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The Great Squirrel Roundup of 2009
Apr. 17th, 2009 01:40 pmWhen we're not, like everyone else in the western world, sighing rhapsodically over Susan Boyle (some of us, as in hard-boiled construction engineers, unashamedly tearing up even after repeated viewings), the entirety of our office and an even dozen of our field crew have banded together to pit our considerable ingenuity against a family of squirrels in residence in the office attic crawlspace. Over the past couple of days, we've used a Rube Goldbergian contraption involving two humane cages, a ladder, a series of boards and counterweights, and generous amounts of sunflower seeds to capture five of them and release them into the wild.
And we're overinvested and anxious, today, about getting them all -- hence the cast of thousands -- because it turns out that the first one we captured, before we realized there were more, was apparently a mother squirrel, and the subsequent captures have all been mini-squirrels who might be midgets or at least a rare miniature breed but are more likely to be her half-grown litter. And we seriously fucked up by separating them, and who knows if they'll ever find each other again, but we'd like to think that reunions are at least a possibility, because we are hopeful that way. Failing that, we're hoping, with our pretty unimpressive body of knowledge regarding squirrels, that at least the babies might be old enough to survive on their own as long as we keep them together so that they might work as a team in manner of Nut Room squirrels in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (which, incidentally, is where most of my squirrel-knowledge comes from).
A conversation from yesterday, after the first baby was caught:
So I did, and armed with the internet's entirely unhelpful contribution (between two and nine per litter? THANKS A PANTSLOAD, INTERNET) and the knowledge that there have been no overhead scrabblings since our latest capture at about eleven, we are ready to concede our job might be done. Fingers crossed, people.
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And we're overinvested and anxious, today, about getting them all -- hence the cast of thousands -- because it turns out that the first one we captured, before we realized there were more, was apparently a mother squirrel, and the subsequent captures have all been mini-squirrels who might be midgets or at least a rare miniature breed but are more likely to be her half-grown litter. And we seriously fucked up by separating them, and who knows if they'll ever find each other again, but we'd like to think that reunions are at least a possibility, because we are hopeful that way. Failing that, we're hoping, with our pretty unimpressive body of knowledge regarding squirrels, that at least the babies might be old enough to survive on their own as long as we keep them together so that they might work as a team in manner of Nut Room squirrels in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (which, incidentally, is where most of my squirrel-knowledge comes from).
A conversation from yesterday, after the first baby was caught:
R (continuing a conversation from out of earshot): Wait, Cammy'll know. Hey, Cammy!
Me: Yes?
R: How many babies do squirrels have at once when they have babies?
Me: R, I totally do not know the answer to that question. Why did you think I would?
R: Because you're a scientist! What kind of scientist are you, anyway, that you don't know?
Me: Um, the computer kind? I don't know if you've noticed, but there's not much field overlap between computers and squirrels.
C: But! Hey! You can apply your computer skill set and coax the information from the internet!
Me: That I can do.
So I did, and armed with the internet's entirely unhelpful contribution (between two and nine per litter? THANKS A PANTSLOAD, INTERNET) and the knowledge that there have been no overhead scrabblings since our latest capture at about eleven, we are ready to concede our job might be done. Fingers crossed, people.
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