THE GROUND SQUIRRELS OF CALIFORNIA. 



721 



A HISTORY OF GROUND SQUIRREL CONTROL IN CALIFORNIA. 



By W. C. JACOBSEN. 



INTRODUCTION. 



The control of ground squirrels has held a prominent position in the 

 economic welfare of California from very early days. It is, indeed, 

 fascinating to go into the past history of our state but a few short 

 years to learn of times when this destructive pest was considered quite 

 a necessary fixture, as essential a part of a biological whole as was 

 anything living here at the time. As decade succeeded decade it became 

 apparent that, rather than justifying a position chargeable to profit 

 on our economic scale, the operations of the ground squirrel and many 

 of his companions more and more assumed the form of a loss. Instead 



Fig. 44. Automobile load of five hundred and fifteen poisoned squirrels from 

 two hundred acres. Poison was placed in the morning and at noon the load was 

 gathered. 



of an asset, as the squirrel was to the Indian, he became a liability 

 for those who took up the art of making the soil produce the wherewithal 

 to exist according to more modern and civilized standards, Presumably, 

 this has all followed as the natural order of things which, to a limited 

 degree is true, but we assume it has resulted more or less from an 

 artificial cause for which the white race must assume the greater blame. 

 Species for whom nature cared in the past we now have as an unwhole- 

 some charge for ourselves. Natural control methods at one time seemed 

 to be effective ; at least in so far as evidences that are now available 

 would indicate. Let us take some small distant areas, for those are 

 all we have remaining where conditions might be called primitive and 

 where we do not find a superabundance of ground squirrels, at least 



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