“We have named some of the squirrels, if that helps anyone, although we lost track of which one was which almost immediately."
  • GooberEar@lemmy.wtfEnglish
    43·
    4 days ago

    I used to live across the street from a park that I jokingly named “The Island of Misfit Squirrels”.

    Most of the trail was through wooded areas, so lots of trees and therefore lots of grey squirrels. However, I’d never seen such a dense and high concentration of mutant, diseased, or disabled squirrels. There were squirrels without tails, squirrels with hairless tails, 3 legged squirrels, squirrels missing eyes, albino squirrels, squirrels with curly hair, squirrels with bald heads, squirrels with weird tumors growing out of their backs, squirrels with … well you get the picture. And these were not rare sightings. Pretty much any trip to the park was a guarantee you’d see a misfit squirrel of some sort.

    One of the squirrels with a missing eye had become very brave (or very stupid) and wasn’t as afraid of humans as it should be. If you weren’t on it’s good side where it could see you, you could easily get close enough to pet it before it would scamper off. I watched some people throw down some kind of food for it, but they came in from the wrong side and it did not see what they’d left. Another squirrel scampered over and was scarfing down the food before the one-eyed squirrel noticed. Seemed like the moment it realized there was food and it started moving, a hawk just came out of nowhere and snatched it up. Some lady coming the opposite way down the trail also saw this happening and let out a screech like she was being branded by a hot iron, it was so loud and so sudden that it spooked the hawk and it dropped the squirrel. After it landed, it hopped back up almost immediately and ran off to climb a tree up in the woods.

    • ryedaft@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      91·
      3 days ago

      Wild animals end up looking real freaky if they are fed by humans and have very few predators.

      • A_A@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        3 days ago

        This law of natural selection would apply to every animals, humans included. (i have no proof, just a hunch)

    • Wigglet@beehaw.orgEnglish
      3·
      3 days ago

      I want to add this location to my travel list. As someone from a squirrel-less country, where can I find the mutant squirrels?

  • GeeDubHayduke@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    13·
    3 days ago

    Part of the indoctrination i received at military school was to salute the squirrel on post. When i asked if there’s more than one, which one do u salute, i was informed that’s there’s actually just one squirrel, “and it’s damn fast. If you see two or three in a group, that’s just The Squirrel.”