White Squirrels to Bring in 25,000 to Cool N.C. Town

You'll see at least one white squirrel: non-releasable Elliott  

Olney, IL, watch your back! Brevard, NC--a longtime rival  White Squirrel Capital of the World--may be snatching the title for good. About 20,000 - 25,000 people are expected this weekend at Brevard's 7th annual White Squirrel Festival to go on a white squirrel safari, compete with white squirrel photography, feeder-making and the "squirrel box derby." (Well, okay, some actually come for the music.)

Normally there's just one guy in a  squirrel suit called Woody the White Squirrel, but this year's extravaganza will feature 250 people in white squirrel costumes dancing to BrotherBrother for five minutes Saturday afternoon to set a world record. (Coincidentally, robots in Austin will be dancing for their own record nearly simultaneously.)

"We're really having fun with the theme," says the guy who dreamed the whole thing up, Phil Davis. "We're willing to be a little weird." Brevard is joining the ranks of towns that have parties to celebrate something no one can imitate: local wildlife. So along with 32 Bald Eagle Watches, Moose Festivals and events to watch hummingbirds and bats, it's only natural that a town with 1,000 white squirrels would flaunt it.

Many small towns--especially Olney--brag about their white squirrels. Cryptomundo lists 10 white and black squirrel cities and some try to tour them all. White squirrels, which are far more rare and exotic--breed competition that is suitably fierce and fun.

"There's a bunch of wannabe cities," Davis dismisses the competition. "They paint their squirrels is the rumor. We're not in support of towns that bleach their squirrels."

Typical pattern of Brevard, NC, white squirrel

Davis, a branding expert, said the town had an anemic monarch festival before he hit on the idea of trying a squirrel festival to coincide with more proven entertainment, a Memorial Day concert. Something about the name caught on. Now some attendees are astonished to find that white squirrels really live there. "You mean they actually exist?" they'll ask.

"It's primarily a music festival. They just love the fact it's wrapped in white squirrels," he says. "They love the magicalness of it."

Elaborate and very cool map showing percent of white squirrels around town

But there's plenty for people who actually want to see and celebrate the white squirrels. There are free  squirrel safaris that center around the likely ground of Brevard College. And they're guaranteed to see at least one: Elliott, a genial white squirrel who couldn't make it in the wild. Elliott was attacked by an adult when he was young, lost an eye and has complicated tooth problems, says wildlife rehabilitator Jennifer Burgin. Now five, Burgin feeds him a special diet by hand twice a day.

Burgin, who has been rehabbing squirrels for 20 years, likes how the town appreciates their squirrels. "They're very serious about their white squirrels," she says. "Everybody is very proud of them." In 1986 Brevard banned killing, catching or hurting its squirrels. People take extra care to avoid hitting them,  says Davis, who himself rescued one from the road. "I don't want people of gray persuasion to get angry, but white squirrels do enjoy some special protection."


Another thing Brevard has up on Olney is a population of about 1,000 squirrels and the White Squirrel Research Institute. Founded by a former professor at the college, Bob Glesner, the institute gathers and processes an impressive set of data on white squirrel population. Local residents volunteer for an annual survey to count both the number and percentage of white squirrels.

Glesner is watching whether the population becomes fragmented, but generally thinks they're doing okay. About 37% percent of the town's squirrels are white overall. But around the college, where the tours go, it's 46%. The highest is the performing arts center, where almost 9 in 10 squirrels are white.

The town is quick to point out that their white squirrels are not albinos. They have black eyes and their fur is just a color phase--a hair color, like a chocolate or yellow lab. Brevard's squirrels have a distinct look: a darker stripe down their spine and dark frosting on the top of their head.

Davis thinks the white squirrels are just what Brevard, which sits near the border with Georgia and South Carolina, needs. "Don't laugh," he says. "There was another rodent that saved another city. I don't think anybody's laughing about Disney and Orlando."

