Well, here goes
I have some very HUGE Maples and Elms on my property. Even a few gigantic cottonwoods. There are about a bazillion squirrels around my place. I like them. I like to watch them play and (unfortunately) about 10 years ago I started feeding them some raw peanuts....now I'm almost broke buyin' nutz for the little buggers...

There is a huge (I mean really huge) yellow tom cat hanging around. He's not ours nor have we ever fed or even paid any attention to him. All I know is that when he is around...there are NO mice...anywhere. Thats a good thing.

Today I saw what I thought was going to be a fight to the death with the cat and one of the squirrels that hang around my house. The cat is sitting, ready to pounce if the squirrel even gets close to the ground. The squirrel, (not really sure if they are near sighted or not) didn't see him and lollied around by the base of the tree for a little too long......POUNCE! Fail!
Cat and Squirrel are both in a mad dash up the tree, Squirrel circling and cat climbing as fast as squirrel.....I am totally involved and watching with open mouth as this thing unfolds right in front of me.

A total fight incurs. The screams and noises coming out of my tree up high is about as blood curdling a noise as I have heard in a log time. WOW...I thought...that squirrel is a goner. The cat is almost twice as big as the squirrel and I know that cats are predators and squirrels.....well, not so much.

now out of the tree in a big furry ball falls the cat/squirrel mass.....they fall a good 15 to 20 feet. Both of them, locked in a ball of teeth, claws, terrible screams and fur. I was almost taken back....the cat is falling, flat on his back and the squirrel is on top of him, fighting him.
They land in a heap. THUD....almost a sickening thud. The fight continues and in a few seconds, the cat clears himself of the squirrel. The cat is off in a tear...screaching and growling....but moving like the wind.
The squirrel scampers up the tree about 10 feet and just chatters at the fast moving cat, then off up the tree again.
I stood there dumbfounded.

I would have bet a huge amount of money on the cat....and I would have lost big time.
I have never seen a squirrel fight like that or even actually fight at all

wow.....tough little buggers, those squirrels

OK, not back to your original programming,
I am getting another cup-o-joe

~jeff~

Wonder if the cat was de-clawed ?

Good blow-by-blow description. I have a big yellow Tom and a squirrels that love our Eucalyptus. Only the possums bug him, so far.

well, I don't know for sure (never really been that close to him) but I would think not because of the speed and ease he went up that tree chasing the squirrel
He's kind of a while hair and a loner. My wife has tried numerous times to get him to come over and say hi....he has always kept his distance.

~jeff~

Squirrels have extremely sharp claws. Just one swipe and that cat would regret its life! Landing on its back has probably learned it for quite some time.

I have an uncle who lives in Riverside, he has 10 acres of Eucalyptus trees and he has possums all over the place.
no possums here.
Badgers, Skunks, Raccoons, Coyotes ...lots of wildlife, including snakes...but I have never, ever seen a possum

there are crows, eagles and hawks that mess with the squirrels and ferral cats around here...
I saw a big Golden Eagle once with a rather large squirrel in his talons. That was a sight, let me tell ya.
The Bald Eagles that nest near the river in the canyon by our town, they like the fish and the rabbits...
They are kind of the top of the food chain for predators around here.


~jeff~

I agree, lesson learned by him.
I had just never seen a squirrel be that agressive...of course, he was fighting for his life I suppose.
That cat was twice his size but definately got his butt kicked by Mr. Ninja Squirrel..
I have a whole new respect for squirrels now

~jeff~

"no possums here.
Badgers, Skunks, Raccoons, Coyotes ...lots of wildlife, including snakes...but I have never, ever seen a possum"

Around here they have trouble crossing the road!! That's where I usually spot them

It could have been a female squirrel defending young pups still in nest?

One thing about squirrels is once they engage they will not let go. The aggressor must free himself. My Dad told me about the time he fed the squirrels much like you did. He made the mistake of trying to pick one up. He tried to let it go, but the squirrel had no intentions of stopping and severely bit my Dad's hand and forearm. He had to literally shake it off.
Dan

I would call it "home field advantage". In a match on the ground, the squirrel would likely have been ripped to shreds. In a tree, well that's a squirrel's turf where he can jump effortlessly from branch to branch. OTOH, a cat has to be very careful just to keep from falling to the ground.

Shortly after we took in our 2 year old "Sammy" who weighed 12 1/2 lbs. at the time Sammy would hunt Squirrels.
He caught two Squirrels in 2 weeks time, both times Sammy bit the heads off of them, the were full grown Squirrel.
Sammy is well fed now, gained about 2 pounds and don't bother with the Squirrels anymore.

Wouldn't have been able to climb tree...

Never seen a squirrel around here come out on top with a cat. Once they are caught. That last part is the difficult part. Fat well fed cats really cannot usually match a squirrel in a foot race to the nearest tree. So mostly they just watch. Saw a cat nonchalontly carrying a squirrel by the scruff around here once, and it appeared the squirrel was muching either the side of his head or a wad of fur. But he did not come out on top. IF the cat does bite the squirrel, it will likely die of the infection, anyway.

Well, I saw a squirrel use its wits, to avoid becoming lunch. A while back a squirrel ran under the car I was in, to evade a hawk. The hawk almost became a hood ornament.

On the other hand a squirrel could be its own worst enemy. I owned a condo, a block away from Caltech. The squirrels there were well fed, by all of the pedestrian traffic. A little too well fed. I was once walking along the sidewalk, when I startled a really fat squirrel. It took some time for that critter to waddle up a nearby tree. That squirrel's only defense against a cat, would be to raise the cat's cholesterol level.

My bets would always be on a squirrel, esp. a Fox Squirrel. Their teeth give them an advantage besides their extremely sharp claws. Squirrels are pure muscle versus many cats having some fat. Big squirrels, weasels, and badgers are nothing to mess with unless you have a shotgun in your hand. As for a cat, I just kick it a good one or club it.

If you raise a squirrel from a baby, they make good pets. I had a friend rescue 2 different baby squirrels out of trees that were being cut down by his friend. I helped take care of both of them. They were bottle fed and kept in a box with a heat rock until they were large enough. I think he fed them bird food for the most part. You could pick them up and they climb and sit on your shoulder or back of you neck.. He raised them until they were a couple months old, then let them go.

The best thing that I ever saw was when I was a kid. My brother had picked up a nondescript hound dog
pup in Tennessee and left it with us. A few years later I was walking with the dog to our detached garage. The driveway was lined with old maples. On the closest one, maybe 30' away a squirrel was coming down and saw us and stopped about 6' from the bottom. The dog saw it and took off running. When it got close to the tree, it leaped into the air, turned its head, grabbed the squirrel with its mouth, and kept on going. About 15 minutes later, the dog showed up, minus the squirrel, acting like nothing had happened. We never did find out what happened to the squirrel.

Too bad Curt Reed isn't around.
He would regale us all about a certain cat that lost a fight with one of his squirrels.

Wild animals are tougher than most people realize. I used to hunt raccoon. If you don't kill the coon with a well placed shot and it falls wounded from the tree, the dogs on the ground are in for a fight. Some coon have been known to send three dogs whimpering into the woods. And, these are big coon dogs: Redbones and Blueticks. Dogs have been killed by raccoon on hunts.