The Pulaski Police Department in Virginia shared a story that you have to see to believe — and luckily, it was caught on camera. A woman walking on a park trail noticed a squirrel was following her. What happened next led her to call the police.
Tia Powell was in Kiwanis Park when she was “approached by a squirrel,” the police department wrote on Facebook. “The squirrel stood in her way on the trail.” Powell realized the squirrel wasn’t going to harm her — and it was also not going to leave her alone.
Powell told CBS News there was an injured baby squirrel there, too. So, she decided to take the mama seriously when it tugged on her pant leg.
This is a weird story and there is quite a lot to unpackage. First things first, I need to commend this squirrel for being an example to all of us of how to advocate for oneself. The old maxim, “Ye have not because ye ask not”, is clearly something this squirrel took to heart. This mama squirrel needed immediate attention from outsiders to help her resolve her situation and there was nothing that was going to stop her from getting it even if doing so meant she had to harass total stranger, park power walker, Tia Powell.
“I was shocked and speechless and excited because it had never happened before,” Powell told CBS News. “I felt bad because I pushed it away the first time instead of just waiting to see. My children and I love animals, so to see it hurt and the mom couldn’t help was sad.”
Shame on you Tia. Shame. Shame. Shame. When a squirrel rolls up on you, grabs your pant leg, and begs for help you do not shoo that squirrel away. Not at all! You stop what you’re doing and immediately see what that mangy tree rat wants. Maybe I’ve lived an uncharacteristically squirrel free life, but I have NEVER had a squirrel stroll up to me in a park (or any place for that matter) and start tugging on my pant leg in a quest for attention. If and when that happens you can best believe I’ll be immediately directly all of my attention to figuring out what that squirrel wants and also probably checking to make sure I’m not losing my mind or imagining the whole encounter.
Powell moved the injured baby off the path, but the mom still would not leave her alone. “I noticed that they were following me the whole time,” she said. “The baby was struggling to walk and the mom kept on going ahead and then coming back.”
She fed the squirrels a sandwich she had with her and watched them try to hop up into a tree. When she realized the baby squirrel was still struggling to get up the tree, she decided to call in backup.
I commend Tia for trying to do the right thing here, but I have to blow the whistle and throw a penalty flag because Tia messed this one up. I don’t know how to put this gently so I’m just going to say it: Squirrels don’t want sandwiches. There. I said it. Let that sink in for a moment. I mean just ask yourself when was the last time you were cruising through a park and saw a squirrel kicking back standing on a fallen tree and just going to town eating a sandwich. I can tell you when: Never and the reason you haven’t seen this is because squirrels aren’t into sandwiches. Squirrels live in trees. Sandwiches live in the kitchens of suburban homes and sub shops located in strip malls. At not time do sandwiches enter the venn diagram of foods squirrels have access to eat. Squirrels eat tree nuts, vegetables, and fruit (shout out to a quick Google search for providing this valuable nugget of information). If squirrels were into sandwiches we’d see them massing around Subway shops to taste the masterpeices those“sandwhich artists” crank out from the assembly line. Anyway, I commend the squirrels for wisely nibbling on the sandwich to appease Tia while trying to get her to see the real issue: The injury to the baby squirrel.
Powell called her friend and the Humane Society, but the Pulaski Police Department arrived. “In their defense, I did sound like a crazy lady saying the squirrels wouldn’t let me leave. But they showed up and assisted as much as they could,” Powell told CBS News.
Imagine being the cop who gets dispatched to handle this call. Dude probably signed up for this job a decade ago hoping to bust some perps to make the world a safer place. He most likely imagined himself going on stakouts, getting into car chases, and maybe, just maybe, if the stars aligned just right he would get into a wild west style shootout. His life was going to be a non-stop adventure with unlimited donuts mixed in as an added bonus! Now, flash forward 10 years and instead of living out episodes of CSI in real life my man finds himself answering phone calls about distressed park dwelling rodents. Talk about a downgrade!
Powell didn’t know how the baby squirrel got injured, but she thought a nearby stray cat was the culprit. So, the group of rescuers decided to move the squirrels to a safer area.
I’m glad the story had a happy ending and that the squirrel got moved to a “safer area”, but we do need to address a key detail of the last sentence from the paragraph above: Apparently, there was a “group of rescuers”. Look, I’m not a first responder, nor am I a second or third responder (if those even exist), but I do consider myself to be a fairly rational person and one thing I know is that moving an injured squirrel from one part of a city park to another in no way requires a “group of rescuers”. These people weren’t trying to extract Baby Jessica from a west Texas well hole, free Chilean miners from a collapsed shaft (pause), or find a way to extract that team of Thia soccer kids who got trapped in a flooded underground cave system. They were trying to move one baby squirrel. I really think that could have been done by a single person instead of the mass of humanity I imagine was on the scene live streaming this “dramatic” rescue. Anyway, in conclusion, I’m glad the situation ended fine and always remember this piece of ancient squirrel wisdom: Protect your nuts!