Where to Go See Unusual Squirrels
More Interesting Animals You Can See Down South
Adopt a Brevard White Squirrel
Attend the World's Biggest White Squirrel Festival in Brevard, NC

Wild Squirrel Invades Squirrel Rehab Room

The last time cheeky wild Mommy Squirrel came inside my apartment and somehow got Mickey, the squirrel recovering from a malocclusion, to bust out of her cage, there was some question as to why I didn't get pictures. At the time, it seemed like an emergency. 


Today I left the office for two minutes and came back to find Mommy Squirrel in my chair. So I grabbed the camera to see what Mickey would do. She came out and deliberately ate in front of Mommy Squirrel, but then seemingly ignored her. My dog Jolly would do give dogs who barked at him a kind of I can't see you kind of nonchalance.

I hope it's not any kind of Mickey's disability that she actually can't see the invading squirrel. I suspect Mickey is like my mom: she only pretends to be oblivious, but is on top of everything going on.

Where to go to See Interesting Squirrels
Where to See Wildlife in New York

Will NYC Get an Official Wildlife Care Center?

The Wild Bird Fund, which is New York City's defacto wildlife rehabilitation center, collected signatures this weekend to become the city's official place to go with injured, sick or orphaned wild birds and animals. They explained to people at a wildlife fest that New York is the only big U.S. city without a real wildlife care center.


So a bunch of volunteer wildlife rehabbers have picked up the slack. Rita McMahon and Karen Heidgerd run the Wild Bird Fund though  Animal General, a vet practice that donated care for 1,146 birds and 13 mammals last year.

Hawk from Teddy Roosevelt Audubon Sanctuary

A handful of other rehabbers do heroic amounts of work, too. Bobby and Kathy Horvath take the really hard cases, like coyotes and injured hawks. Vivienne Sokol is Manhattan's bird rehab expert. My friends Vicki Puluso, Chris Durham and Maura Mondrano handle squirrel cases.


Because the city is strapped, the Wild Bird fund is hoping to get a grant from Pepsi. Bobby Horvath has told me the plan got a boost after the recent coyote episode.

The New Yorkers that call me with animal troubles are usually surprised the city doesn't do anything for wild animals. Renee, a pregnant mom from outer Queens, about a day and night worrying and searching for some solution for the baby squirrels she found abandoned in her air conditioner. (I got to see them at the fest, looking plump and happy. Another rehabber, Ruby, took them in. New Yorkers see baby squirrels like unseen mythical beasts).

The finders and baby squirrels show up as if with a dowry of a cage, esbilac, dishes, blankets and nuts. Which makes me think New Yorkers would be behind getting the center going.


Donate to the Wild Bird Fund
Sign Their Petition to Get a Real NYC Rehab Center
Where to See Animals Around New York City

Recovering Squirrel Fends Off Invader

Mickey, the sweet black squirrel with a malocclusion, had an intruder this weekend. A wild squirrel we call Mommy Squirrel bust into the apartment and got Mickey so agitated that for the first time in three months she bothered to escape from her cage and climb a brick wall.

Mickey normally doesn't like to go out of her house. She comes out to eat, go to the bathroom, harumph around to complain if I haven't adequately stocked her with avocado. She only climbs the bars if she's agitated.

Mommy Squirrel lives nearby. Like last year, she is nursing and hungry enough to make a pest of herself. She is both pushy and picky. If she mere peanuts, apples and bananas are offered on the window sill, she'll put her paws to the window. Where's my chestnut? Or even a walnut will do.

Saturday I was painting and had the window open. I walk into the office to find Mommy on my desk chair and Mickey climbing the wall. I'm not sure which of these ladies upset the other. I'd like to think Mickey, enraged at yet another encroachment on her home ownership, came out to drive intruder Mommy Squirrel away.

I shooed Mommy outside, then guided Mickey back to her house. Once Mommy was out, she headed back that way anyway. The only solution I can think of is just to leave plenty of nuts outside for Mommy, who is having a tough time this year because her ne'er-do-well sons from last year have claimed my bountiful window sill as their turf and try to chase her away.  


