My sister Ruth, in her battle to keep the squirrels from raiding the bird feeders, bought a globular feeder supposedly guaranteed to defeat the pesky rascals. Basically a clear plastic globe, the feeder had numerous small holes through which birds could extract the seeds and a tricky red disc at the top which could be removed for filling the feeder.
One windy morning, she looked out her window and saw the red disc on the ground under the feeder. Thinking she must have neglected to lock it firmly in place the previous day, she headed out to fill the feeder and replace the disc, but was stunned to find a plump squirrel sitting, like a tiny astronaut in his space capsule indulging in a lavish banquet. Assuming the wind and her own carelessness were to blame, she ejected the greedy invader and refilled the feeder. She was proved mistaken and the feeder was soon banished to the garage along with several other failed “squirrel-proof” feeders she had tried.
This wasn’t the first time Ruthie had been defeated by squirrels. In her early teens, our father and uncles came home from a hunting trip one fall, bearing two tiny squirrels nestled in Dad’s cap. It seems that, having shot a squirrel, my uncle discovered that it was a mother squirrel still nursing her young. Even though it was late in the fall for the babies to still be so young, Dad climbed the tree and rescued the orphans, bringing them home to Mother. Having grown up on a farm where dealing with animals was routine, she first grabbed the flea powder used on our many pets and isolated the young squirrels for the rest of the day. After preparing a mixture of peanut butter and corn flakes soaked in warm water, she fed the hungry babies with an eye-dropper. They thrived and soon had the run of the house, becoming Ruthie’s favored playmates.
Like most wild creatures, the babies are cute and manageable, but there comes a day when Mother Nature kicks in and wild survival instincts take over. After spending the winter on our enclosed back porch in an improvised nest consisting of an old leather jacket filled with straw, they became feisty, tore a hole in a window screen and escaped to the huge maple tree in our backyard. There, they lived for several years, thwarting all attempts to recapture them but taking advantage of Mother’s gifts from the kitchen and playing their own version of “Chicken” with our three dogs.
The experience was, in part, related to Dad’s method of teaching us about our fellow creatures and allowing us to discover truths for ourselves through hands-on experience. We learned that young squirrels welcome attention, are playful and will crawl through a long cotton stocking, turn around and crawl back out to peek coyly at you, or curl up and use it for a sleeping bag – and the next day, putting charm aside, they will gnaw the top hems off the dining room curtains and leave them all ruined on the floor. One day, they will play “tea party” with you, holding a cookie and nibbling it delicately and the next day they will chew the fingers off your favorite doll.
We discovered that, when we treat a wild animal as a pet, we are teaching it some dangerous lessons. They learn to trust us and to depend on us for food, shelter and safety. They come to expect those things from all humans they come in contact with – even humans with guns and hunting licenses. The squirrels we believed we were saving were raised in a household with other animals, including cats and dogs who, in the wild, are natural predators. Our squirrels, however, saw them as playmates and even protectors. How long could you expect them to survive without our protection?
When we lived in Iowa City, one particular squirrel became a neighborhood pet. It would sit on our porch railing observe us for a time, then approach and accept a cracker or other treat, snatching it quickly from our hand, then scampering away to a safe distance to eat it. Everyone in the neighborhood called it “my pet squirrel.” Until it trusted the wrong two humans and ended up the victim of a lynching at the hands of a pair of unfeeling boys – newcomers who didn’t understand the game.