It’s the fluffy tail that fools you.

That and the way they hold their obnoxiously gained food up between their paws, grasping it with their poorly developed thumbs, and nibble at it, taking one little bite at a time but very quickly. And despite those huge teeth.

They’ve got fur, of course. That comes along with the furry tail, that does. The presence of fur makes any animal just that much more cute in human eyes.

I mean, it’s not like anyone has ever gone out of his or her way to rescue a baby stink bug, just out of its egg and about to die. I stumble across stories of the deluded amongst us caring for little orphaned babies of this species all the time.

Does no one ever stop to think that the little baby is lying on the grass, twitching and drooling, because its mama finally realized just how disgusting it is, what a horror show of it will inflict on everyone, and how life-denying it is that it continues living, and simply pushed the furless post-fetus thing out of the nest?

That’s got to be considered, doesn’t it?

Apparently? No. No it does not.

Instead, all I ever hear is about how cute squirrels are and

what amazing little animals they are to watch.

Yes. That’s right.

I said squirrels. I told you that I had good reason to despise the horrifying rodents, even if they do have fluffy tails.

And, yes, the world would be far better off if every single mama squirrel pushed every single baby squirrel out of the nest, into the open air and laughed maniacally as it dropped, twitching, to the ground far below. Then, once that job was done, I believe, the best thing for those mama squirrels to do would be to die whilst taking out any nearby male squirrels in bloody, tooth-on-tooth, claw-on-claw, disemboweled belly to disemboweled belly combat to the painful, horrible death.

Yes. I did say every single syllable of that. And, by FSM, I meant it.

Sciurus carolinensis, the scientific name for the eastern gray squirrel, is, a blight on the civilization we’ve striven so hard to create in the city and suburb. Squirrels, just to be clear, are not cute.

At best, squirrels are pests responsible for damage to the wild and the civilized areas of the human ecosystem. At best.

The Worst? Keep Reading. You’ll See.

Here’s the thing. I am, at heart, an exceedingly green person. Not literally, of course. I believe nature is wonderful and would still be beautiful and amazing even if there were no parking lots to hold the human-driven automobiles that convey we hairless apes over long distances to observe it.

Humans surviving to hang around and see just how amazing nature really is. . . Well, that surely adds a major bonus. Without humans around to observe nature, we’d never have had such immortal poetry as “I THINK that I shall never see. A poem lovely as a tree,” by the inimitable Joyce Kilmer.

Nor would we have seen Barbara Walters skewered for almost asking, “If you were a tree, what kind would you be?” of American actress Katharine Hepburn. In reality, Hepburn told Walters that she would like to be a tree, to which Walters responded, “What kind of tree?” Hepburn told viewers she would like to be an oak because they are tall and strong.

Note that Hepburn did not say she would like to be an oak because they are tall and strong and shelter many, many horrible squirrels. In her long public life, she never mentioned squirrels at all.

Which, I think we can all agree, says something powerful about the reprehensible, unspeakable nature of squirrels. Even if she doesn’t.

Weighing in at between 14 and 21 ounces as an adult (maybe a pound and a half if Andre-the-Giant-sized for a squirrel), the eastern gray squirrel packs a potent destructive power in its pint-sized body.

Squirrels? Attack!! (You Know That Is Totally What They Would Say If They Could Speak Past Those Horrible Teeth)

Everyone knows the story the squirrel in your neighbor’s attic. The ferocious rodent will find a tiny hole in a home’s exterior and quickly set up camp in whatever attic space is available. The squirrel’s nasty habit of stripping trees of their bark to use in nests is in full force in this instance.

Once set up inside your house’s attic, that squirrel will begin stripping and digging at any exposed wooden surface. He wants to collect enough scraps and bits with which to create a nest, so he can invite his stinking sweetie in to settle down and produce the next generation of rodentia terrors.

In addition to tree bark, squirrels, like birds, will use any fluffy materials they can find to help pad the nest. Fluffy materials like. . . oh. . . maybe the insulation lining the ceiling of your home.

The stench of squirrel droppings and other biological detritus left behind by an active squirrel colony could stun a jackal at twenty-seven paces. Setting up a stinking breeding ground in your attic isn’t the invading squirrel’s worst offense. Squirrel-afflicted homeowners throughout the eastern United States and up into southern Canada must contend with squirrel-related hauntings!

Okay, fine. It’s not a real haunting, only the sound produced when squirrels run and dart across the attic, making unexplained noises any time of the day or night. Fortunately, unless they’re disturbed, the small rodents aren’t likely to be rushing around making ghost sounds at night, as that’s usually when they also are catching a few Z’s.

Not only have eastern gray squirrel populations in their home range continued increasing, Sciurus carolinensis also are spreading into the traditional range of the western gray squirrel and other squirrels on the western side of the American great plains. That is through their own mindless efforts.