 
Where to Go to See Special Squirrels
Plenty of Wildlife Lives in NYC. Found Out Where

Looks Like We'll Be Blessed With a Few More Baby Squirrels

Got three more baby squirrels yesterday. More victims of a squirrel mother's inappropriate urban housing choices. A very sweet family in Mill Basin, Brooklyn, discovered them in squatting in their air conditioner vent. The mother squirrel bit the man, grabbed one of her four babies and ran off. Renee, the human mother of the house sat up all night with worry, leaving the squirrels wrapped for warmth but available for the mother to take. Squirrel mom returned, but didn't take the babies.

I'm full up with squirrels, so my fellow rehabber friend Vicki is coming to the rescue and taking them tonight. They're all boys, all healthy, still with their eyes closed. One is a screamer.

The adolescent squirrels were highly interested in the new arrivals. Or at least the formula-filled syringe I was feeding them with.

Flying Squirrel! Grover jumps around the cage while Baby Ruth plays with a paper towel.

Mickey, meanwhile, showed absolutely no interest. She did harumph around the cage--her signal that she has noticed that I have come into the room yet not delivered her food yet. I had been thinking Mickey was nearing ready to get released back to the Queens community garden where she lived before, with the possibility of recatching her if we needed to trim her teeth. She's definitely got two top teeth back, but they're crooked. But the Horvaths--way more experienced and licensed rehabbers than I--think she won't make it and offered her a permanent home with the other animals they've rescued.

More than her malocclusion issue, they don't think she's "wild up enough." There's something just off about her. She's never tried to bite me. I've clipped her teeth, bathed her, pulled her out of her house, tried to get her to take care of orphans. I deserved to be bitten. She doesn't take an interest in her grooming or housekeeping like a proper squirrel. Even the adolescents are already stuffing their box with papertowels. I hope for Mickey's sake there's something I've missed that they can do. Meanwhile, she's really lucky to get the offer.
Where to Go to See Unusual Squirrels

Where to Find Wild Animals in NYC

Read how the squirrels got here

Read where Mickey came from

How Many Baby Squirrels in This Adorable Pile?

The baby squirrels have learned to nap in a hammock. Can you guess how many of the babies are huddled together? (answer at bottom)

At first Baby Ruth was shy and would have been sulking in the corner. Here she's at the bottom of the pile. I do hear some grumbling from the pile. It's not always Ruth crying; it's usually just that Alvin is roughhousing with his sisters. They have all gotten the hang of the hammock, which I just put up today.

 Alvin eats breakfast in bed.

Baby Ruth and Benji thinking: why is there not a nipple attached to that camera?

Baby Ruth experiments with almonds.

 Meanwhile, in the fortress of solitude on the other side of the room, Mickey is making some serious progress. For the last couple days she's eaten nuts. That means she's feeling more comfortable with her teeth. She still can't crack nuts--let's not get carried away. But once I open them for her, she eats them. I hope this means she'll be able to go back home soon, though I will miss her.

Where to Find Wild Animals in NYC

Read how the squirrels got here

Read where Mickey came from




Answer: All four.

Squirrel Takes Rightful Place as NYC Parks Mascot

The New York City Parks Department named Pearl the Squirrel its official mascot, finally giving the city's most popular rodent some due. Last February we lobbied  for a squirrel for the high profile post, lest parks end up with those peculiar garbage can characters. (Ok, those turn out to be for recycling.)

Professional illustrator Adam Koford created Pearl the Squirrel on his kids' suggestion. Koford, who lives in Utah, is more known for his comic strip Laugh-Out-Loud Cats on Hobotopia. Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe says Pearl will be the Smokey the Bear of urban parks. Asylum reports she's already attained a Betty Boop-like aura among furries, who fetishize anybody in a mascot costume. 

