I was thinking they usually make their burrows where there is a ready food supply. Seems to me that if you remove the food, they'll go elsewhere. Try contacting the pima co. co-op, or u of a agricultural dept. they may be able to help.

I relocated 17 tolal rock and short tailed squrrils last year with traps (boy if the park department knew)they were eatin' my peaches off the tree ect,ect/ Are they the long tailed bushey rock squirrels ,or the short tailed squirrels that look like little prairie dogs ?? P.s they come back ,but a couple nice cats keep em ' controled....................

They're the buggers that look like scrawny prairie dogs... Harrisons, maybe?

Don't want to sacrifice a cat to the coyotes, and can't have a cat inside. So that's really not an option. May have to invest in a trap, but the quandry would be where to release 'em legally. Which I suppose is only a problem if you get caught. :-)

We had the same problem at the Nursery, the totally destroyed about 7000 Boojum seedlings, we finally had to trap them, We had to go to the local hardware store and buy several rat traps, set them with peanut butter and a nut

Seeds of the castor bean plant dropped into the holes they make have limited our nests to a minimum number.

Where might I get castor bean pods? Or do you happen to grow castor plants?

I'm really getting aggravated with these critters!

I do not grow the plant. I buy the seeds from Nature Hills Nursery (402)934-8116. They are highly poisonous when eaten so you have to use some care with the seeds and the plants around pets and children.
I happen to like watching the antics of the few families that survive. But I watch for new collonies and control them with the seeds. We also have king snakes hanging around. And they are certainly a welcome deterrent.

After posting a new thread, I found this one, if anyone knows of any other things I would be happy for some input.
Thanks again.

The most effective thing we used were Rat Traps baited with nuts or Peanut Butter.

Chili pepper...all around where you "don't" want them. This keeps out many critters...found bottles of habenero sauce for 50 cents at Dollar Tree. Mix with the dollar baby oil (so it doesn't wash away in the next rain...whenever that day is...)

I live in NE Mesa, the round tail ground squirrels were around when I moved here over 20 years ago and then seemed to disappear. Now they are back. I have a family living around the base of the mesquite tree in my front yard. I love watching them. I would feel bad getting rid of them. I don't have much for them to eat since I try to stick with a true desert vegetation yard, the front is pretty sparse,the back more lush but the cats and dog are back there,so I don't think they would venture back there. Will they cause harm to the tree? I Also had rock squirrels a few years ago in the back yard under my deck. My neighbor called me and was mad because they were eating her bird seed. When I said I wouldn't get rid of them she said they would ruin my house foundation. How? It's cement. I think she took care of them as they just disappeared.
So should I eleminate the round tail ground squirrels? Why and how? I think they are back due to all the housing and retail growth. Not much of the desert left around here.

While I'm a live and let live kinda guy, when it comes to gophers destroying my yard, I take on a caddyshack kind of persona. I don't live out on the fringes where the gophers are part of the ecology. You can plant society garlic,gopher purge and other plants like castor to discourage them but when they get out of hand I have to take action. I have a lot of time and money invested in my garden and I certainly don't need any help killing plants. This is my method of last resort and something that works every time for me. Go to the store and get a large carrot. Cut about 1 inch off the leaf and and save it. Drill a 3/8" hole down the center of the carrot following the core as far as your drill bit will reach. Fill the hole with gopher bait and plug the hole in the carrot with a piece of the end you saved. Push the carrot down the hole and cover the hole with dirt. If you tie a piece of string to the carrot and tie it to a stake, you can pull it out in a day and check to see if they've taken the bait. A dead gopher in the tunnels will keep any others away for quite a while.

They are so cute and so destructive they have eaten all my plants, ate holes in my walls, now they have got into my car engine and chewed the wiring, twice.
My front yard looks like Swiss cheese.
They are not so cute any more.
Should I try feeding them or poisoning them?

Please don't poison them! While the poison will eliminate the ground squirrels, it will also eliminate cats, dogs, hawks, owls....any other creature that eats an ailing squirrel.

It may be rabbits chewing on your auto wiring -- it's a favorite of theirs.

Look at what you have that is the food source that is attracting them and then remove it, even if it means lifting a plant out of the ground and potting it until you get rid of the squirrels. The squirrels won't stay if there's nothing there for them to eat. Once they're gone you can replant.

I vote for cats. If only they had wings to take care of the stupid birds that won't leave my figs and grapes alone and the pigeons that won't stop sh*ting on my house. And you can call me by any name you want, I hate the bastards. it's my house, my tree, my garden. They can plant their own and get up at 5 to water it if they want to eat fruit, otherwise they need to get lost.

Diane 9
I'll bet it's packrats that have eaten your engine wiring - we had over $1200 in damage done to our FJ by the little buggers - thank goodness we had rat damage coverage in our insurance (who knew??!) For THAT particular problem, the only thing that has worked to keep them out is to hang lights over the engine compartment at night. Or put the lights under the engine block at night. Also, don't park near pack-rat hot spots like areas with a lot of bushes or debris.

Other than that, I've been battling all the cute little rats, rabbits, chipmunks, squirrels and gophers around here for a decade. I don't intend to eliminate every single one - I DO understand I live in the desert - but I also want to grow cacti, mesquite, agave, etc. All of which are super yummy to the little beasts when they are young and tender.