Traitors In Our Midst

What’s worse is that humans, supposedly with the ability to form higher-order thoughts, have been helping the eastern gray squirrel achieve world squirrel domination.

Over the years, various people who have been suckered in by the squirrel’s supposed cuteness have managed to create enough of a population foothold that the eastern gray squirrel menace has leapt the ocean and is beginning to take over  trees throughout much of the United Kingdom, South Africa, Australia and parts of Europe.

Because of the eastern gray squirrel’s tendency to strip bark from trees, the species has been declared a hazard in Britain, as it has been outcompeting the indigenous red squirrel and taking over many formerly native ecological niches. In fact, the eastern gray squirrel is so destructive to property that it is ranked second only to the Norway rat in negative impact.

In fact, it’s easy to see that squirrels are softening up humans for their eventual mass attack with the rest of the vermin. See the map? It’s all about places where squirrels have damaged the national power grid. They’re planning, friends. They’re planning.

It’s easy to look at the squirrel nibbling away at an acorn and think it’s cute. But the eastern gray squirrel is a cold, hard killer. Naturalists’ surveys found that at least 10 percent of squirrel stomachs contained the remains of some sort of vertebrate animal. Squirrels have been observed stalking and attacking en-masse animals as diverse as a young chick or a silk mouse.

The squirrel is deceptively sized. When people hear that its head and body normally measure less than 12 inches, they assume it’s a cute little animal. But their great bushy tail clocks in at almost a squirrel body length, normally around 10 inches in length. It’s this bushy tail that afflicts many hairless apes with the cutes, causing humans to provide food and shelter to this natural-born killer.

Even without the help of deluded hairless apes, squirrels are well adapted to their lives in the tree limbs. They are amongst the only mammals able to climb down a tree head facing toward the ground. They can do this thanks to their freakish ability to rotate their back ankles 180 degrees, until the hind paws are facing backward and can grip the tree bark well enough to allow it to waltz down the tree.

Sadly, this twisted arrangement of limbs, combined with its poorly developed, yet still useful, thumb, allow the eastern gray squirrel harm other, more productive, species in backyards all across the squirrel’s range. Many songbirds, Nature’s present to a grateful humanity, are imperiled by squirrels even beyond watching these furry monsters stalk and eat newly hatched chicks.

That’s Right! It Gets Worse Than Squirrels Being Carnivorous Killers!

As should we all, I’ve long been leaving out copious amounts of birdseed to attract and help songbirds. This free feeding trough allows birds to worry less about finding enough food to feed themselves and more time to concentrate on getting busy and producing another generation of the ruby-throated warbler. Or similar.

Which leads to the problem. Squirrels, not content with attacking and killing whatever smaller vertebrate that happens across their paths, also love a good seed. Or just about anything we set out for songbirds.

The thieves. Even worse, they’ll lie and cheat to keep those seeds and nuts. Squirrels are scatter hoarders. That is, they steal a lot of food that should be going to the beautiful songbirds, then bury the food in different places around their environment. If a squirrel feels it’s being watched, it will pretend to bury the food, then scurry away with it to bury it in a more secure location.

Squirrels also will hide behind vegetation or tree limbs when hiding the stolen booty. This implies an ability to think and reason beyond what you might have considered for the smallish horror.

Yes, They Know.

They know what the food they’re stealing should be going for. They know they’re taking seed from the mouths of young songbirds yet to hatch.

They know they are eating high-quality, high-cost, elite bird food purchased at great expense in a speciality store. They know and are laughing at me when they empty out a just-filled feeder in mere minutes, making fools of the supposedly squirrel-proof enclosure.

Oh, yes. They know.

But now, so do you.

Now you also understand the need, nay, the necessity to deny these ferocious predators any sort of foothold in our ecosystem.

So boycott any store selling “squirrel corn” as a health hazard. Carry signs identifying squirrels as the ecological disaster in waiting that they are.

Join me in the fight to eradicate the squirrel. It serves no good purpose. It isn’t cute. And it’s really starting to tick me off by eating the expensive bird food I just purchased. And they’re laughing when they do it.

Answer The Call

Not all nature is pretty. Sometimes, a nature essay is a call to action. Sometimes, if you’re lucky, it’s a call to extinction.

This is one such call.

I like dogs. I’m sure you like dogs also. And I think we can both agree that they’re pretty darn smart, dogs. Like Dug here. He’s smart. What does Dug the Dog think about squirrels?

At one time, I suppose, squirrels might have served a valid point in the ecosystem. But the rise of the hairless ape has allowed the squirrel to ride our coattails, giving the rodents a hand up they don’t deserve. It’s gone too far. It’s out of balance and tilted to the destructive side of things far too much.

It’s up to you, the no-longer-deluded, to redress that balance. It is up to you to answer the call.

Down with squirrels.

Down with squirrels.

Down with squirrels.

Stop their laughter.