Rare squirrels

	James Hilston, Post-Gazette Click illustration for larger image.

Continuing with our wildlife theme this week, The Morning File focuses today on those furry specimens nearest if not dearest to our hearths -- squirrels. Gray squirrels are as common as peanuts, but all those who have seen a black squirrel in your neighborhood raise your hand. They're rare but have made more and more appearances around the Pittsburgh area in recent years, according to the squirrel trackers at Pittsburghdiary.com. But did you know that black squirrels are of immigrant stock? The Washington Post recounts that 100 years ago, 18 black squirrels were imported from Canada, where they are common, and released at the National Zoo in Washington D.C. Why? The best guess is the experts were worried that the gray squirrel population was being decimated by hunters and would become extinct, which sounds laughable today. Now, it seems the gray squirrel is being outbred by the black squirrel -- same species, different color. The black version is taking over the nation's capital and spreading its influence in the squirrel community nationwide.

Squirrel Hill

The prominent city neighborhood has always been a safe haven for the nutty critters capable of spectacular athletic feats, including outsmarting every bird-feeder ever devised. Why the name Squirrel Hill? Follow me on this: The area is hilly and has many squirrels. The estimable Chris Potter provided a more detailed answer for readers of City Paper a while back: The area was once thickly forested with oak and hickory trees, two of the gray squirrel's favorite sources of food and shelter, so there were a lot of them and they were a nuisance to early settlers, and not because many of the squirrels were liberal Democrats. According to The Early History of the Fifteenth Ward, the squirrels "built nests in the eaves of the log cabins and by their noise and chatter kept the inhabitants up at night. They proved perfect pests and were so raucous that the settlers named the whole district ... Squirrel Hill." So the name may be as old as the first white settlements in the area, circa 1770.

Part of our mystique

Writer Michael Chabon, author of "The Mysteries of Pittsburgh": "My younger brother, Stephen, saw Pittsburgh first, when he went with our father and new stepmother to hunt for a house in a neighborhood with the quaint and evocative name of Squirrel Hill. It sounded to me like a tidy, leafy spot. Domesticated and elegant, but home to all manner of forest creatures. I figured we'd probably live somewhere near the very top of this hill, and the squirrels would come out of the trees to eat out of our hands. Hell, for all I know I imagined that the squirrels might even be sentient and capable of speech. Anything could happen, it seemed to me, in a place like Pittsburgh." beautifulconfusion.blogspot.com

Squirrel medium-rare

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History comes full circle. At the end of World War II, citizens of the United Kingdom were urged to hold their nose and eat squirrel to ease the food shortage. Today, roast squirrel is on the menu at the trendy Chop House in London. Bill Mouland of the Daily Mail reports from the front lines: "I waited with a recommended glass of Cote du Rhone, 2001, for my squirrel to arrive. Would I spit it out, like old Brown Owl did to Squirrel Nutkin in Beatrix Potter's book? Would I simply be overcome with emotion at memories of Tufty, the squirrel who used to front a children's road safety program on TV? It lay, wrapped in bacon, in a pool of blood-colored red currant gravy with its hind legs resting separately on a mound of mashed potato flecked with wild garlic. The pie, described by one critic as smelling 'like a long dead thing decomposing in a chimney,' was prominently at the front. And it was quite delicious. True, the meat on the loin was so sparse and tight that it would have needed an industrial rendering machine rather than the proffered steak knife to get it off the bone. But the chunky thighs were tasty enough and the pie, although strong enough in smell to wake Sleeping Beauty, was beautifully rich with a distinct taste of liver pate."

Talk about dysfunction

From the Scholarly Squirrel at Geocities.com: A squirrel's average life span is three to five years. They can move as fast as 20 mph, more usually clocking in at 12 mph. Although male squirrels are notorious for chasing females all during the mating seasons (February and March and July and August), the females can mate only one day a season. Before you weep, rest assured they make the most of it. A female can breed with up to 30 partners in that day. To complete the cycle of irresponsibility -- and tell me if this sounds familiar -- male squirrels usually leave right after the babies are born. But they move primarily because the females won't let them stay. It gets worse. The fear is the male squirrels will harm the children to allow the mother to go back into heat sooner. The fathers sometimes are allowed to board with the family during the winter. Doesn't it sound like the basic soap opera plot?

Quote

None of that family pathology dented Ralph Waldo Emerson's admiration for the acorn-hoarders: "A squirrel leaping from bough to bough, and making the wood but one wide tree for his pleasure, fills the eye not less than a lion, is beautiful, self-sufficing, and stands then and there for nature."

There's always one

Does any college have the squirrel as a mascot? Yes, her name is Gladys and she leads the Fighting Squirrels of Mary Baldwin College in Staunton, Va.