All Squirrels Must Die!

Subject: 4,128 down and less than 1 billion to go

Every once in a while I read your testimonials and I review our original contribution from 9 or 10 years ago. (I can’t remember the date.) I would like to inform and update what has transpired since then.

I have since purchased two single pump Crossman high-velocity .177 pellet rifles, one for the wife (who happens to be an excellent shot in her own right) and one for myself with a muzzle velocity of 955 fps. Both of these rifles are very accurate, as the body count of dead squirrels in our neighborhood will attest to…My wife is responsible for 739 and I have 3,389 in the last 12 years since we have lived in our house. We would have added many more, but a tornado two years ago destroyed 11 trees in our backyard and removed at least 30 squirrel nests. The count has been dwindling since that storm.

I have to add that the third year in our home we installed casement windows throughout the house. This has enabled us to shoot the varmints outside by opening any window and removing the screen, adding to our squirrel carcass count rather easily. THEY DON’T EVEN SEE IT COMING! I’ll be eating breakfast at the table, reading the newspaper, and…out of the corner of my eye I’ll see movement outside. My wife then scopes the situation and informs me if it is a red, brown, gray or black squirrel. She then opens the appropriate window very stealthily and steps aside. It was not unusual for me to shoot over 10 squirrels in one day (on my days off)! In the winter hours, the sunlight is not available when I leave for or come home from work, so the wife will take her shots! I always know when she’s killed one because she calls me at work to tell me so! I AM SO PROUD OF HER!!!

You’re probably wondering what we do with all the bodies. We don’t eat them. I heard that they taste like chicken. We don’t bury them. We throw them over the neighbor’s fence into his overgrown unkept forest. We’ll check the next day and the carcass is always gone! We looked for any signs of disposal and found that there is a family of red tail hawks and a lot of raccoons getting really fat. I believe they are responsible for the continuation of our neighborhood eco-system and food chain order! The neighbors actually asked what happens to the carcasses, so I showed them the Christmas Cards from the Red Tail Hawk family thanking us for providing food for their children for the last ten years!! (That part is a joke, but the rest is true.)

For future reference, I will try to update more often than every ten years.

— Don and Marge, parts unknown