Right now I've got one squirrel eating sunflower seeds outside on my Manhattan window sill between chasing pigeons away and inside  four baby squirrels and one adult with malocclusion in my care as a wildlife rehabber, so it's no surprise I think of squirrels as the perfect emblem for urban wildlife. 

New York City squirrels are different. They're semi-dependent on people, so they'll go right up to parks visitors. The smaller the park, the pushier the squirrel. Every time I pass through City Hall Park some European or Japanese tourists have cornered some squirrel for a photo op, paying for the picture in nuts. They defend their trees against red-tailed hawks and sometimes live in subsidized housing. Suburban squirrels don't have that kind of Moxie.

New York City Squirrel Tips Americans are more fascinated by our black squirrels (try Stuyvesant Town if you want to see one); they're just a color variant of grays, like how Labrador retrievers come in chocolate, yellow and black. New York City has three species of squirrel: gray, fox and flying. (There used to be at least one red squirrel in Central Park, too.) The fox squirrels are the ones with the golden bellies. The flying squirrels used to be much more common; now they're seen just occasionally at dusk in Inwood or Alley Pond Nature Center.

Where to Go to See Unusual Squirrels
Where to Find Wild Animals in NYC

Baby Squirrels Lose Potential Foster Mother, Gain a Sister

Mickey has been evicted. I could tolerate when the one-time mother squirrel would tussle with these three orphaned babies when they dared to enter her squirrel palace. I thought she'd get used to them. Instead she actually followed one out of the house, went to where the babies were sleeping, picked out the one who had trespassed on her property and started slapping at him with her paws. Luckily, like most squirrels, she is an incompetent and half-hearted fighter.

So, I evicted her. Don't worry; she still gets to have the house she has come to love so much. But she's moved to another cage. And she totally knows what's going on. After the incident of her pushing around the baby squirrel, I took all the babies out of the cage and put them in a carrier. She came out 10 minutes later and searched the area for them.

Meanwhile, the babies got another companion, a female baby squirrel of what seems to be their age. She's from Stuyvesant Town and was climbing on people's feet. She's healthy but too young to be out on her own. She ate and immediately joined the pile of baby squirrels in the basket. She's a little bit shy, which is understandable, but the group accepts her as one of their own. They invited her to their favorite basket for a nap.

In keeping with my tradition of naming the squirrels after successive U.S. presidents, I looked to the list and found we were back to Grover Cleveland, for his second, later term. I can't have two Grover Clevelands running around. So, at my husband David's suggestion, she's named Baby Ruth, after Cleveland's daughter, who also inspired the name of the candy bar. 

 Benji, the smallest one, seems to have had the worst injuries from the fire. One of her hind feet was singed. She lost one claw and two are precarious. She also has two fresh wounds, which I think are scabs that her overly helpful siblings licked too much. Grover and Alvin are competing to see who can be the most obnoxious and strong eater. After their formula they often go to a stuffed animal duck in their cage and, still having the urge to drink, try to suckle on him.

My Squirrel Patient is Impatient with Me and My Redecorating

Benji's first grape

Today I tortured Mickey, the sweet black squirrel who's recovering from malocclusion, again. Or at least that's how she sees it. I caught her, clipped her teeth, cleaned the gunk off her paws and then took her house. The outrage!


I had noticed she had a hard time getting in and out, so I widened the door, installed a step on the inside and a hinge so I could open the roof easily. I replaced the filthy fleece with a yoga block and several walnuts--to get her thinking about using her teeth. She is still mad at me but she seems to like the improvements and I could hear her trying to open the walnuts.

Meanwhile, the babies the FDNY rescued started eating some solid food yesterday. Avocado and grapes are their favorite. But they'll be drinking formula for a long time yet. And the two bolder ones, Grover and Alvin, both know where it comes from: they come to the front of the cage if they're hungry and try to climb out to the milk when I'm feeding another squirrel.

Alvin seems to be picking up Mickey's sloppy eating style

I had hoped she would serve as a foster mother for the babies. Now that everyone's safe and comfortable, I can just stand back and hope they get together. If not, the babies will get their own cage and house soon.

