Squirrel
Talk
When I was little I had trouble saying
my 'S's. Everything I said would come out sounding funny. And because
I was a little kid, everything had to have a 'Y' at the end of it. Doggy,
kitty, grampy, and other words were just a normal part of my vocabulary.
So the first time I saw a squirrel, it cam out as 'Curl' and with the
added 'Y,' it was completed as 'Curly.'
I started speaking when I was two - when we moved into the home I live
in now, in a suburban area about twenty minutes north of Pittsburgh.
There aren't any woods around, just houses, but we have a big enough
yard to have two dogs and some trees. The birds that live in our area
aren't anything exotic, just robins, morning doves, and your average
sparrows. One of the first pets my family ever had was a West Highland
Terrier named Tessy, which I terrorized with my doll carriage that never
had a doll in it.
(Pushing my doll cart at a slow and steady pace) "Ca'mere Tessy…I
just want to pet you. Don't be scared, I won't hurt you. Rahhhhhh!!!!
Hahahahahah! Ok, I promise I won't do anything this time. Come here!"
So needless to say, I never had much time to pet any animals that weren't
running or flying away from me. My attention span was/is short and 'girly
things' never interested me. Kitchen sets, Barbie dolls, and girlfriends
were annoying and boring. Running around outside inspecting nature,
scraping knees, swinging on my swing set, playing games with my grandparents,
and terrorizing my parents were the adventures that encompassed my summer
childhood. I didn't have time to sit around and change Barbies into
several different outfits or pretend where she would drive to in her
pink convertible. This was the time to run.
Like most kids, I didn't know how to express my feelings in a gentle
way. Once I got old enough to move around on my own, running down the
dog and chasing the birds was what I thought the animals wanted from
me. Don't all animals want to have sheer terror running through them
several times during the day?
So there I was, a kid that loved animals but they didn't want to come
near me, and if I was going to change my behavior, it was going to take
a long time for them to trust me. The best solution was obvious: find
a new animal that I hadn't yet traumatized. But what animal was left?
Chipmunks were too hard to catch, my mom was allergic to cats, and I
had already killed two fish. But who wants to pet fish anyway?
Gray
Squirrel, Gray Squirrel, Swish Your Bushy Tail
The Gray squirrels is generally a very abundant mammal, especially in
forested areas where fruit and nuts are readily available. There are
over 272 species of squirrels, which belong and make up thirteen percent
of the Rodentia family. Large holes in trees, which they line with leaves,
are the most common place for squirrels to find shelter because of the
space and the food being right outside their window.
Many
people find squirrels a nuisance, especially to their bird feeders.
Along with birds, squirrels have a particular taste for sunflower seeds.
This agitates lots of avid bird watchers because squirrels will do anything
to get to a bird feeder and taste the salty nut of the sunflower, chasing
any birds in the area away. Gadgets upon gadgets have been made to prevent
these creatures from entering 'sacred bird areas,' though few have succeeded.
Squirrels are exceptionally smart and have a large jumping length. They
can figure out ways to reach a bird feeder that the human mind couldn't
even imagine. In a wildlife magazine, I read a report on squirrels and
how they are annoying more and more bird 'feeders.' One man even bought
a squirrel 'baffle,' an upside down saucer type object that attaches
underneath the bird feeder to prevent squirrels from climbing up the
pole. You can find this piece in your local hardware store for a mere
$19.95. But one man's particular squirrel figured out how to jump from
nearby trees to the feeder. So instead of the $19.95 purchase, he just
cut down the tree that it jumped from. Of course, the squirrel just
jumped from another tree further away. And of course, he cut that one
down, too. Thinking that he had solved the problem, the squirrel then
figured out how to pull down the baffle and climb straight up the pole.
Nothing can be put in the way of a squirrel and his sunflower seeds.
The opening sentence to the article? "While killer bees and marauding
bears occasionally capture headlines, the gray squirrel has been quietly
disassembling the infrastructure in some of the nation's backyards,
as well as vandalizing homes, sabotaging U.S. businesses and even occasionally
assaulting innocent bystanders." Yeah right. Just last week, when
I was walking down the street, a squirrel jumped out of the tree and
attacked my face, not to mention his counterparts that ran downtown
and started 'sabotaging' the local U.S. businesses.
