Squirrels and Pepper
As many birders know, birds are not sensitive to hot (spicy) tastes, such as pepper, but mammals, including squirrels, are. Therefore some people mix pepper in with their bird seed to make it unpallatable to squirrels.I personally feel this is cruel. If the pepper just kept the squirrel from eating the seed, well and good. But a squirrel will try eating it, burn his mouth, rub his eyes, etc. My take on it is, I can sympathize with the squirrel enough to not want to harm him. He’s just a wild animal like any other, trying to survive. Survival means finding food. And since food is hard to come by in the winter, he must find plenty of it in the summer.
There are so many humane (and some of them very inexpensive) ways to keep squirrels out of bird feeders, such as by using a baffle, using soda bottles, as well as the more traditional means of purchasing a squirrel-proof bird feeder. Why harm a fellow creature who is just innocently trying to survive?
That’s the way I see it, at least.
There’s a great book for anyone who is interested in reading more about living in harmony with all living things. It’s called Kinship with all Life by J. Allen Boone.
