400,000 acres burned in California this year from wildfires. In those fires, squirrels lost their nuts.

Hundreds of thousands of refugee squirrels have made their way up north from Southern California to escape the fires, finding new homes in the many cannabis farms in the area. As funny as it sounds, it’s bad.

What these squirrels do is nothing short of murder…plant murder.

The refugee squirrels problem

While most are happy that the squirrels are safe from danger now, many aren’t so thrilled with where they have taken up. Mainly on cannabis farms.

Climbing on the plants, breaking off branches when they climb, and even chewing on the cannabis plants is making the  refugee squirrels a not-so-welcome guest in the Emerald Triangle. But this is a new problem, with no well-known solution.

This is where the problem comes in. Mites, aphids or other small critters are easy enough to deal with, every grower has to deal with them at some point. But no grower has ever really had to deal with squirrels, let alone so many.

Desperate times

Farmers in NorCal have resorted to pellet guns and small arms in so instances to eradicate the squirrels. There are still too many refugee squirrels to get rid of them all.

Compared to other small rodents growers might have to deal with, the sheer amount of squirrels sent there by the forest fires is too much for most to handle. Some have lost their entire crop to the influx of squirrels.

It’s rough in the Emerald Triangle right now. Nut-starved, weed-hungry squirrels are wreaking havoc on farmers all over, and a lot are still trying to figure out how to deal with them.

Will there be a war? Who knows. Maybe the squirrels will realize they like nugs more than nuts. Let’s hope not.

Hear more on the new episode of The Real Dirt! Part 3 of the Harvest Special addresses the squirrel issue, talks trimming and more.