Into
the Mind of a Squirrel
My mom would regularly set out peanuts on the back porch for the squirrel.
I started to join her in the ritual and observed this small, potential
pet. Every morning we looked out the window and watched the squirrel
bound down from the nearby silver maple tree, (not long after we had
placed the peanuts). After a few quick glances around to see if anyone
was watching, he would take off towards our porch, stopping every so
often to listen for danger, his beady little black eyes always scanning
the yard. Once he made it to the porch, he would jump up the stairs,
his big, bushy, gray tail following him all the way. When he made it
to the top of the porch, he sought out the perfect peanut (the first
one he came upon) and cracked it open with this tiny mouth. He would
pick up the peanuts and turn them over and over in his small paws, inspecting
which end he would like to make an incision in with his sharp teeth,
which never go dull. Those teeth could be 6 inches long if he never
used them because they continuously grow. The tables sure would have
turned if I had a small, furry squirrel with 6-inch fangs teaching me
how it feels to be chased! After he double-checked us, with a suspicious
glance and those 6-inch teeth not far from his mind, he would bite off
the end and pull out a peanut with his mouth. After the peanut was out,
he would place it in his paws and eat it like a hoagie, but swiftly
and always ready for danger.
He never seemed preoccupied; he was always on alert. I could lie in
the sun, letting it bleach my blonde hair while I picked out shapes
in the clouds, but Curly couldn't have that luxury; he always had to
watch out for predators like hawks and cats. And me.
I loved watching Curly's small body hop along the porch so soft and
swift. Gray squirrels can jump up to ten feet, though he never went
more than a foot. He was a fairly large, young squirrel, unaware of
the dangers posed by humans, but seemingly aware of his surroundings.
Never did he take a step without knowing all that was going on around
his tiny gray body. His small brain is the largest of all rodents, though
he was never thought of as a rodent to me. That tiny little brain must
have been running on overload most of the time.
"Ok, time for breakfast. Down the tree we go. Stop. Look around.
Hawks? Check. Cats? Check. Humans? Only the two looking out the window.
Check, check. Ok, off to the porch. Stop. Look around and double check
to make sure the neighbor's cats aren't hiding in the bushes. Check.
Peanut time. One. Two. Three. Four. Top of the steps. Stop. Look around.
Humans not making sudden movements. Check. Time to eat. Eat. Look around.
Eat. Look around. Eat. Look around- wait, wait, something is moving
at the window. The little girl is moving…you better not try and
come out here or - Onetwothreefour, bottom of steps, go go go go. Stop.
Look around. Stupid Girl. Does she really think she's going to be able
to catch me? Ok, go back inside honey. Come on, I'm hungry. (Look around.)
There you go. (Look around.) Ok, let's try this again."
After he finished his small feast, he would grab the shell and look
for another nut. By biting off the other end, he would retrieve his
second prize and continue his process of eating and watching. When he
finished his morning snack, he would then proceed to 'mark' the peanuts
in order to find them in the winter after they had been buried. By rubbing
the nuts on his face and licking them, he left a scent that would later
help him (along with a good memory), find his dinner under a foot of
snow. Curly repeated this process each time and would then shove them
in this mouth, usually only one at a time, unless it was a deformed
nub of a nut and then he would fit in two, like I did with marshmallows.
The Gray Bandit
I have actually had experience with squirrels
vandalizing homes. My home in particular, though I don't think the squirrel
sat in his hole with a blue print planning his every move. It was just
a normal summer day and my parents and I had come home after a day at
the river and when we opened the door, we noticed that things were knocked
over on the counter and there was a ceramic mug sitting in the middle
of our ceramic floor, unbroken.
My Dad yelled, "Call the police! Someone's broken into the house!"
He stayed to investigate while my mom and I started walking to my grandparents.
We weren't even halfway out the yard when my Dad yelled for us to come
back. Curiously we walked into the house to see him pointing at the
only new window recently put in our home.
