[NatureNS] Pepper in the bird seed?

Date: Sun, 20 Jan 2008 11:22:02 -0400
From: "Margaret E.Millard" <mmillard@eastlink.ca>
To: naturens@chebucto.ns.ca
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I read something like this a number of years ago when we were grossly 
overrun with squirrels. I tried adding cayenne pepper, ground chilli peppers 
and the membranes and seeds from fresh chillies and nothing slowed down the 
squirrels at all.
Black pepper didn't work.....I invested in several have a heart traps and 
transported away to likely looking sites but after all the studies on 
transporting, now I hesitated to do that. I am now doing that again as it is 
better than having to dispatch them.We had nine at one point and 
counting....they were chewing on wired and conduits to get in and were ultra 
aggressive at the doorway.
Marg in Queens.
http://margmillard.ca
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Andy Moir/Chris Callaghan" <andyandchris@ns.sympatico.ca>
To: <NatureNS@chebucto.ns.ca>
Sent: Sunday, January 20, 2008 11:02 AM
Subject: [NatureNS] Pepper in the bird seed?


I've been told that adding pepper to the bird seed will keep the squirrels 
away, but not harm the birds.  The pepper, according to the note I got, 
won't hurt either the birds or the squirrels...but the squirrels choose to 
find another source of food that isn't so spicy.
I looked up a site on the net. http://www.squirrelproof.ca/index.html  It 
talked about an ingredient in chili peppers.
"Capsaicin is the natural, organic active ingredient in chili peppers that 
gives them their "hot" taste. Mammals have special neural receptors (similar 
to taste buds) for capsaicin and therefore, experience the "heat." Birds 
either lack these receptors or have receptors that are insensitive to 
capsaicin. Most botanists and ornithologists believe that chili peppers 
evolved this way so that small mammals would avoid the hot taste, while 
birds freely eat the pungent pepper pod. This adaptation/coevolution would 
result in wide ranging dispersal of the undigested seed to ensure the 
natural propagation and long term survival of the chili pepper plant."



Does anyone know if the pepper you'd use at the dinner table has the same 
effect as capsaicin is alleged to have?  Has anyone tried using capsaicin? 
Does it work?

Andy Moir

Freeport

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