Here’s Why Animals Keep Eating Your Holiday Decorations

For decades, my family has decorated the blue spruce in our yard with holiday lights. Our neighbors have often told us how much they appreciate the tradition. But for the last three years, someone has been sabotaging that cheer.

It’s no big mystery. It’s the resident squirrels. Now, every time we hang a new strand, the little grinches promptly chew off the bulbs.

That prompted us to ask, why do squirrels and other animals eat, steal or otherwise deface holiday decorations? A few prominent wildlife experts gave us some answers, plus offered a few tips on how to prevent a bit of that mischief.

What Decorations Attract Animals?

All sorts of holiday decorations can pique the attention of wildlife, especially shiny tinsels, dangling ornaments, inflatables with internal fans and, of course, strings of lights. While we can’t know for sure what’s going on in their minds, veterinarian Iryna Smyrnova believes these items evoke curiosity and predatory instincts.

“Scented, edible decorations, or those located near food sources, such as bird feeders, are the most inviting,” she says.

Which Animals Are Usually the Culprits?

Squirrels and raccoons are common offenders. They are adventurous, smart and skilled, and always looking for their next treat, says Smyrnova. Deer also tend to sneak nibbles on the greens of wreaths and garlands.

Other animals are less intentional with their decoration destruction. For example, it’s common for moose, deer and birds can get caught up in low-hanging lights and other decor.

Why do squirrels chew on holiday lights?

“While it may feel like squirrels have a personal vendetta against holiday cheer, the real explanation is simple and rooted in their natural behavior,” says wildlife expert Peter Gros.

The Need to Gnaw

Squirrels, like all rodents, have incisors that grow throughout their lives. As such, chewing on things like branches helps keep them filed down. “For them, a string of lights is like another branch,” says Gros. “They may even mistake the wires fro twigs and other natural items.”

Natural Curiosity

Holiday lights bring new colors and textures, which squirrels are drawn to investigate. In winter, they’re also busy collecting, hoarding and burying their cache, so “Their foraging behavior during this time of year may inevitably increase their encounters with your holiday decorations,” says Gros.

Perception of Food

Some people speculate that squirrels mistake holiday bulbs for nuts and other food sources, but that’s unlikely the case, says naturalist David Mizejewski, “mostly because they don’t smell like those food items.”

Another theory is that because eco-friendly electrical insulation contains soy and other plant oils, that makes it attractive to squirrels (there’s similar theory for why chipmunks and mice chew car wires). But scientific evidence for this is sparse and mixed, making it a less likely motive.

Light Pollution

Finally, it is possible that having lights on all night could annoy wildlife, or at least make them more active, causing them to come in contact with lights more frequently, but we couldn’t find any scientific studies to prove or disprove this theory.

Strategies to Stop Animals From Ruining Decorations

For lights and other decorations, try coating them with a mist of a strong or bitter scent, like apple cider vinegar or hot pepper spray. “It may be enough to deter them,” says Gros. “Wildlife learn quickly when something tastes or smells unpleasant.”

However, it’s likely that won’t be a lasting fix. Sprays need to be reapplied regularly, plus “very determined squirrels tend to ignore them after a while,” says Smyrnova.

Other strategies:

• Switch to rope lights, or put the wires in safety tubes.
• Place decorations out of reach, far from trees, railings and fences.
• Prune back tree branches, so they’re 15 feet from the house, or wherever lights are hung.
• Remove other elements that attract wildlife to your home, like bird feeders, accessible trash cans and pet food.
• Install motion-activated lights on larger decorations, like those that might be a draw to deer.

Squirrels: Little Scrooges or Backyard Buddies?

Even if squirrels aren’t eating your lights, chances are they’ve caused some frustration, thanks to their penchant for emptying bird feeders and leaving caches of pine cones in the attic. In our case, rather than start a battle, we decided to simply let them be. In the end, we decided we like having mischievous squirrels around more than we were attached to our holiday lights.

“Squirrels are amazing creatures,” says Mizejewski. “We tend to take them for granted because they are common, but they are one of the few wild animals that we get to see and enjoy every day, and that’s something special.”

Of course, all creatures also play important roles in the ecosystem. For squirrels, that often includes dispersing seeds and stabilizing the food web, since they’re prey for hawks, foxes and other equally cool wildlife.

One Final Mystery

A piece of our squirrel saga that we still don’t understand is why the squirrels ignored the lights for decades, then suddenly started gnawing on them three years ago. Smyrnova theorizes it could signify an increase in squirrel population, which has raised competition and subsequent stress behaviors.

But, there don’t seem to be more squirrels. So perhaps, it has to do with her secondary theory: “It might be a new generation that has adopted the habit from one very stubborn individual,” she says. “The behavioral trait, once learned and reinforced, could be very fast in spreading among the neighboring squirrels.”

About the Experts

• Peter Gros is a veteran wildlife expert and co-host at Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom Protecting the Wild.
• David Mizejewski is a naturalist with the National Wildlife Federation and author of Attracting Birds, Butterflies and Other Backyard Wildlife.
• Iryna Smyrnova, DVM, is a veterinarian at Meowoff, and has more than 20 years of experience working with animals of all kinds.

The post Here’s Why Animals Keep Eating Your Holiday Decorations appeared first on Family Handyman.

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