Santa Monica, Calif. – Afraid that a population explosion among squirrels in a city park could pose a public-health risk, Santa Monica officials are ready to try a proven method of dealing with the problem: birth-control shots.
Plans call for squirrels in Palisades Park to be injected with an immuno-contraceptive vaccine to stunt sexual development. Breeding season runs from February to April, but the inoculations will take place this summer when the squirrels are most active outdoors and easier to trap.
Santa Monica would be the second city in the state, after Berkeley, to try the immunization program.
“It’s a cutting-edge approach,” said Joe McGrath, the city’s parks chief. “Pest control in general isn’t usually very exciting or even controversial. That hasn’t been the case with the squirrels.”
California ground squirrels, like rats and gophers, are rodents. Experts warn that they are aggressive and might carry rabies or host fleas that can spread disease, such as bubonic plague. The larger the squirrel population, the greater the chance for infestation, which could expose humans and predatory animals to disease, said Gail Van Gordon, an entomologist with the Los Angeles County Health Services Department.
Since 1998, the county has cited Santa Monica five times for squirrel overpopulation. The city’s suppression methods – poison, gassing and euthanasia – only angered animal-loving activists seeking a nonlethal solution.
“We don’t want to kill them if we don’t have to,” McGrath said.
