Take that, nature.

3) Squirrels would harm you and everyone you care about if they had the chance.

In the eyes of our local governments, rats are vermin. The owner of a property infested with them can be ordered to clean it up, or pay to have the municipality clean them out. Fines in Ontario range from $100 for a first offence up to $25,000.

But squirrels? Oh no, they get a free ride.

They go on terrorizing humans, like my poor brother, up from the squirrel-deprived east coast, who jumps at the site of a “cat” that has just climbed up four storeys to perch on a balcony. That is no cat, though, but the well-fed Eastern grey squirrel.

Seems every year there’s more, digging up freshly-planted bulbs, shredding garbage bags placed at the curb, and plotting.

Always watching and plotting.

In southern Ontario, we don’t protest the trapping and moving of Canada geese, which commandeer city parks, take over golf courses and contaminate public beaches with their blankets of cigarlike waste. Other species, including pigeons, deer and cormorants are all subject to culls when their numbers get out of control, too.

Every region has its variants. In Saskatchewan, farmers use poison in their battle against Richardson ground squirrels, those evil, plotting gophers, which wreak havoc on their fields. In Ottawa, they use shiny objects to lure politicians out of their nests.

But tree squirrels? No, they’re too cute to be culled.

Some see through the squirrels’ fuzzy exterior and have already taken action. Across the Atlantic, they’re embroiled in what is believed to be the largest cull of any mammal yet seen in the United Kingdom, with tens of thousands of grey squirrels expected to be shot on sight by landowners and trapped and killed under a government-sponsored project.

It has caused a surprising side industry. There’s suddenly a run on squirrel meat, once spurned by British carnivores during the Second World War when the Ministry of Food promoted the many splendid joys of squirrel soup and pie. Thanks to the cull, squirrel is now selling in farmers’ markets, butcher shops, old pubs and fancy restaurants as fast as gamekeepers and hunters can haul it in.

That’s right — the British are eating roast squirrel; squirrel done Peking-duck style; squirrel layered with hazelnuts and cooked into a meat loaf or baked into pasty pies.

But if you’re thinking of something small and fuzzy to put in the soup pot tonight, just remember — squirrels must be shot in the head. A body shot makes them impossible to skin or eat, according to the researchers at the New York Times. And you want to lose the head at any rate, as squirrel brains have been linked to a variant of the human form of mad cow disease.

If the Brits can do it, so can we. Think of the possibilities. Forget Ribfest. What about the cachet of something called the Royal City Rodent Roast? So squirrels, consider your reign of terror over. You’re officially put on notice.