I have a love-hate relationship with squirrels, also known as limb chickens or tree bacon in our neck of the woods. Pesky as they are, I know of no other wild critter in the USA more pampered than the squirrel. I have to admit squirrels are fun to watch as they roll around inside those glass jar feeders. I’ve always wanted to catch a squirrel inside one and run out and screw the lid on before it could flee. We buy corn to feed them, and then buy feeders to hold the corn. We teach them to take peanuts from our hands, and I even heard of someone who had taught the little beggars to tap on the front door when they wanted a handout. Last year at the fair we bought a rig that suspends two ears of corn side-by-side above the ground, forcing them to jump up and hang onto the corn while they get a mouthful.

A couple years back, a squirrel with only half a tail became a regular at our new feeder; we named it “Ole’ Stumpy.” We thought at first that Stumpy was a male, but when they hang spread-eagled from the corn with both right feet on one ear and both left feet on the other and spin around in the process looking like a centerfold for PlaySquirrel, it becomes fairly simple to examine them anatomically. There were no bulging body parts on Stumpy’s underside so we deemed her a girl. We could only guess at how Stumpy lost the end of her tail. Perhaps at Stumpy’s last home, some yappy little mongrel did get a piece of her, proudly wagging its tail as it showed its master nothing but the back half of Ole’ Stumpy’s tail. Or maybe Stumpy was one of those squirrels that someone taught to knock on the front door for a treat. We have lots of seniors in our little town, and I could see it all; old Mrs. Dinglemire up the street who’s partly deaf and mostly blind hears a tapping sound at her front door and when she opens it, there stands Ole’ (Not Yet) Stumpy. Now Ole’ (Not Yet) Stumpy looks like a rat to her, so she grabs her broom and swings it at the innocent squirrel, entangling its thick tail in the broom, so when she lifts the broom, the squirrel comes with it and……well you get the picture; somehow in the melee the little panhandler’s tail got snapped off in the door and Ole’ (not yet) Stumpy became Ole’ Stumpy.

I did a little research on Ole’ Stumpy’s tail dilemma on a website named “The Squirrel Board” (I can’t make this stuff up!) It seems Ole’ Stumpy’ was not alone and squirrel tails are made so they will “deglove” or snap off if a predator has hold of it. The jury seemed to still be out as to whether it would ever grow back and Stumpy would be whole again. The squirrel lovers on that site were out of my league. One guy said “If you’re feeding peanuts to your squirrels make sure they are roasted…I feed mine chopped almonds because they are healthier than peanuts.” (Really; sounds like his squirrels eat better than I do.) He went on to say “Thanksgiving week we fed them almonds, cashews, pistachios, walnuts, chestnuts and hazelnuts for a variety.” I have to admit that would make for some tasty squirrel if you roasted em’ while they were still full of nuts.

Now even though Cousin Eddy from the National Lampoon movie “Christmas Vacation” says squirrels are high in cholesterol, they are not. Bentonville Arkansas, headquarters of Walmart, has an annual World Champion Squirrel Cook-Off that draws TV crews, executive chefs and visitors from around the globe. Their theme is “Squirrel – it’s for Supper,” and they offer “organic tree-to-table squirrel” in dishes like squirrel pizza and squirrel flavored ice cream. And are you aware there is actually an organization

called “Squirrels Unlimited?” (SQU for short) Its mission statement reads: SQU is dedicated to the recognition and promotion of the squirrel as one of mankind’s greatest gifts.”

There is also a market for squirrel tails. Fishing lure manufacturer Mepps in Wisconsin actually pays for squirrel tails because they seem to work better as skirts on their fishing lures than any other product they’ve tried. For fully useable grey, fox and black squirrel tails, they pay twenty-five cents, for fully useable red squirrel tails, they pay twelve cents, or you can get double that value by simply swapping them for new Mepps fishing lures. On their website they caution “Mepps is only interested in “Recycling” tails from squirrels harvested for the table. We do not advocate taking squirrels strictly for their tails.” Mepps says that when they receive the tails, members of their experienced team will grade the tails as premium, average or unusable. Sorry Stumpy, I guess you’re out of luck there too. Maybe she purposely “degloved” her own tail to keep me from being tempted!

You know, now that I’ve written all this about Stumpy, I feel kinda’ bad for her, busted snapped-off tail and all. I mean, she had to have been self-conscious enough already without me dissn’ her like this. We haven’t seen her for a couple years now, so maybe she got run off by the rest of the local nut munchers, or maybe she just couldn’t take the shame anymore and decided to end it all by throwing herself in front of a school bus. I knew I should have gotten her counseling, and given everything people do for squirrels these days, I probably could’ve found that too…continue to Explore Kansas Outdoors.

Steve can be contacted by email at [email protected]