 How to See Wildlife in NYC

Where to Go to See Special Squirrels 

Mickey's tricked out house

Baby Squirrels Open Eyes, Get Neglected by Potential Foster Mother

The three baby squirrels the FDNY rescued from a car fire over the weekend all have opened their eyes today and are getting bigger and stronger all the time. But so far Mickey, the squirrel recovering from a malocclusion, has not gone along with my plans to make her a foster mother.

I repossessed Mickey's squirrel house Tuesday, hoping to get her to pay attention to the baby squirrels. I thought since she had babies herself last year she'd be excited about it. Nope. I guess she isn't a fan of those pictures passed around the internet.  Or that the animals in them are really animal supermoms, like those women who adopt 18 special needs kids.

Mickey's brief foray to get avocado

Mickey, on the other hand, was just furious at the situation. She ran around the cage, chattering her teeth and pushing things over, looking longingly at her house that was just outside the cage. She was like a Leona Helmsley squirrel, only concerned about her real estate, couldn't care less about the little ones. Finally I gave her the house back. She went inside and has barely been out since. She is very aware of the babies; if I take them out for feeding, she jumps at the opportunity to go eat in solitude.


But the babies are growing so they'll soon be able to get into her house. Then I'll have to see if she warms up to them--like she did to the house. Or I may have to separate them. The small, meek girl, Benji, started the eye-opening by opening just one of her eyes Tuesday night. I'm always surprised by how slow the process is, with just a tiny hole between the lashes at first. Now they can clumsily crawl around the cage. They try to suckle a stuffed animal I put in there. That's just the sort of thing that's going to either endear Mickey to them or force me to set up another cage.


Where to Go to See Unusual Squirrels

Where to Find Wild Animals in NYC

Read how the squirrels got here

Read where Mickey came from

FDNY Saves Three Baby Squirrels

Yesterday Queens fireman Ralph Longo, was putting out a car fire and through all the smoke and fire extinguisher fog, he saw something tiny and gray move . He found four baby squirrels and pulled them out of the wreck.

One of the babies died, but the men at the Ladder 129 washed the three squirrel survivors and put them in a box with papertowels. Longo looked at the list of New York state wildlife rehabbers and called me. Then, after working all day Longo drove into Manhattan and with his girlfriend, dropped them off with me. All in all a nice piece of rescuing by the FDNY. Is there anything these guys don't do?

Firefighter Longo and his girlfriend feed a rescued squirrel

Two have slight burns. The one boy has it the worst: a burned spot on his tail and singed whiskers. Longo's girlfriend specializes in the care of human burn victims and mentioned that when they see a person with burnt eyebrows, they assume there's been smoke inhalation. One of the two sisters has a burnt paw. But, they all seem healthy. They have fur, but they're eyes are still closed, so I'd guess they're about four weeks old. They have diarrhea--not unusual after a diet change. I put them in a cat carrier over a heating pad overnight. They were scrambling all around until I put them in this Easter basket-like box. They settled down to snuggle in these Anne Geddes-like pose.

Presumably about a month ago their mother thought she was being crafty and built a nest in the car, then yesterday she chewed some wires in some other scheme and started the fire. Longo never found the enterpreneurial mother squirrel, so I'd guess she got out fine.

Longo's rescue of the squirrel babies will also help Mickey, the friendly, black adult female squirrel I'm treating for a malocclusion. Mickey had babies last year, Peter, the guy who brought her in from the community garden, says. The baby squirrels will do better raised by a real squirrel. Mickey, who barely comes out of her house now, will have something to do. If she ever comes out of her house and finds them. So far she has studiously ignored them. When she comes out to eat I'll repossess her house and --with some supervision--see if she has any interest.



Where to Go to See Unusual Squirrels

Where to Find Wild Animals in NYC

New York's Coywolf, Groundhog and Black Squirrel Doing Fine

The coywolf, groundhog and black squirrel we've been following have all done pretty well in the last week.

