It won't change the taste of anything as long as you wash the skins of your edible skinned fruits.

Here are some options:

• Shoot them.
• Duke Body Grip Animal Trap (usually kills them, but is not selective for squirrels)
• Bag your fruit in Organza bags, or in plastic clam shells
• Find some kind of metal mesh material (like for window screening) and fabricate your own.
• Put a fake bird of prey in the tree
• Hav-a-heart trap(s) baited. (but then you'll have to figure out what to do with the squirrel -- maybe drive it several miles away and drop off, but is that more humane?)
• Shoot them
• Get a dog

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I'm following this one. And I definitely feel your pain. A family member who I've helped for a number of years with their trees is having the same problem. This year they bit into half the pears, (left them on the tree), then bit into and tore off every undeveloped apple, we found them all under the tree. Even broke the ends of a few branches. So far they've left the citrus trees alone, but I wonder if that's not because they're against a wall of the house directly under the kitchen window. I had heard that wind chimes rotated out every few weeks in the growing environment can keep them away, but haven't tried it yet. I'm curious if anything but spraying with hot peppers will keep them off.

I had such a squirrel(s) here, but that ended with the arrival of new neighbors and their hunter cat, Stella, who thinks of my yard as hers. Even the crows that stole the figs departed for safer regions.

I would recommend a pellet gun.

I sometimes wish i had one, LOL! NJ has very serious gun laws, although I think my county has a worse law for capturing and relocating- Ive done that too with the Have a heart traps-

Regarding hot pepper, i was concerned about the pepper going into the root system during watering and then going to the fruit and changing the taste, if that makes sense?

I do have some neighbor cats here who I’ve seen get other pests, but none good enough for squirrels!

At my old house, they would take every green peach off the tree. And another story you will enjoy, when my husband and I had our first house, i had a good garden, and a huge Caspian Pink tomato I was going to pick, but I decided to leave it on the vine just one extra day for BLTs- Dont you know that morning, a squirrel picked it, I saw it eating it on top of a pine tree and then he threw what was left on my husband’s head!

Well, had what they are in the process of confirming was a tornado last night- so no need to worry about fruit on the trees as they are mostly off all my citrus- LOL! I’ve been through Superstorm Sandy and didn’t see then what I saw last night. I had other plants flying around and one flew over a privacy fence, not kidding- Its still raining but went out to pick my pots up and I think most citrus is ok (they are in pots so most just rolled around, thank goodness) I have a broken window, that seems to be the most damage- I have a fig tree in a massive huge and heavy pot and the storm threw it down. But Good news, I haven’t seen a squirrel yet today!

Bonechickens, I am not sure whether to laugh my but off or feel horrible. How about this? The squirrels I think got swept away, lol and I feel so bad you had to go thought that. Thank God you are ok. We had that Wednesday when it was 100 out and the temp dropped 30 degrees in an hour. Weird thing is , that I forgot to take all my trees off the table and other potted things, and only one fell off with 6o mile an hour winds.. Just weird. A couple of huge citrus trees fell over near the protected area, Even weirder. Today it's a cold 57 degrees. Coldest July 4th weekend on record. It's dark, cloudy, cold and grey. Just feels like the end of September. I don't get this weather. Be safe. Glad you stopped by too))0

I feel the same exact way, laugh or cry! haha!

I had 2 citrus on a picnic table and they flew off-

My Santa Theresa Feminello is ok! The roundness of the pots rolling helped a lot! You probably had the same front as me just more north?

57F? I must admit I love sweater weather so Id be happy w that for a day or so-

But saw a squirrel an hour ago- darn! I have a beagle/bassett doggie who likes to get them away but he’s an old boy w a sprained leg ( did it chasing bunnies or stairs) so I have to stop him from the chasing!

It sounds like you didn’t have any casualties? I hope not! Thank u for the reply!