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Show II Sea e THURSDAY, NOV. 3, 77 1377 Lafayette Square Squirrels Nibble to the tune of $5,000... FILL 'EM UP MAIL EVERY MONDAY 5:30-7:3- 0 Lafayette Square in Washington may be on the National Register of His- toric Places but that doesn't seem to impress the squirrels living there. Neither does the location of the square right across Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House. 4 Mama Durgers & Root Deer irreverent are the squirrels that they have nibbled and gnawed their So way through about $5,000 worth of geraniums, plants, and trees that Only Saves $1.05 jp Reg. Price $3.05 We Are Closing At 8:00 P.M. Every Monday So Our Employees Can Have An Evening At Home Highway 91 PRESTON, IDAHO grace the square. So now they're being deported. Fourteen nesting boxes containing food were in Lafayette placed Square's trees to lure some of the 125 gray squirrels that have taken up residence. After becoming acclimated to the boxes, which they can enter and leave at will, the squirrels are being moved to parks out of the city. "AFTER THE move, the boxes will be left in the parks for a few weeks so the squirrels won't be too traumatized," said Mary Krug of the National Park Service, which is in charge of the deportation. Apparently because of its abundance of trees, fountains, and picnickers, ml i Lafayette Square has in recent years become squirrel haven. A squirrel authority advising the Park Service says the area's limit is about 25 squirrels, 100 fewer than were believed to live ' '' --- ' 4 B Joseph R Spies National Geographic there. World "It's not healthy for them to be so crowded," the authority told the National Geographic Society. In warm months, the squirrels find the good life in Lafayette Square, a grassy common "THIS IS my dining room," a blue jay squawks as a hungry gray squirrel attempts an invasion of a backyard bird feeder. Rarely timid, squirrels are one of the few wild mammals to successfully adapt to urban life. sur- rounded by historic buildings. Brown baggers flock there for lunch, often leaving scraps of food behind. "A lot of them forget that when winter comes, there will be no one to feed the squirrels," Mrs. Krug said. About 2,500 geraniums and at least a dozen freshly planted trees have been lost to hungry squirrels. The Park Service turned to deportation after unsuccessfully trying to divert the squirrels from the plantings by tempting them with peanuts. THIS ISN'T the first squirrel problem on Pennsylvania Avenue. In 1955 the critters took to tearing up President Eisenhower's putting green on the White House lawn. Staff members devised a plan to deport them, but a public outcry, led by a senator from Oregon, put a halt to the idea. More than $100 was contributed to a "Save the White House Squirrels Fund." Squirrels, which are actually rodents with bushy tails, will eat almost any- "We've planned and plotted and taken every precaution so the squirrels wouldn't be psychologically disturbed by the move, but some people think any disturbance of an animal The Dept. of parts of hickory, oak, is cruel," she said. thing, but they prefer walnut, elm, and mulberry trees. They strip bark for food and also to mark territory, some naturalists believe. But they are outstanding forest planters. Many nuts and acorns they bury go unclaimed, producing valuable young trees. Health and Welfare Region 6 Comprehensive Mental Health Center is having their last Probably every hickory tree as well as many oaks Federal inspection Nov. 8f 9 and 10th at the seen by early North Amer- ican settlers had been planted by squirrels. They haven't made any such contribution, however, to Lafayette Square. "They're destructive little devils," Mrs. Krug said. 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