As part of our box trapping back in high school, I started trapping the squirrels at my parents house and spray painting them different colors and then releasing them. I learned quickly that we didn't have just 2 or 3 squirrels around, but more like 20-30. While you only see a few at any given time, they aren't the same 2 or 3 you see each time. After that, I started counting tree nests in the late fall and realized that there were probably a few hundred in our neighborhood alone.