Pumpkins on porches make handy snack for squirrels

CHICAGO — What’s more annoying than squirrels eating the pumpkins on your porch? There’s this: Squirrels don’t even particularly like pumpkins.

“It’s kind of like when you’re sitting down for Thanksgiving dinner,” said Steve Sullivan, senior curator of urban ecology for the Chicago Academy of Sciences. “Everybody wants the turkey and stuffing but is happy to eat the beans, too.”

This means pumpkin a paltry squirrel side dish, leaving homeowners scratching their heads and consulting Sullivan’s website, ProjectSquirrel.org, around this time of the year. They want explanations, strategies and the pumpkin-snacking to end, Sullivan said.

Sullivan’s standard response: Squirrels feast on the pumpkins, because they are there. In the fall, squirrels are trying to get as fat as possible to prepare for a long winter, when they’ll need heftier bodies for warmth and stored energy as food becomes scarce. Corn — you may have noticed those decorations getting snacked on, too — is usually a squirrel’s first choice, because it seems easy to bury and offers dense carbohydrates for energy. But if pumpkins are nearby, or, as during Halloween season, beckon from nearly every yard, the bushy-tailed rodents certainly aren’t going to refuse.

Sullivan said he has heard some homeowners claim success in warding off squirrels after rubbing strong peppers over a pumpkin’s surface. Chemicals such as bleach or other poisons could keep the critters at bay but raise ethical questions.

“We love to see squirrels hopping around in our neighborhoods, but we’re dismayed by their activities,” said Sullivan, who runs a national research project that enlists citizen scientists to observe squirrels and assist in the studies.

But he said he prefers a more squirrel-friendly approach: He and his kids put nuts inside their carved pumpkins, so the squirrels feast on those instead. Strategically placed peanut butter on a pumpkin can also make for fun “squirrel carvings,” he said.

“Rather than expecting to have a part of our house that looks like something on Martha Stewart Living, why don’t we just recognize this is a part of life and these little squirrels are just as cool of a part of our decorations as something else?”

Not quite convinced? Keep in mind that 80 percent of squirrels don’t make it to their first birthday, Sullivan said, so Halloween treats could be the meal of a lifetime.