Gunfire Rakes the Hayfields in a War Against the Squirrel

The pickup bounced along a farm road, still deep-rutted by winter. Cason Baugh peered through the dusty windshield at alfalfa fields basking under the first warm rays of spring. Then he spotted it, right up ahead.

The enemy. The dreaded varmint. A tiny ground squirrel that, along with a few thousand burrowing cousins, is capable of chomping a good quantity of Baugh’s crop.

Quick as a cat, the farmer grabbed his small-bore rifle, right beside the sloshing coffee mug and half-filled cup of cigarette butts.

He aimed. He fired.

The little critter fell, quite dead--another casualty in the squirrel wars of Surprise Valley.

Up here in California’s far northeast corner, where the U.S. Cavalry had its last outpost and a few Wild West folkways still abide, folks shoot first and ask questions later when it comes to squirrels.

Each spring, scores of hunters flock to the green hayfields of Surprise Valley--population 1,500--to take on the ground squirrels that have commandeered vast swaths of this agriculturally rich acreage.

The climax comes the last Saturday of March, with the Surprise Valley Squirrel Round-Up. Rifle-toting marksmen roll into this land of stark beauty and secessionist sentiments, a world removed from the California of suntans and silicon chips. This year’s battle, the 10th annual, drew 90 hunters, some from as far away as the East Coast.

As the morning sun topped an eastern ridge, the crack of rifle fire rolled up and down the 70-mile-long valley, bouncing off the scenic walls of snow-capped mountains.

Hunters hunkered in almost every farm field, high-powered rifles set on tripods, cross hairs on any squirrel daring to poke its head above ground.

Tim Riggs, a drywall contractor who has hunted squirrels here for a more than a decade, arrived from Sacramento--nearly 300 winding road miles away--with a pack of 10 buddies.

“Over the years, we’ve put a dent in ‘em,” said Riggs, peering through binoculars at the agricultural battleground. “Yesterday, we probably shot 125, 150 each.”

Not much bigger than a beer can, the Belding’s ground squirrel is a nettlesome problem for hay growers and cattle ranchers all over the West. But if there is a front line in this nasty little war of attrition, Surprise Valley may be it.

“We have more squirrels than just about any other part of California I know of,” said Joe Moreo, Modoc County agriculture commissioner. “In some spots, the ground is literally crawling with them.”

All over the valley, alfalfa fields appear pockmarked by bomb craters--the telltale mound of dirt at the mouth of each squirrel tunnel.

After wintering in a city-like maze of dens beneath the farmland, the rodents emerge ready for action. As the hay matures, the short-tailed animals diligently mow it down in neat circles radiating a dozen feet from their holes.

Cattle and horses can take a wrong step and snap a leg in the tunnels. Tractors break springs and shackles. Harvesting equipment gets gummed up on the mounds.

Baugh, 61, has seen the worst of it. Last year, half his crop in one badly infested field was devoured.

“It’s breaking us, I’ll tell you,” said Baugh, a stocky man with a gravelly chuckle when he isn’t thinking about the squirrels. “That field over there, I don’t know how many thousands have been killed, but they seem thick as ever.”

That’s music to the ears of hunters like Bob Stacklie. A retired Portland firefighter, Stacklie sees a circle-of-life kind of thing at work in Surprise Valley.

“The farmer wants them gone. The hunter can shoot them,” Stacklie said. “It’s as symbiotic as it gets.”

To that end, Stacklie pulled out out his Thompson Contender, a huge pistol packing the delicacy of a cannon.

Boom!

“Missed,” he muttered. “Had to have parted his hair on that one.”

The annual carnage is, of course, more than a bit unsettling to many big-city animal lovers unfamiliar with the back-country ethos that pervades these parts.

For years, locals in Surprise Valley have been bracing for a backlash from animal rights activists. Though voracious, the squirrels are liquid-eyed, petite, cute. There were rumblings the first few years of the squirrel shoot about a few animal rights groups from Southern California making the long trek. But no one ever showed.

“They probably didn’t want to do the drive,” said Candy Maidens, Greater Surprise Valley Chamber of Commerce president. If they ever do, Maidens said, “I’d be happy to have them talk to some people who had to shoot a pet horse because it broke a leg in a squirrel hole.”

Moreo, too, has answers to arguments that man has no business preying on defenseless squirrels.

The rodents, he contends, are not valley natives. They moved down from the hills as farmers created an “artificial environment.” The lush alfalfa fields have produced squirrel populations higher “than anything Mother Nature could do.”

To most denizens of Surprise Valley, ground squirrels are no better than cockroaches, no different from gophers in a Beverly Hills garden or attic rats in Redondo Beach.