"I don't think a robber would do that," he said.
There were small teeth marks all along the wood around the window. Shards
of wood were scattered on the countertop and the sink. The answer was
obvious, our friend the squirrel was here on vacation and didn't even
think to call ahead. From that moment on, it was an amusing attempt
to try and get a scared and claustrophobic squirrel out of our house
while not getting too close to get bitten. All of the doors and windows
were opened while Dad when upstairs to flush the squirrel downstairs.
"Stupid squirrel! Get back here, damn-it! …smash…You
little mother…", …crash… "I'm gonna rip all
your fur off."
The plan worked, but when the squirrel started running down the stairs,
he saw Mom and turned around and when straight back up. After a little
bit of tweaking, the squirrel finally bounded down the stairs and out
the front door.
Though the insurance company wouldn't compensate for the ruined window,
we didn't start a hate club against squirrels. Dad simply put paper
over the unused fireplace hole that went up to the chimney to prevent
further incidents as that one. Our little camper simply fell down the
chimney and into our living room. They can fall up to 100 feet without
hurting themselves, so that little ride down Santa's chute shouldn't
have been much of a ride at all.
Squirrels aren't that big of a nuisance; they can actually be of help.
Curly broke my habit of sucking on a pacifier. Along with throwing peanuts
out on the porch, my mom and I would throw them out onto the roof outside
her bedroom window. One day, I threw a handful of peanuts out, right
along with my pacifier. That was the end of my pacifier days and a few
days later, Curly picked it up and carried it off.
The
Breakfast of Champions
Now Curly needed a place to bury his
food for winter. This meant soft dirt, not too far away from the oak
tree, and within his squirrel territory. The obvious place was the garden.
It was right off from the porch, it had nice soft dirt, and it was still
in the yard near the silver maple tree. We watched from the window as
he would run up towards the garden and sniff out a spot to bury his
winter food. After a few seconds of sniffing, the digging and the growling
would begin. The squirrel would dig in the garden and my mom would growl
in the kitchen that he was digging in her garden. "Oh no! That's
where I planted the tulip bulbs! No, no, no, not there, I'm planting
my impatiens there next week!" But Mom knew that squirrels needed
food to eat in the winter, so she didn't grumble about it for too long.
Once a hole was dug, the squirrel would place the nuts inside the hole
and bury them, just like a dog would bury a bone. When the nuts were
safe and sound, he would come back down to the porch to repeat the procedure.
After a while, my Mom and I started to sit outside and wait for the
squirrel. He was obviously a little more hesitant to come and get his
breakfast, but he had nowhere else to get his precious peanuts, so he
continued to eat and bury, but with great caution. We could sit on the
porch and watch him, but we couldn't make a move. Any great motion would
catch his beady eyes and cause him to freeze and wait to see what we
were going to do. This was a hard thing for a five-year-old to master.
Sitting still is a problem that I still have, let alone when I was five.
Soon, the squirrel learned that no five-year-old was going to sit still,
but I also wasn't that great of a threat to him either.
When Curly was only a few feet from me, I could see all of his features.
His tiny paws, his tiny claws - even his tiny ears that sat towards
the back of his head. His tail was as long as his little body and almost
twice as wide. It was long and flat and used to balance him when he
hopped around his silver maple tree house. Hind legs hid under his layers
of soon-to-be winter coat and his soft gray fur. His chest was white
and looked as soft as down. Black beady eyes were always on alert on
either side of his head, while his tiny pawspadded
along the wood porch, taking him to breakfast.
Squirrels:
Friend or Foe?
The number of people that hate squirrels is amazing. There are even
websites purely devoted to hating squirrels. On deadsquirrel.com there
are links and news stories to all sorts of problems people have with
squirrels. One website's opening paragraph begins, "I just wanted
a place where I could rant about how much I hate those damned tree-rats
that live around my house. They dig up our garden, they chew on our
roof vents and they piss off our cat. I bought myself a slingshot so
I can pelt those bushy-tailed freaks with rocks. I've mostly just hit
their tails, but my sister was able to get one of them head-on. We cannot
plant tulips in our garden because those little fuckers dig them up
and at them like freaking apples."
