Are Squirrel Traps Legal?
The laws are made to protect wildlife, they are not intended to prevent you from ridding your property of animals that are doing damage. If grey squirrels are damaging your home, trees, crops or property, you may legally use traps to catch and destroy them - providing it is carried out in a legal and humane manner. Transporting and releasing grey squirrels back into the wild and probably in another squirrel's area is not humane, it may spread diseases and it is against The Law!
​
Which Squirrel Trap - Live Catch or Kill?
Traditional Live Catch Cage Traps​
These traps are sometimes referred to as "Humane Live Traps," but it is not the traps that are humane, it is the way that they are used. It is hardly humane when a squirrel is left in a cage trap overnight and dies from hypothermia or is held captive inside an exposed cage trap and being worried by a neighbour's cat!
If you choose to use this type of trap it should be covered to provide the trapped animal with protection from the weather and predators. You will also need to devise a means that prevents non-target animals and birds from getting in while allowing squirrels to enter.
​​
​​
Elgeeco Squirrel Trap and Bird Feeder
The Elgeeco Squirrel Trap and Bird Feeder is mountable on a tree trunk, the side of a fence or wall away from predators and non-target animals such as hedgehog. There is an optional Refuge Cage attachment available for those who may not be able to check traps as often as they would wish and which can also be used as an aid for discretely dispatching squirrels humanely.
The Elgeeco Squirrel Trap and Bird Feeder is the most effective live catch trap for grey squirrel.
​​
​​
Having caught the nuisance grey squirrel in a live capture trap it must be destroyed quickly and humanely. If you decide on a single shot in the head with a powerful air weapon, then rather than chasing the distressed animal around the cage, use a Live Trap Comb or two to immobilise it.
​
​
Squirrel Traps that Kill
Many squirrel traps are triggered by the squirrel when it operates a treadle with a paw. It will be apparent that the part of the squirrel's anatomy that is gripped by the bars will depend on which paw actuates the treadle and the position of the squirrel at that instant. If a squirrel triggers the trap with a hind paw or is in the wrong position, it could suffer needlessly.
​​
​​
Procull Squirrel Trap
The Procull Squirrel Trap is designed and engineered to overcome the deficiencies experienced when using other known traps. The Procull Squirrel Trap reliably kills a squirrel quickly and humanely because it has a pendula trigger that is operated by the squirrel's head. This means that the killing bar reliably strikes the lethal area of the animal's spinal central nervous system.
​​
​​
