The title of this post is basically the question brought up this past Sunday in the Washington Post. The article notes the lack of acorns up and down the east coast and that poor little squirrels are having a tough time coping.
As I was reading the article I realized that hey, I haven't seen any acorns this winter in Kansas City either. Forget Washington D.C. -- Kansas City is in the midst of a great acorn shortage as well, and It's not like there's a lack of oak trees lining many Kansas City neighborhoods.
I called Sheryl Saunders of Operation Wildlife (OWL) in Linwood, Kansas. As the center's animal care coordinator and only full-time employee, Saunders helps care for many different animals, including squirrels. As soon I said the word "acorns," she picked up the conversation.
"You know it's funny you should ask about acorns. I was just talking
about that with our volunteers," she said. "We've got a lot of oak trees
out here and we haven't seen one acorn. We used to pick them up and
feed them to our squirrels but we haven't been able to do that."
The Washington Post article implies
that without acorns, squirrels face severe food shortages but Saunders
is more optimistic about squirrels' chances. "It takes a lot to kill a
squirrel and I say that in the most loving terms. They're omnivorous
and though they mostly eat acorns and nuts, they'll eat herbs and other
things ... as members of the rodent family they've got hearty systems."
Besides, OWL hasn't seen a rise in troubled squirrels. "We won't know for sure for another month or two months.
Right now, most squirrels are resting and not going out but when it
warms up they'll start searching for food ... I worry about the squirrels
in the wild. We haven't seen many that are starving but by the time a
squirrel is hungry enough you can catch it, it's usually too late."
While squirrels aren't everybody's favorite animals, nobody wants to
see squirrels starving to death. Kansans seem especially friendly to
squirrels. In addition to OWL's two locations in Linwood and in
Overland Park at 75th Street and Nieman, Kansas State University was
voted earlier this year as being one of the friendliest campuses in the country to squirrels.
While
no one knows what causes the lack of acorns the best theories seem to
be a heavy rainfall this spring or just nature's boom and bust ways. "They say its cylindrical but I don't
know for sure," Saunders says. "You could say squirrels are having there own little
acorn recession. The trees have gone on strike!"
Visit Operation Wildlife's website.
-- Owen Morris
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