Is it safe to eat squirrel-bitten avocados?

Q: We have a large avocado tree that used to have great fruit but now, as the trees in our tract have gotten bigger, we have squirrels that seem to delight in taking bites out of many of the avocados.
Is it safe to use these avocados if we cut around the bite marks?
Is there something we can put in the tree to scare them away or keep them out of the tree?
A: To answer your first question: Yes, it is safe to eat the avocados that have been bitten into if you cut out the damaged parts. Of course,