Loss of cached foods is a constant threat to animals that hoard food, and pilfering plays an important role in the evolution of hoarding strategies. Although pilfering is known to affect the behavior of scatter hoarders, pilfering has been assumed to be less important for larder-hoarding animals. In this study, I used a mark-recapture study of cached Norway spruce (Picea abies) cones to quantify pilfering rates in larder-hoarding red squirrels (Tamiasciurus hudsonicus). Red squirrels stole 26% of the cones that they ate and lost 25% of the cones cached in their middens. Most squirrels stole cones (97%) and lost cones to stealing (92%). However, individual squirrels stole 1–100% of the cones that they ate and lost 1–84% of the cones cached in their middens. Numbers of cones gained by and lost to stealing were not related to the age or sex of individual squirrels or the distances between or numbers of cones cached in individual territories. Squirrels with small middens, however, ultimately gained cones, and those with large middens lost cones. Because food is frequently a limiting resource for red squirrels, these changes in food abundance may directly affect the fitness of individual squirrels. Thus, pilfering likely plays an important role in shaping the hoarding and defensive behaviors of larder-hoarding animals.