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Stop feeding Santa Monica’s ground squirrels — a park population is going nuts
The ground squirrels dotted the grass across the park with their burrows scattered nearby.
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Makenna Sievertson
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LAist
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Tourists and residents strolling through Palisades Park in Santa Monica are greeted by a beautiful view of a sandy beach, the Pacific Ocean and the pier. Oh, and roughly 100 ground squirrels running across the lawn, and occasionally, directly toward you.
It almost looks like a scene out of Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds, just furrier.
As cute as they may seem, ground squirrels can cause serious environmental issues, and human visitors sharing their snacks aren’t helping.
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How bad is it
Keira Powell and Corey Mooney, who were sitting on a park bench near the bluffs, told LAist they saw a squirrel crawl right up someone’s leg.
“Check your pockets before you go home,” Mooney said. “You might end up with a squirrel.”
Powell added that they’re nothing like the gray or red tree squirrels they’re used to back home in Boston.
“They eat the grass, almost like a grazing herd of, like, sheep or goats,” she said.
The squirrels seem to be everywhere, even on the paved paths for bicyclists.
Powell and Mooney had a hotel view of the park, and they said the little brown rodents seem to be on a set schedule — as soon as the sun and people come out, so do they.
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Gwendolyn Fogel lives in Santa Monica and visits the nearby farmers market weekly, but she told LAist this is the first time she’s seen so many squirrels in the park.
A small sampling of the ground squirrel population across Palisades Park.
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Makenna Sievertson
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LAist
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An eager ground squirrel at Palisades Park in Santa Monica.
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Makenna Sievertson
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LAist
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• 0:21
Santa Monica's ground squirrels say hi
“ One of them just chased us, which I've also never seen squirrels, like, run after people,” she said. “ We both lived in New York and … deal with squirrels all the time. They don't chase after you, they run away from you.”
Christian Bussgen, Fogel’s friend, said they remind her of rats, but our interview was quickly interrupted by an especially eager squirrel.
What Santa Monica says
The city has posted signs along the park asking people not to feed squirrels or birds. The red and white warnings say it “creates an imbalance in native ecology” and makes the animals more dependent on humans for food.
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The city of Santa Monica has posted signs along Palisades Park asking people not to feed squirrels or birds.
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Makenna Sievertson
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LAist
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Tati Simonian, public information officer with the city of Santa Monica, said Palisades Park gets a lot of foot traffic and is just on top of the natural bluffs — which the ground squirrels like to burrow in.
“As visitors come to enjoy the view, we remind them that the park is part of a greater natural environment and request their help in maintaining the environment as much as possible,” she said in a statement.
When LAist asked if it’s normal for the squirrels to chase people through the park around this time of year, Simonian declined to share additional information.
Experts say we’re to blame
Marcia Rybak, of Coast and Canyon Wildlife Rehabilitation, told LAist that the squirrels in Santa Monica are unique.
“The trouble Santa Monica has, and will always have, with those ground squirrels on the bluffs is the ground squirrels are well established and very happy there,” she said in an email. “The population will remain stable based on the food supply. If people don't feed them then they will only breed as much as the land will carry.”
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So in short, if you’re noticing more squirrels around Palisades Park, it's because we’re feeding them more and inadvertently encouraging them to stay in the area. So it’s best to keep your snacks to yourself.
But it's also spring — which means baby season.
There were several burrows with ground squirrel babies in Palisades Park as well.
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Makenna Sievertson
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LAist
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Officially known as California or Beechy ground squirrels, they live together in burrows and prefer to forage on the ground, according to an L.A. County Agricultural Commissioner / Weights & Measures report.
The ones in our area usually begin to breed in December. But by June, the squirrels’ average of seven to eight babies per litter start to scurry out on their own.
“A good way to explain the difference in movement of ground squirrels versus tree squirrels is that tree squirrels disperse,” Rybak said in an email. “On the other hand, ground squirrels spread where babies dig burrows adjacent to the one they were born in. Ground squirrels do not travel much farther than 150 feet from their burrows.”
There were several groups of young squirrels in various burrows when LAist visited Palisades Park in late April.
A word of warning
Ground squirrels can cause some serious damage.
Their burrows, which can be up to 30 feet long and several feet below ground, can affect roads, structures and dams, to name a few.
If the population becomes unnaturally high, the squirrels can make a grassy area look more like a “pockmarked moonscape,” according to the L.A. County report.
Further north in San Luis Obispo County, Pismo Beach officials say they’re dealing with a squirrel problem in some parks after the city stopped using poison baits to manage the population, which has since “exploded.”
Specifically, the tunnels are making the Shell Beach bluffs collapse faster.
Rosemarie Gaglione, the city's public works director, said in an April 15 City Council meeting that she’s seen people feed the squirrels and watched them approach others looking for a meal.
“While they look cute, they’re not a great thing for the park,” Gaglione said. “ FEMA made the comment … that we need to take care of the squirrel problem because it's impacting the bluffs.”
Pismo Beach officials supported a public campaign telling people not to feed the squirrels and educating them on the damage the population is doing.
“Feed a squirrel and the bluffs [are] going to go away,” said Mayor Ed Waage during the meeting. “You won’t be able to sit here anymore.”
Other California cities are dealing with a squirrel population problem, which has "exploded" in some parks.
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Makenna Sievertson
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LAist
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