news-record.com

Residents within town limits can’t shoot squirrels in their yards, but soon they may be able to ask the police to do it for them.

At a Board of Aldermen meeting Monday, police Chief Mike Woznick said he’d ask the state Wildlife Resources Commission for a permit allowing two of his officers to kill the squirrels with air rifles.

Bobby Webster, who lives on Apple Street, said at a board meeting in October that he lost $600 worth of pecans early this fall when squirrels stripped the pecan trees in his backyard. Webster said the traps he set weren’t sufficient to protect the trees before the nuts were ripe.

In previous years, he’d been able to shoot the squirrels, but in March, the town repealed an ordinance that allowed the police chief to grant permits to residents to shoot squirrels.

Woznick had asked the board to repeal the rule because it contradicts a state wildlife statute as well as a town law banning the discharge of weapons in town.

“It’s purely an issue of safety,” Woznick said. He said he isn’t able to test residents “to make sure that their aim is straight and true.”

After the meeting, Woznick and Webster talked more about the issue.

Webster doubted that the police would be able to devote enough time to his yard to protect his pecans.

“All I can promise you is I’ll give it more than the old college try,” Woznick said.

Webster said the officers “would have to camp out in my backyard” to protect the nuts.

Contact Jamie Kennedy Jones at 449-4610 or jamie.kennedy@news-record.com