“There are few effective and economical methods of squirrel control, and those are typically the use of chemicals,” Ruigh said, adding that the city tries to limit the use of chemicals and pesticides in parks.

Aside from a lack of funds, the squirrels also catch breaks from humans who find them cute and feed them. Plus, regulatory requirements for euthanasia have increased throughout the decades, burying the days of yore when a town could just employ a few good ole’ boys with Remingtons.

Yes, things have changed – so much so that a couple of California cities have considered birth control.

As part of a two-year experiment beginning in 2004, the city of Berkeley trapped, sedated and injected squirrels at Marina Park with a contraceptive developed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The vaccine, at $2 to $10 a pop, lasts the entire three- to five-year life span of the rodents. In fact, it helped lower the birth rate at the Berkeley park by 66 percent, according to a 2004 U.C. Davis study.

“It was very labor intensive, but the effect was very good,” said Lucia Hui, Alameda county’s chief of environmental health. She added that Berkeley is “one of those cities,” but after the birth control trial, the county stopped controlling the population that has begun “creeping back,” Hui said.

Farther south, Santa Monica recently considered switching over to the pill after Los Angeles County mandated a reduction in squirrel populations. The city ultimately decided to trap the squirrels, euthanize them off site and then send them to a raptor rehabilitation center in Bakersfield for the birds to eat, according to Santa Monica’s Public Landscape Superintendent Darrell Baker.