And then there are your avid squirrel lovers. There is the Squirrel
Rights League who's motto is "A day without squirrels is a day
without sunshine." And The Squirrel Lovers Club, "an international
organization whose membership is open to squirrel lovers of all ages.
The club was started in 1995 and currently has over 1500 members including
Lou Ann Best, owner of Twiggy The Water-skiing Squirrel." Hey,
if Lou Ann Best is a member, maybe we should all reconsider our extracurricular
activities. They 'Long Live Squirrels' website even posts jokes against
the 'squirrel hating people.'
So
Close, Yet so Far
My plan was coming along. I had a new
animal that I hadn't yet scared off or run down with my doll carriage.
This animal needed a name, just as all pets do, and since he was merely
a squirrel to me, and my trouble with 'S's and 'Y's were still prevalent,
he was dubbed 'Curly.' Curly was now a frequent visitor to our porch.
I had come so far, from just watching squirrels run up and down the
maple tree to being within five feet of my new pet - but I needed more.
He was fuzzy looking and small enough for me to hold. He couldn't be
more than a pound. I had to touch him. I needed to touch him. And so
came about my new goal: pet Curly.
My mom helped me out a lot with my new goal. I told her that I wanted
to be able to touch Curly and so we devised a plan. Every morning we
would sit a bit closer and a bit closer until Curly got used to us being
right near his food. Then we would start to place the peanuts in front
of him, so that he saw that we were the providers of the food. At first,
he wasn't too keen on the idea of us sitting so close to him and putting
his peanuts down while he sat and ate. But he got used to us and we
even started to be able to tell him apart from other squirrels in the
area. He was younger and friendlier than most squirrels but he still
kept his cautious ways. I was never able to actually reach out and make
any swift movements towards him or he would take off down the porch
stairs and out to the yard, to sit and look at us and say, "Now
why would you go and do that?" I often thought about running down
after him. "If I just move a little closer…then just when
he notices that I'm stalking, I can jump and catch him!" Little
did I know that gray squirrels run up to 10.5 miles an hour.
My mom figured it out that Curly wasn't going to come any closer if
he had plenty of peanuts sitting all over the deck, so we cut back his
ration. We only put a few peanuts down at a time and the rest we kept
in our pockets, out of Curly's view. When he came up on the porch and
had finished his peanuts, we would hold out in our hands the few that
he had been waiting for. Starting out slow, we would gently toss them
out towards him so he would understand that we wanted him to have the
food. After doing this for several days, we then took it to a new level
to make Curly put more trust in us. We set the peanuts in front o9f
us and made him come over to get his food. My plan was unfolding perfectly.
Only a few more days and I'd be carrying Curly everywhere with me.
I could only imagine. Waking up in the morning with my squirrel tight
in my arms. We would run downstairs together and have peanuts and Cinnamon
Toast Crunch while we watched cartoons. Then we'd go outside for a day
in the sun, running around trees, playing on the swings, I would tape
him to the seat so that I could push him. Dad has duct tape in the garage;
I could just set Curly down on the swing and tape his body to it. He'd
be a flying squirrel in no time! In the evening when it got dark we
would get a jar and catch fireflies. Curly could swat the flies down
with his big bushy tail and I'd place them in our jar. After we got
plenty of fireflies, I could squish them on the sidewalk and rub the
glowing yellow-green goo on his fur so he would glow in the dark - just
like the fireflies. At dinner he could eat his peanuts beside me on
the table, and then we would take a bath together, while he floated
on my rubber ducky and we sang classic rock songs that I learned from
Dad. "Born-to be wiiiiiiiiiiild! Born-to be wiiiiiiiiiiild!"
Yep, Curly and I were born to be wild. Our time together was so close
I could almost feel his soft fur in my hands.
Who's
Fault Is It?
Yes, squirrels get into gardens and bird feeders, but in areas where
the land is so developed and where there isn't much of a food supply.
