Courtesy of James K. ,Virtually Green, San Francisco, CA
In 2007 I had a project establishing a small SPIN farm pilot project on about 4,000 sq ft of land in a suburban mobile home park. The plot of land was a ground squirrel city. There were literally burrow entrances every foot or two, and ground squirrels running around in daylight. The crew tilled up the heavy clay soil, added compost and set about establishing beds and initial plantings. Of course the ground squirrels decimated the plantings. We tried traps, various odor-based repellents, fumigation, etc: nothing worked.
Finally I decided to try something squirrely. Heh.
I ordered two different sonic spike gopher and mole repellers on Amazon. It was a long shot but I figured worth a try.
– Vibrasonic Mole Chaser (P7906 model)
– Solar Mole & Gopher Chaser (0400RM1 model)
I loaded the Vibrasonic with batteries and stuck it in the center of the plot. The STI unit was solar powered so no batteries required: I stuck in a couple feet from the Vibrasonic.
A couple days later the crew called me and claimed that the ground squirrels had disappeared. I thought they were joking but they insisted it was true. I drove out to the site and couldn’t find a single burrow entrance open (the crew had been closing them with dirt routinely) and no ground squirrels were up and running around. A week later on my next visit still no squirrels. They never came back.
I think that the two units, operating at different sonic frequencies, together created an intolerable underground audio environment that drove the squirrels away. Since then I used the same products at another site, plagued also by ground squirrels: it worked there too. So no guarantees that it’ll work in all situations. but I figure it’s worth a try. It’s non-toxic and cheap: just remember to change the batteries in the Vibrasonic occasionally.
