It’s getting to be that time of the year when outdoor wildlife are thinking about how they are going to spend the winter. Squirrels (yes, they’re considered to be “wildlife”) in your yard may be provisioning their tree hole nests with nuts and lining them with leaves…or they may be looking for a way to get into your attic instead!

Do You Really Know What You’re Getting Into?

Before you get out the caulking gun or start shopping for squirrel traps, the New Hampshire Department of Fish & Game wants you to make sure you have answers to these questions. Each wildlife problem is unique and you need to have some understanding of the animal and the available control methods before you undertake any action on your own.

1. How many animals are you dealing with?
2. Is your target animal nursing young?
3. Could you impact or capture non-target animals?
4. Will you be dealing with sick or injured animals?
5. If you’re planning on using a trap, do you have a plan and know how to release a captured animal?
6. Will you be transporting the animal elsewhere for release or do you intend to euthanize it?
7. Will removal of the animal alone solve your problem?

Get the Answers – Call a Professional

Your best course of action is to call a professional that has experience in removing nuisance wildlife. A pro will know the answers to all of the questions above. A pro will know the animal’s biology and when its breeding season occurs. A pro will know whether your state or local jurisdiction has restrictions on when or how the animal can be removed, and whether or not it can legally be released. And finally, a pro will know what needs to be done to prevent a reoccurrence in the future.

At Colonial, we’ve been successfully solving nuisance wildlife problems for 30 years. For more info, see our service page, “Squirrel Removal Massachusetts & New Hampshire.”

Photo credit: Gilles Gonthier / Foter / Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0)