Gray squirrels tend to live in areas that have hardwood and mixed coniferous-deciduous
forests that inhabit trees such as oak, hickory, beech, maple, poplar,
and walnut. When developers clear these forests, they have no choice
but to find food where they can. Their main source of food is fruit
and nuts, but when food is scarce, they will resort to flowers, buds,
berries, roots, mushrooms, insects, and even bird eggs and animal material.
There are even three types of endangered squirrels, The Delmarva Fox
Squirrel, The Mount Graham Red Squirrel, and The Virginia Northern Flying
Squirrel. The Delmarva Fox Squirrel has been endangered due to the extensive
development on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. It has been found in Delaware
and Virginia but now only resides in Maryland where it is being plummeted
by cars and pushed out of its area by developers. The Mount Graham Red
Squirrel has been on the endangered species list since 1987 and can
only be found in southeastern Arizona. This particular species has been
endangered because of the limited trees that it prefers to live in.
Spruce-fir trees are in limited status in Arizona, therefore, the squirrel
numbers are also down. As for the Virginia Northern Flying Squirrel,
who has been on the list since 1985, excessive logging has resulted
in the removal of the high elevation red spruce. These trees are slowly
starting to come back, but until they regenerate, the flying squirrel
will stay endangered.
Squirrels are the most controversial rodents out there. You have the
squirrel lovers and the squirrel haters, but who is right? Should we
hate the varmints because they run out in front of our cars, steal our
nation's flags, attack children, eat the bulbs of our flowers or should
we love them because they are readapting to their environment that we
have invaded?
Let's start in England. It's Thursday, November 7th of 2002 and a man
is mowing his lawn when a squirrel comes out of nowhere and attacks
him. A woman is walking down a street in Knutsford and is attacked by
this same squirrel that has a recognizable bald spot on its tail. The
third and final attack was to a small child walking down the street
with her mother. The BBC covered the story: Two-year-old Kelsi was attacked
as she took a morning stroll with her mother. She stopped to admire
the squirrel before it pounded on her face and sank its teeth into her
forehead. Kelsi's mother Karen had to pin the girl to the floor and
pull the animal off her face. The youngster was left bleeding heavily
from a deep gash. The grandfather of the child went out and shot and
killed the squirrel the minute he saw the teeth marks on his granddaughter's
forehead.
So we have this squirrel going around attacking people of Knutsford,
and the townspeople claim that the Royal Society for the Prevention
of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) could do nothing because the squirrel
was not being hurt. Thus, the grandfather takes matters into his own
hands and shoots the animal. Do we get a follow up story? Perhaps an
autopsy to see if the squirrel had rabies or some sort of illness that
caused it to attack people for no reason? Nope, all we get is one dead
squirrel, one happy grandfather, and a news story that uses terms like
'pounced on her face' and 'sank its teeth into.'
Failed follow-ups and stories like these are what give the squirrel
a bad rap. I'm not saying this squirrel should not have been caught
and contained, but maybe some other, more humane, actions could have
been taken, rather than a bitter old man with a gun.
Unwanted
Transformation
Look down at your body. Your stomach
is white and gray and when you touch your fur, you notice that your
fingers now have turned into furry paws. Something brushes your back
and you turn around to find a large, gray, bushy tail attached to your
behind, with a small, odd, bald spot. You find yourself in a large oak
tree picking acorns for the winter, when you hear this awful noise coming
from below. It's the damn man mowing his lawn again - third time this
week. He puts more pesticides on his lawn than the entire neighborhood
combined! Uh, oh, a strange feeling is coming over you. It's not normal,
not natural; it's a thirst for blood. You feel your hackle's go up,
your breath gets deeper, the saliva forms at the corners of your mouth...kill!
Kill! Kill! Lawn mower man couldn't look better. Time to move. You scamper
down the tree, lungs heaving heavily. Your short legs carry you across
the well-groomed lawn to the roaring man and his lawn mower. You leap...while
mid-air you ready your claws and teeth...and land, sinking your teeth
into the man's arm. You hold on, letting the blood drip over your tongue
until he flings you on the lawn and you take off towards the tree. You
are safe, and your lust has been subsided, for now...