Lots and lots of chicken wire cages, and then occasionally rat traps, a gopher bomb every once in a while (they have a freakin' condominium complex dug under our shed) and a judicious application of pellet shot when my husband needs target practice. I still lose a number of new plants, and we haven't put a dent in the population by any means (nor do we intend to)

I try to be more defensive than offensive, but since they've clearly declared jihad on my desert rehabilitation efforts, it does get ugly sometimes.

Noise in my house for a year! Five exterminators later, none knew what they were. They don't let everyone hear them,so the last pest guy suggested I get an EXORCIST! There were climbing marks on all the posts holding up the carport and the patio. When I first moved in I did see a brown fuzzy thing out by the back shed, thought ground squirrel then butfor different reasons thought: bats, ringtail cat, lizards because theres no "poop" trail except lizard poop. Saw a ROCK suirrel in the back today!!!They follow meeverywhere in the house, eventhough EVERYONE says there is no space for them in the ceiling.You have my vote for elimination, since the prvious owner said they'd been in the house at least five years that he lived there, then his renters had to put up with the critters. No wonder he let it go into forclosure, and won't talk to me about the house!

They will eat anything, and not even 1-inch chicken wire will keep them out. They can dig under or climb over nearly any kind of barrier, and are the reason my only garden is a big round stock tank with a rusted bottom. I set it well away from anything the squirels could climb up and drop into the garden from. Even then I put hardware cloth in the bottom of the tank so they couldnt dig through the thin rusty bottom. The sides are high enough that the squirrels cant jump up into it, and the sides are slippery metal. It makes a good raised bed but someday I will have a greenhouse and the hardest part of building it will be the ground squirrel proofing. So now I can grow only what I fit in the tank. We live in the middle of 20 acres between the mountains and the riverbed so critters are everywhere. The dogs do their best to keep an area of about 2 acres clear of rodents, of all kinds, but it cant be done.
We dont poison anything, including plants and insects, but will definitely shoot them if the opportunity arises.
By the way, there is a BIG difference between gophers and ground squirrels.

Well, I am surprised because I have a rather non timid rock ground squirrel living in my backyard. I live in sunlakes and t b h i've never seen much of the "abundant wildlife" around this community. we did have a rather juvenile desert squirrel get into the garage once during the height of summer but he left. it would seem this one is burrowing underneath a potted bougainvillea stand. at this point im not going to do anything. God help it if my neighbors find him because as with anything else they'll have the exterminators; natl guard and homeland security here to get rid of it. I'm sorry but the over zealousness of some of my neighbors with their "pest control" is mind boggling. Im from NYC and I'm a landlord there so extermination is a must but this is a whole other "animal" (pun intended).

I'm in Fountain Hills, which is just this side of a wildlife refuge. The only real threats to my plants are rabbits and wood rats. Javelinas also cause a fair amount of damage, but there's nothing to be done in that regard. In the end we can only plant what they'll allow. Other than that, it's live and let live. Our yard is riddled with holes from pocket mice and kangaroo rats, which attract diamondbacks like nobody's business. And Harris ground squirrels are also abundant, though they leave most of my stuff well alone. The one big potential problem that easy to deal with is wood rats. I trap as soon as i see damage in the Spring, else they'll breed and create woeful damage by Autumn.

I'm in Fountain Hills, which is just this side of a wildlife refuge. The only real threats to my plants are rabbits and wood rats. Javelinas also cause a fair amount of damage, but there's nothing to be done in that regard. In the end we can only plant what they'll allow. Other than that, it's live and let live. Our yard is riddled with holes from pocket mice and kangaroo rats, which attract diamondbacks like nobody's business. And Harris ground squirrels are also abundant, though they leave most of my stuff well alone. The one big potential problem that's easy to deal with is wood rats. I trap as soon as I see damage in the Spring, else they'll breed and create woeful damage by Autumn.

Revisiting this after a long hiatus. They're BAaaackkk! Anyone try this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1PLO3a9QQQI

I don't normally like to destroy wildlife and I do my best to discourage them but the ground squirrels, pack rats and pocket mice are very destructive for gardens, electrical/phone lines and irrigation lines and they attract the rattlers. We use mouse and rat traps baited with pinon/pine nuts, peanuts, raisins and/or peanut butter. Raisins work great in the fall/early spring but in the heat they become problematic because the ants get to them and the lizards are attracted to the ants and the lizards get caught by mistake. I never use poison because of the risk of poisoning the rest of the food chain. The key is to start early and to continue trapping even if you don't see evidence of the rodents. Set your traps near burrows and along the walls, corners and under plants where you see evidence of digging BE sure to destroy burrows to discourage new occupancy once you think you've trapped the rodent. And, as always, don't handle dead animals and dispose of them quickly using disposable bags and gloves. Once animals die, the fleas and ticks that inhabit them leave too and you don't want these on you or your pets!!

I feel that if people that are new to Tucson and develop a problem with ground squirrels those people should move away I'm all about protecting animals and protecting animals rights!

I buy baby carrots just for the ground squirrels in My area and it's so cute when the eat the carrots ,they stand up on their hind legs and hold the carrots with their paws in which look like a little man 🙏🙂🙃🙂💖😍