Geez, I finally join this forum and my first post is about squirrels!
Anyway, thanks for posting this. It hit me "right in the feels" as my kids used to say.
Long before he passed, my dad fought and recorded a similar battle back in the late seventies or early eighties. He attempted to prevent a squirrel from climbing a simple vertical pole holding a "bird" feeder. The progression went from a commercial baffle (instantly and sneeringly overcome), to the largest funnel he could acquire, and eventually, to a snow-sledding saucer with a hole bored in the middle. The big funnel was overcome with an impressive chin-up and gymnastics. The saucer was overcome with a spread-eagle flying leap from a (somewhat!) nearby tree onto the saucer, toes at the edge and hands around the pole when landing (with his eyes bulging as the entire pole dramatically swayed back and forth for some time).
The final, hilariously impractical and short-lived (but successful) fix was to remove all the baffles and simply lube the entire pole with axle grease.
Sadly lost somewhere (likely in a landfill in rural Virginia) is a similarly comical VHS tape of a frustrated squirrel progressing through all of the obstacles above before frantically making it up the pole a few inches at a time ... and then sliding back down to the bottom. We seriously considered sending it into "America's funniest home videos" but never got around to it.