Later on, you feel this same urge again, almost Jeckle and Hyde like.
Why is this happening? Your small body transforms as you scan the area
for a victim. What luck, a woman is walking down the street, the same
one that cut down your home last year because she was tired of raking
leaves. You climb out to a small branch that just holds your weight
and pounce on her head. Bingo! She is swatting at you, but you manage
to scratch her ear before you are thrown off. Back in the tree you gingerly
lick your paws to taste the blood, the feeling goes away, and sleep
sets in. The next day you wake up with the tastes of blood still on
your tongue, but thankfully the urge to kill has subsided. You continue
on with your day, looking for acorns and burying them. Your tiny paws
are digging a hole along the sidewalk when you hear, "Hi, little
squirrely!" Crouching in front of you is a little girl, gazing
at you with her big brown eyes. Oh, this is just too easy. The breathing
kicks in, your mouth salivates, and you pounce, right on her forehead.
You get a good bite in, before the girl's mother gets a chance to knock
you away. This has been the best attack yet, and you feel good about
it, but why? This isn't your nature! A squirrel's life is eating, sleeping,
and breeding, what are these new feelings?
In fact, this squirrel may have had a disease, quite possibly rabies.
According to the Animal Health Channel, when an animal contracts rabies,
a number of symptoms occur.
· Irritable and will bite at anything
· Attacking things that move
· Biting the spot where they contracted the disease (missing
fur on tail)
· No fear of natural enemies
· Episodes of aggression
· Roaming, restlessness
· Craving to eat anything
· And several other symptoms
Our
squirrel in Kuntsford could have had rabies and didn't have control
over its symptoms. He could have been sleeping in his warm bed when
another rabid squirrel came along, bit him, scurried off, and died,
never leaving traces that another rabid animal was in the area.
One
of Us
Finally the day came when I held out
a peanut in my hand and saw Curly eyeing it up. I held my breath and
slowly he inched over to softly take the peanut out of my hand. "Grab
him! Grab him!" I thought, but my body whispered, "Just wait.
Just wait." I stayed perfectly still, and watched as he grabbed
the nut and then ran over to the other side of the porch to eat it.
I breathed out and looked excitedly to my Mom. She was all smiles as
we sat and watched Curly.
After a few weeks of this, Curly became comfortable around us. He would
come up like we were fellow squirrels and eat right out of our hands.
Unfortunately, my plan of keeping curly all for myself, slowly unfolded.
When I would try to reach out and pet him, he would scamper off in the
other direction and my Mom would yell at me for trying to touch him.
Mom was getting enough hell from the grandparents who were afraid that
I was going to get rabies, so she didn't need Curly getting scared and
biting me. Even though I was just five, I started to realize that touching
Curly was probably to going to be an option anytime soon. I had to be
happy with just feeding him peanuts instead of cuddling with him.
Curly turned into part of the family...as much as a part of the family
as a squirrel could be. He would wait on the back porch for one of us
to come out and bring him his peanuts every morning. After a while,
he started coming around less and less, and my mind soon wandered to
some other intricate plan. Mom said he must have had to start a family
and stay closer to the silver maple where his home was. That's when
I realized he was probably a she. Curly, older now, most likely had
2 to 8 little babies to take care of. She couldn't stay away from the
nest as long so we didn't get to see her as much and she had to prepare
for another little in mid-winter/early spring.
Only
The Good Die Young
Curly was still around. She was a fairly
large gray squirrel and we could always tell her apart from others,
because we felt this special connection. We would point her out to each
other when we were coming to and from the car but then forget about
her when we went into the house. Then one day we realized that we hadn't
seen Curly in a long time. Gray squirrels have an average life span
of eleven months and the realization set in that she had probably had
her last summer of burying food. It was sad to think of childhood 'pet'
as dead. All of the memories flooded back to me about my plan and how
Curly and I were going to spend our lives together. Rolling in the grass,
smashing fireflies, these were all times that were only experienced
in my small toddler mind
To this day, my Mom and I still find peanuts in the garden when we weed
and plant flowers, and though I know it's another squirrel, it always
reminds me of Curly. Even when I'm home and I see the generations of
Curlys running around my yard, I often think of her and wonder if maybe,
somehow, she's still around and if she was, if she'd remember me. Though
gray squirrels live an average of eleven months, some have been known
to live up to thirteen years in the wild and even longer in captivity.
