Here’s a bit of craziness in Silicon Valley. The garbage can lids were changed at a Mountain View park, which make it more difficult for animals to get into them. There have been several reports of squirrels attacking people, including children.

So now they want to trap and kill the squirrels. Why not just let them back into the garbage? What seems obvious to me is that the garbage can change has made the squirrels hungry. My guess is that the people who have been attacked smelled like food (they either had food or had recently eaten).

The officials say the squirrels are behaving this way because people have fed them. While I’m not familiar with that park, at my nearby park I have never seen anyone feed squirrels. We have wildlife advocates and rehabilitators here. Periodically a mountain lion or wolf wanders into a city looking for food. We keep reducing the amount of land they have, so it’s rather predictable. The wildlife people are saying that trapping and killing won’t do any good. They may be right. I hate to see the kill the squirrels just because they are hungry, which was caused by the park changes.

For residents near this park, I suggest buying squirrel feeders and squirrel food as long as you don’t mind them in your yard. Most likely the squirrels are in the nearby yards if they are in the park, so they might as well be fed. I put out squirrel food for a while because the squirrels were eating the bird food. My dog didn’t care much for the squirrels. She will kill anything that eats her food. I have had several dead squirrels. Now the squirrels don’t come into the yard.