Reprobate tree rodents truly out to get us

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 29/05/2021 (1831 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Every year at this time I find myself muttering the same promise: “I am not going to write another (bad word) column about (bad word) squirrels!”

And then, almost immediately, I will break that promise because — and this may sound just a tiny bit paranoid — squirrels are out to get me.

Q: You’re kidding, right?

A: No, I am deadly serious. Extremist squirrels have had it in for me ever since I began writing crusading columns exposing the fact these reprobate rodents pose a far greater threat to our power grid than human terrorists do.

Consider this: Human terrorists have caused exactly zero power outages on this continent, while squirrels have been behind 1,252 blackouts, according to Cyber Squirrel 1, an actual scientific website that tracks this sort of thing.

Not to mention the fact I am now afraid to venture into my backyard because, when I do, a rogue squirrel that lives atop one of our towering evergreens bombards me with pine cones the size of regulation volleyballs.

In fact, over the holiday weekend, my wife, who is far braver than I, filled no less than 12 large yard-waste bags with rotten pine cone fragments that had been chewed by rogue squirrels then casually dropped in our yard.

Blackouts and getting beaned by pine cones are bad enough, but I became more alarmed than normal earlier this year when a Toronto woman made global headlines after discovering a knife-wielding squirrel in her backyard.

Andrea Diamond, who lives in the Rosedale area of Toronto, took video of this bushy-tailed fiend sitting on her fence and gnawing away on a paring knife she had left near a tent set up outside her home.

Q: That is pretty alarming, Doug, but fortunately things cannot get any worse than knife-wielding squirrels, right?

A: Let me just say — and this comes from the bottom of my heart — you are an idiot!

It turns out things can get a whole lot worse. I base that comment on a handful of online news reports I have just read bearing various versions of the following totally true headline: “Oh, nuts! Colorado squirrel tests positive for plague.”

Nuts, indeed! According to several reports, the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) confirmed a squirrel tested positive for plague in El Paso County last week.

Yes, in the middle of a global COVID-19 pandemic, we now find ourselves confronting the fact that a Colorado squirrel has the plague, which is something most of us haven’t had to think about since the “Bring out your dead” scene in the 1975 film Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

The good news — you will have to trust me on this — is that officials say it’s not unusual for plague to be present in Colorado at this time of year, and there’s really nothing to be alarmed about.

For the record, I have always been of the view that the best time to become alarmed is when someone in government tells you there is nothing to be alarmed about.

“Precautions for people and their pets include not handling any wildlife, keeping pets away from wildlife, treating pets for fleas, not feeding wildlife and reporting sudden die-offs of rodents and rabbits in the community,” according to thedenverchannel.com.

In other words, to avoid the plague like the plague, keep your distance from squirrels. On the upside, maintaining a safe social distance from these innocent-looking tree-dwellers has also become a major issue for the people responsible for keeping visitors safe at a major U.S. tourist site, by which I mean the Grand Canyon.

Seriously, on Monday, Grand Canyon National park issued the following wildlife safety warning: Watch out for squirrels!

The warning advised visitors to stay away from sharp-toothed critters at the Grand Canyon, especially squirrels, which have forced at least 30 tourists to seek medical care for their bloodied fingers on recent weekends.

“Enjoy squirrels from a safe distance,” the National Park Service advised. “Their sharp teeth crack nuts — and cut fingers … Although they may appear harmless and even curious about you, those little rock squirrels cause the most injuries to visitors.”

Look, I am well aware some readers — and you know who you are — believe I am a few fries short of a Happy Meal (we will also accept “a few beers short of a six-pack”) because of my anti-squirrel crusade, but, please, consider the evidence.

Attacks on our power grid aside, we have squirrels brandishing knives in Toronto, squirrels testing positive for the plague in Colorado, squirrels chomping tourists’ fingers at the Grand Canyon and, worst of all, Winnipeg squirrels defiantly flinging gnawed pine cones at the head of an innocent newspaper columnist.

I can also recall that a few years ago I revealed that a buck-toothed New Jersey squirrel was gnawing on some overhead power lines, got set on fire, then fell Kamikaze-style into the engine compartment of a 2006 Toyota Camry, which promptly exploded.

So laugh your cruel little laughs and ignore the mounting evidence of the global menace posed by squirrels if you want, but that would only prove one thing — I’m not the only one that’s nuts!

doug.speirs@freepress.mb.ca