A few years ago grey squirrels were said to produce a litter with an average of 2.3 once per year. Recent evidence shows they produce up to 5 per litter, several times per year. They eat nuts, berries, fruit, buds, shoots, seeds, bird and duck eggs and insects etc.

In urban environment they find most of their food at bird tables and some people deliberately put food out for them. In the wild they strip pinecones for the seeds, they also strip bark from the trees and do tremendous damage in so doing.

They can be quite destructive if they get into a house; chewing through plastic water pipes and electrical wiring. They may easily cause flooding or fire.

Squirrels are fairly easy to catch using the correct equipment and techniques. The main problem now however is dealing with them once caught. One man was recently prosecuted for drowing a squirrel in a cage. Trapped squirrels cannot be released, by law, but must be killed in a humane manner. This is not defined but advice is to call in a pest control technician as he will have the equipment to ensure humane destruction.

We normally use a high powered air rifle in such circumstances and have had an awful lot of squirrel trapping to do recently.