And the hunters are the best exterminators they’ve got.

“Just think of me as the Orkin man,” grinned Tim Ellquist, a Redding jewelry salesman cradling a shotgun. “They’ve got easy living, and they multiply like rats.”

With that, Ellquist excused himself and raised his weapon.

Pow!

There are plenty more where that one came from.

Aside from engaging in gastronomic excess, the squirrels are breeding machines; every year, a pair can produce more than half a dozen babies. Said Ray Page, a local cattle rancher: “No matter what, they always seem to win the battle.”

It wasn’t always so. Until a decade ago, Modoc County made headway by deploying a notorious toxicant: compound 1080. Agriculture officials carefully mixed it with sliced cabbage, loaded an airplane and carpet-bombed the worst infestations.

But in 1990, the county lost its permit for the poison, long implicated as a threat to the endangered bald eagle and other birds and animals. County officials fought furiously, to no avail.

No surprise there to locals in one of California’s most isolated and forgotten spots. Distrust of big government runs deep among residents.

Some, in fact, would prefer to see the state line moved 15 miles west, putting them in Nevada. They still talk wistfully of breaking away: Four of five county voters backed a 1992 advisory measure calling for a divorce from the rest of the state.

“This is a small, rural, mom-and-pop place more like Wyoming than anywhere else,” said Moreo, the agriculture commissioner. “California’s regulations often just don’t fit us. And we have no voice. So why would we stay?”

While much of California boomed in the 1990s, times were bad in this hinterland. The lumber industry had gone kaput; mining shriveled; the beef market flagged. Long a place of double-digit unemployment and high welfare rolls, Modoc was one of only three California counties that shrank in population during the decade.

But what Surprise Valley lacks in commerce it makes up for in scenery and community.

Bald eagles sit on fence posts. The forested Warner Mountains line the valley’s west edge. Cowboys still drive cattle right through the middle of town. Babies and deaths bring out the community. And most everyone waves hello to total strangers.

Though folks hereabouts have been shooting squirrels for generations, the springtime fusillade didn’t become an institution until the poison program ceased and the rodent population boomed. In 1992, Chamber of Commerce leaders concocted the Squirrel Round-Up, which has been an unvarnished success. Hunters put a hurt on the varmint population and help the local economy, keeping the handful of hotels and restaurants chugging.

Surprise Valley’s squirrels rarely disappoint, turning out in herds. Even so, nailing the fleet-footed rodents in no cinch.

“It tests your skill,” said Dave Pimentel, a copier technician outfitted for battle this day in camouflage hat and trousers. “You’re being a sniper. That’s what it is.”

As in any war, some varmint hunters seek the high ground. Frank Neth, a retired grocery store manager, got on the roof of his RV.

“Pretty quick, one will pop its head up,” he said, armed for now only with a can of Diet Pepsi. “I’ll drill him.”

Then there is the War Wagon.

That’s what Michael Harper, a Chico gun range employee and part-time wildlife guide, calls his specially outfitted hunting van. An elevated platform atop the rig gives hunters a perfect angle on their tiny foes. For $150 a day, Harper hauls rifle-toting clients to Surprise Valley each weekend during squirrel season.

Up top, Glenn Snodgrass, a 70-year-old Portland retiree, popped off shots at a happy clip as the squirrel shoot drew to a close.

“I’ve got a neighbor who says, ‘How can you shoot those poor things?’ ” Snodgrass observed between shots. “I say, ‘How would you like a dozen mice in your house?’

“Besides,” he added, “the farmers love us.”

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Squirrel Hunt

Infestations of the Belding’s ground squirrel in farm fields in northeast California have drawn hordes of rifle-toting marksmen each spring to the Surprise Valley Squirrel Round-Up, a daylong varmint hunt. Here are the squirrel’s specifications:

Belding’s ground squirrel

(Spermophilus beldingi)

* About 8 inches long with brown coat and short tail.

* Inhabits parts of California, Oregon, Nevada, Utah and Idaho.

* Prefers alpine shrub, wet meadow, grassland, stands of sagebrush, agricultural fields.

* Eats grasses, leaves, seeds.

* Doesn’t store food like tree-dwelling squirrels. Doubles body fat before hibernation.

* Hibernates 8 months of year, late summer to early spring.

* Lives in colonies, females digging burrows 10-15 feet long and 2 feet deep.

* Mates in spring. One month gestation. Litters usually 7 or 8 pups.

* Natural predators include coyotes, badgers, eagles. Chief cause of death is winter cold.

Source: California Department of Fish and Game