Coywolf
The coyote captured in SoHo last week (and probably the same one that's been lurking around Central Park this winter) got released in Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx, where a pack already lives, the city's pre-eminent wildlife rehabber Bobby Horvath says. This young female may have been part of that pack, but was pushed out in mating season. Three coyotes were spotted up at Columbia University this winter.  One was hit by a car on 130th Street and another may still be out there.

Groundhog
The groundhog that turned up on the street near the Soho Grand is doing fine, awaiting release into Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx. No one is sure how the woodchuck turned up there, but the staff caught him and gave him a dog crate. Bill--as I call him, though he may well be female--turns out to be quite healthy. He enjoys apples, chestnuts and acorns, but shuns the greens he is supposed to like. Bill lunges at the cage bars when I hang around too much--proving that he's quite healthy and most likely not a misbegotten pet.

Bobby researched where groundhogs live in the city--where I'm required to release him. He only found evidence in Pelham Bay Park, Van Cortlandt and Fort Tryon. I called a parks biologist to find the best place to release him. At first he was unsure whether I'd be allowed to release him in the park at all, then confirmed I could. He suggested a nice field in Van Cortlandt.

Black Squirrel

Mickey, the black squirrel who came to me with bottom teeth grown into her top gums, is getting stronger. She had a top tooth, lost it and now has one back again. She is an odd duck, preferring to throw out the padding I put in her cardboard box; most squirrels can't stuff enough junk in their makeshift houses. I got her a lovely cedar house that she repeatedly rejected. Until all of a sudden she decided she loved it and didn't want to leave. Since then she comes out only to eat--though she prefers I just hand-feed her avocado at her house door--and to pee on her roof. I take that as a sign she likes the house.

Squirrel Patient Gains a Tooth, a House a Proposal

Three weeks into her convalescence from having bottom teeth growing into her upper gums, Mickey, the good-natured squirrel from Queens, is recovering well. The best sign for her was that one of her top teeth grew back. Then it disappeared again. But it's an excellent sign that she'll one day do fine in the wild, or at least the Queens community garden where she lives.

One of Mickey's friends at the community garden, Peter Richter, says a couple months before he brought her in she had a bad fall from a tree after charging a red-tailed hawk. What I now think happened is she broke her top teeth, without which her bottom teeth grew out of control. The teeth grew both up and down and she still has a gaping hole in her chin that I really wish would go away. She had to badly infected digits--you can see one here covered in scab and peanut butter.

 Personality-wise, she is still sweet, has never tried to bite hem, but she is done with me. That's a good sign. She's much more independent and intolerant of handling.

Over the last week she's had a number of opportunities for a new life come her way. Twice I got calls about litters of baby squirrels needing a home. Mickey, an experienced mother, would be good for the babies and they'd give her something to do besides hide from me. Both litters fell through. (One, I think, went to another rehabber. The other turned out not to exist: a dead squirrel's nest turned out to be empty.)

Subway vigilante/squirrel-lover Bernie Goetz called her "a prize animal" (both sweet and black) and wanted to breed her with his pet squirrel. We passed on that. In a country where hunters kill 16 million squirrels a year, I'm not going to get riled up about the handful kept as pets. But I still don't want to do it. No matter how great Ben Franklin thought it was.

Mickey now has a fine cedar house for when she's ready to move back to Queens. She has systematically avoided it except to pee on, preferring a grubby cardboard box. How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have an ugrateful squirrel.

Where to Go to See Unusual Squirrels

Fareham, UK: Coconut-Eating Squirrel Capital of the World

2010 Coconut Squirrels

A British squirrel watcher has discovered a way to get her backyard visitors to put coconuts on their heads like they are astronauts on an adventure. Jane Roberts in Fareham, Hampshire (near Portsmouth) first gave the gray squirrels coconuts to distract them from the bird seed. She hangs to coconuts from a closesline--much the way people in the midwest dangle ears of hard feed corn for squirrels (and their own entertainment).