So Curly could actually still be out there.
Where
To Go...
Squirrels are a part of nature and should be treated as such. It's not
their fault that the only trees they have left to live in are in our
backyards. They are left with houses to climb on, chimneys to fall down,
holes on attics to find shelter in, and we think they are invading our
space, when in all actuality, we invaded theirs. Like most other animals
on our planet, squirrels are just animals that are trying to adapt to
their changing surroundings. Gray squirrels aren't nearly as close to
being extinct as their squirrel relatives, (red squirrel), but they
do have threats against them. Their trees are being cut down (their
food source, home, playground, you name it) and in turn, so are their
lives. Logging has made finding large, old trees with holes in them
hard to find. Sure, they replace some of the trees with new saplings,
but squirrels can't make homes of these.
Our gray squirrels in suburbia are having the same problem. More and
more housing developments are overrunning what little patches of forests
we have left. They tear down hundreds of trees to put up 25 houses and
25 saplings in the front of their manicured yard. Where do the squirrels
have left to go? They have to move to another area where there are still
some older trees available or just make due with what they have. If
they find a tree to make a nest in, what do they line it with? Leaves
would be with first and most inviting choice, but how do you build a
nest when the only leaves you have are on the tree you live in? What
protection do you get from the rain if you took all the leaves? Who
wants to use leaves that are rotting on the ground? What if the tree
has a disease and the leaves are bug-ridden?
Luckily, gray squirrels are very adaptable creatures and in August of
2000 the squirrels in Massachusetts found an alternate solution to leaves:
flags. When 30 flags were reported missing off of the town of Ludlow's
'Island Pond Cemetery' they had no idea who the culprit could be, until
a witness saw a squirrel dragging a flag off a veteran's grave back
to its nest to warm its young. There were four nests in the area and
eight squirrels were the robbers, but they had to do what they had to
do. One veteran agent who was involved in the investigation used a cherry
picker to look inside of the smaller nests to find 12 flags with the
poles still intact, keeping the young warm. The parents had kept all
their tiny, pulsing bodies warm. Thankfully, the veteran agent took
a more humane approach to prevent the squirrels from taking any more
flags, rather than a bad attitude and a gun. They decided they would
spray the flags with hot sauce so that when the squirrels bit into the
flag, the taste would be discouraging. After a tally, they discovered
the squirrels had taken a total of fifty flags. When the going gets
tough, the squirrels get going.
This case isn't the only one where squirrels have taken flags to line
their nest. They have also thieved in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. I
don't think this is the last time we will hear of a case as this. Is
this an evil plot hatched by an underground squirrel regiment or merely
another example of species survival? I'd say the latter. Gray squirrels
have a higher birth rate than others do in its family. They produce
more young and because of their highly adaptable skills, their young
have a better chance of survival. Thus gray squirrels aren't going anywhere
anytime soon.
Become
a Squirrelier!
If
you don't mind when furry little squirrels scamper in your backyard
and help themselves to food, then maybe you'd like to help these creatures
out by becoming a Squirrel sponsor and donating $150 to Project Wildlife
in California. It's sort of like adopting a squirrel. You receive a
picture of your squirrel, background information, certificate of sponsorship,
one-year subscription to Project Wildlife's Newsletter and an educational
animal visit and talk to the sponsor's chosen group. If you don't want
to spend that much money, there are also several other cheaper ways
to insure squirrel safety. Leave as many trees up in your yard as possible,
board or mesh wire any holes or openings in your attic, put a cap on
your chimney, but an environmentally, human and animal safe 'deer-off'
repellent to deter squirrels form getting in your garden, provide ample
amounts of food (peanuts, sunflower seeds) so they have proper nutrition
throughout the seasons, and always remember that they aren't out to
get us.