[IMiteBable2help]

Check this out. It's disgusting, yet I couldn't help it, I laughed out loud. I was making a midnight beer run and happened to have my digital camera in my backpack.

Here in the Northwest, we have a strictly local burger joint called "Burgerville USA", based in Vancouver, WA. Lot's of people love their food but I think it's terrible and expensive so that's why I thought this was funny. Anyway, I have to walk by their drive thru sign to get to the store, and I ran across this on the way and took a picture. EDIT: even though it's a fast food joint, they recently applied for a liquor license to sell wine and beer. Maybe someone isn't happy with this?

[hewee]

I had Squirrel many times as a young kid and what ever else my dad got when he went out on the farm or in the woods to shoot.
Most things like that was before I was about 7 or 8 but then later again we go out and get ground hogs but after that we moved in town so all that stopped.

[IMiteBable2help]

Nice. Real nice. Anyway, I had a squirrel too, but I didn't eat it. It was a baby and it's eyes were not even open when I got it. Raised it to an adult and started letting it outside. Slowly but surely, he got fairly wild again and stopped coming around. Maybe somebody ate him? Anyway, most of the squirrels around here are Eastern Gray (tree) Squirrels, introduced to the NW, like the one in the picture.

Anyway, the one in the picture died from electrocution. It had been laying in the alley for weeks after he caused a power outage. All his hair was burnt off, and some skin too. I mean, he was roasted. Literally. Then one day I found him tied to a stick in front of the burgerville.
I'll try almost anything once so, how do you remember it tasting? I mean, is it good?

[hewee]

Don't even remember what the one's we ate were but be lived up in New York on farms in the 50's and 60's.

[IMiteBable2help]

I'll assume that if it tasted terrible, you would remember!

[LauraMJ]

Squirrel is actually quite tasty. There's not a lot of meat on them, so you need several to make a meal for a family, but it's good, healthy, lean meat. You have to boil it first for a bit in salt water because it's tough (wild), but then after it's boiled, we butter it and flour it and fry it. Yummy.

Ground hog is good to eat too, we ate a lot of that when growing up. It doesn't need to be boiled as it is naturally a bit more fatty.

[hewee]

No it was good. Had lots of things growing up because any game out to shoot my dad would go after.
Lots of work but fun is getting frog for frog legs. You need lots of them because very little meat on them but they are good. I had them last in about 1976.
Could of had them back East in Del when we went to the Beach and went out to eat and frog legs were on the menu.

[pyritechips]

I like frog legs.

[Blackmirror]

Well the Grey squiirrel is a pest in the UK
we call them tree rats
They carry Squirrel pox which is wiping out our Red squirrels
I think we should have a catch and reurn them to the USA

Once common throughout the UK, red squirrels have disappeared from many areas of England and Wales and are threatened in Scotland and Northern Ireland. They are now largely confined to Scotland, North Wales, Northern Ireland and parts of England (Northumberland and Cumbria still have good populations), the Isle of Wight and Anglesey.

Red squirrels continue to be in serious danger in both England and Wales. There are estimated to be approximately 160,000 red squirrels in the UK - 120,000 in Scotland, between 20,000 to 30,000 in England and the remaining 10,000 in Wales.

A couple of facts for you

Squirrels can swim and they are either right or left handed.
It was 1876 when the first pair of grey squirrels were released in Henbury Park, Cheshire by a Mr. Brocklehurst.

[IMiteBable2help]

Since this is my thread, I'll post again, even if it's kind of old. Blackmirror's post about the squirrel pox problem only says it's carried by "American grey squirrels". It doesn't say what species. We have at least 2 distinct species of grey squirrel where I live near Portland, Oregon, and another grey squirrel in the American SW. The Eastern Grey Squirrel, native to NEW England, is the invasive species in the Western U.S., and it has been introduced to the rest of the North American continent. The Eastern grey adapts well to human disturbance, lives in city parks, old neighborhoods, etc. It doesn't seem to matter how many get killed on power lines or by cars, there's just so many of them. As long as there are trees, these guys aren't going away.

Here in the NW continental U.S., there is a native (to the Western U.S.) grey squirrel that is on the brink of extinction. We also have a native red squirrel that is becoming quite scarce in our area but can still be found in highly localized and/or undisturbed wild areas, and the red species is no where near extinction since it's population is fine throughout Canada, and northern U.S. States. It just doesn't do well in human disturbed areas so the red is disappearing from the I-5 corridor and urban areas.

So, the little guy in my picture isn't native to the area in which he thrives since his species is originally from the opposite coast, but he is the most abundant squirrel in my neighborhood. He belongs on the east side of North America. If I go just 90 miles north of Portland, Oregon, there's not one Eastern grey to be found. All you'll find is chipmunks and a few tiny red squirrels which both can't be found in my city. There is NO evidence that the Eastern grey squirrel is having a direct effect on our native NW species. The eastern squirrel is simply filling a niche that our native squirrels just couldn't adapt to; urban living.

BTW, our red squirrel looks exactly like the picture above and is very tiny but is very rarely seen near cities and he has an appetite for meat (baby birds, eggs, anything it can kill and eat including the young of it's own kind, etc.) and is quite aggressive. In short, he's kind of an azzhole. Charming, and he belongs here, but still an azzhole. We call ALL squirrels tree rats since that is essentially what they are.

You can blame the demise of your native squirrels on Mr. Brockelhurst since he seems to be your fall guy, but I believe the demise of native species lies with all of us who make a profit and/or living by destroying or altering the habitat on which they rely.

No need to blame anyone really. Squirrels are rodents. We are Homo Sapiens, The only remaining species of our family. Rodents are the most successful mammal on earth. They outnumber us in population and have more species than any other mammal, they were here millions of years before humans came around and messed things up, and will likely be here long after we are gone. If any mammal is to survive a major earth change and/or mass extinction, it will be rodents. Humans are hanging by a thread.