The 2008 Coconut Squirrel

"I make a large hole in the coconut so that they can get into the flesh. The first time I saw them feeding I nearly died laughing, they looked just like a pair of spacemen," she told Sky News."Even now I can't stop chuckling every time I see them."

Apparently all the squirrels in this little town like their coconuts. A couple years ago the Daily Mail profiled a squirrel that would lift a coconut over his head to eat it in the yard of Vicky Walker, in Portchester, Fareham. I've never known a squirrel to eat coconut before. Then again, I hate coconut, so I've never tried to inflict it on them. Maybe I'll see if my current patient, Mickey, who loves avocado, would like some.

 We have plenty of white squirrel capitals of the world. I'm adding Fareham to my map of places to see interesting squirrels. Fareham is now the Coconut-Eating Squirrel Capital of the World.

Find More Places to See Unusual Squirrels
Where are the Best Places to See Wildlife in Europe?

Squirrel Recovering from Ingrown Teeth

Mickey, the gentle black squirrel I got as a patient last week, seems to be recovering nicely, though is still a bit off. She came from a community garden in Queens suffering from a malocclusion, swollen thumbs, mites and a wobbly posture. After I clipped her teeth--which I am totally proud of--she eats voraciously and messily.

Two good signs for her recovery today. She's finally taking some interest in grooming herself. That's good because if she doesn't clean herself up, I have to and neither of us like that. She's not used to eating with only bottom teeth and she's a huge slob. She can only have soft foods like peanut butter, avocado, banana and honey.

The second good sign is that she's chattering her teeth at me. In squirrel talk, she's telling me that she's a bad ass. And probably tired of me wiping her face off.

Now she just has to grow some top teeth and maybe close up that gaping hole in her chin and she can go back in the wild.

Where to Go to See Special Squirrels
Plenty of Wildlife Lives in NYC. Found Out Where

Medievel Squirrel Denistry on My Kitchen Table

I've been a widlife rehabilitator for a while but somehow managed to avoid the standard but scary procedure in treating squirrels known as teeth clipping. Squirrel teeth continually grow and get worn down against each other--unless something happens so they don't line up right.  Then someone has to clip them.

Named Mickey by her friends at the Sunnyside Park Community Garden, this sweet, adult, black, female squirrel had bottom teeth growing into her top gums. Peter Richter, who caught her and carried her in, said she had a bad fall a couple months ago. Until then she had been friendly to people and a ferocious defender of her territory from other squirrels.

In what seemed like medieval dentistry, I got some electronics clippers from Ace. I held the extraordinarily cooperative patient in a fleece. I don't think I'm as compliant when I get my teeth cleaned. I could be brave because with her teeth in this condition, she couldn't bite me anyway. Or bite anything. She could only lick food and water out of the side of her mouth.

Then, snap, just like that, it was done. It really was just as easy as the YouTube videos claimed. She enthusiastically started eating an apple. Before I clipped her teeth she could only lick food out of the side of her mouth, so it was a success.

She still has a long way to go--a hole in her chin, no top teeth for now--but I think she is well on her way to being sent back to her friends. I think Peter brought her in just in time.

Where to Go to See Special Squirrels

Apply to Become a Licensed New York State Wildlife Rehabilitator

Score One for Team Squirrel

The Tompkins Square Park squirrels bravely stand up to the new, popular red-tailed hawk pair on the Lower East Side. The hawks appearance on Saturday Night Live doesn't intimidate them, either. The squirrels know that if they are in a tree, the hawks can't swoop down and catch them.


So if the hawk lands in a tree the squirrels eagerly do their part to chase him off. They're in the anti-hawk union with crows and jays, who mob the raptors. Because they all know if they don't, the hawk will eventually catch one of them.

The squirrel can do considerable damage to a hawk by biting its feet, which may then become infected. The squirrel made the hawk uncomfortable enough to go back on its heels, change branches, then fly off. He flew to another tree, where another member of the anti-hawk union started to drive him away.

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