Neighbors come to rescue of baby squirrel
Published: November 30, 2006
Walking down a neighborhood hill one morning, I spotted the squirrel, motionless, near the side of the road. [Squirrels: The Animal Answer Guide]
As I came closer, I saw the squirrel’s upturned belly — probably a female. She had been gone from this world maybe a few hours at most.
I had to do something, even if it was too late to save her. So I found two stubby sticks, picked her up and rested her in the warm grass.
As I did that, something skinny wiggled between the blades of grass. At first, I thought it was a little snake.
But the “snake” was really a hairless tail belonging to what looked like a baby squirrel, curled up and dozing in the sun. Its eyes weren’t yet open, and the barely-there fur sighed up and down with each tiny breath.
I wondered whether the mama had been carrying her young across the road, in her mouth, when she was hit by a car. I pictured baby tossed free and clear, making a soft landing in grass just inches from the road.
So now, what on earth was I going to do with an orphaned baby squirrel?
Help was at hand
On that hot day in early August, I ran the rest of the way home. I had to quickly find help.With luck, and an online search, I found someone who knew about squirrels. But on the phone, Jim Gandy told me he was scaling back from rehabilitating animals full time because he and his wife, Terry, work.
When I explained what had happened — and that it was a very young baby squirrel — he said he’d consider taking it.
Volunteer rehabilitators like the Gandys have a state permit to care for sick, injured or orphaned animals before releasing them back into the wild.
Squirrels are easy to rehabilitate if they’re fairly young, and they’re friendly, too, Jim Gandy said. Raising injured or orphaned animals, often squirrels, is their hobby.
“We don’t golf,” he explained.
A sock full of rice
Now my concern was getting the little squirrel off the side of the road without further harm. Did Gandy have any advice?
Fill a sock with rice, heat it in the microwave to simulate a mother’s warmth, and put it in the bottom of a box, he said. Put on heavy work gloves and lift the animal gently into the box.
I did all that within the hour. The squirrel I had come to call “Rocky” cuddled up to the old sock, fragrant with the smell of warm rice. I named him that because our cat Rocky carries a small toy squirrel with him to the sofa some nights, for companionship and comfort, I guess.
I drove the baby squirrel to a nearby store parking lot to turn him over to more capable hands. That’s when Jim Gandy got his first look and determined that Rocky wasn’t a “he” after all.
So Rocky became “Rockette.”
She was three weeks old at most, Gandy said as she wrapped her tiny claws around his thumb.
It was hard to see her go, but Gandy cupped her tenderly and said he had plenty of food and equipment at home. He had even raised flying squirrels, including one about a day old with the umbilical cord still attached.
He drove off in his pickup truck with Rockette resting in her box.
Another orphan for company
Some said I was just saving a rat with a bushy tail. Just what this world needs, one more nutty squirrel, others said.OK, so I brake for box turtles, and I toss spiders outside rather than squash them. What would you do if you found a newborn with eyes still tightly closed to this often fast, cold world?
My little Rockette grew up, after being nursed by the Gandys and drinking formula through a syringe several times a day. At 5 weeks old, she opened her eyes.
Squirrels aren’t likely to imprint on humans if they’re raised with other squirrels, so the Gandys searched their network and located another orphaned female. They called her Annie. Annie and Rockette took to each other like sisters — playing and chasing each other around their cage.
“They’re just like kids. Some mature quicker than others,” Jim Gandy said when I visited about a month after the rescue. Around the house were squirrel statues, carvings and knick-knacks.
“Everybody gives us squirrel stuff,” he said.
And they were off
Rockette cradled a pecan, her favorite snack, while snuggling in a tiny hammock in her cage. Her dark eyes were wide open, and now she had a regular squirrel tail, the bushy kind.
A few weeks later, she and Annie moved to a pre-release cage in dense woods behind the Gandys’ house. Then in late October, they finally scampered out into the back yard near Cabarrus County’s Lake Howell.
The Gandys want them to survive in the wild. But like other squirrels released over the years, Annie and Rockette still scurry up for a snack now and then.
“One will climb up your leg to get a pecan,” Terry Gandy said.
And those comments about saving rats with bushy tails?
“People think they’re little rodents, but they’re … so personable,” she said. “That’s why we like them so much.”
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