Posted on 11/23/2015 3:08:08 PM PST by goldstategop
A centre spokesman confirmed to the BBC the squirrel was "safe and alive" but could not reveal any further information about what would happen to it now. 'Genetic defect'
The RSPCA said under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 it was generally illegal to release grey squirrels back to the wild once treated by a vet.
Dr Helen McRobie, a lecturer in biomedical science at the Anglia Ruskin University, said she had never heard of a bald squirrel before but it would "need to be kept in the warm once the temperature drops".
"This is very rare. I have been studying squirrels for years, but I have never come across one without any hair," she said.
"If the skin was patchy I would say that it was more likely to have been caused by a disease like mange, but the squirrel is completely bald, suggesting it is probably a genetic defect."
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.com ...
That's interesting about evergreens. What I call red squirrels are beautiful gold with lighter gold bellies and big bushy tails. I have photos of the one who would take nuts from my fingers, but I can't post photos these days because Flickr doesn't like my old Safari browser.
As to evergreen, we have them here, but most of the trees are deciduous. Lots of oaks and sugar maples. Also those gorgeous red maples.
Midden is a new word for me. I'll try to remember that. And I just saw an article about two white turkeys that were pardoned, walking in the snow. One was named Zoey. Since I pronounce it with a long o, I shouldn't put two o's in her name. I swear, if you name your favorite ones, they get to know it.
I've had squirrels get in my house. That is a trip. Even the friendly ones. They panic. One the cat was chasing all over. I got it cornered in the bathroom where I could close the door. I went in (I'm not afraid of them), the squirrel was sitting atop a mop behind the door. I went about opening the window, opening the screen and storm, barely had time to stand back, and that squirrel ran over the sink and toilet, and leaped out the window landing on the neighbor's fence lol.
Back from the dead doggie? Is someone feeding it its hind leg?
He jumped through a window, and fell into a pot of dipilatory, perhaps. It gargoyled him up!
The Icknield way, oldest road in Britain, runs through Dunstable. And Mick Abrams, a founding member of Jethro Tull, came from the town. And now, squirrels with mange! Odd connections, strange days, dark forebodings!
“Midden” is usually means garbage heap or dung hill, but up in Alaska they use it for the squirrel’s storage heap - they shell all the cones into a pile of scales and seeds, and tuck their dried mushrooms in and whatever else - I suppose they can’t bury the seeds - they’d be frozen too hard in the ground but the midden stays loose enough.
Last year I finally got a mother coon and her young one. So cute. They scurry off in a hurry if I startle them. I give them wide berth but enjoy watching them. Probably shouldn’t feed them, usually what the birds don’t eat in the daytime.
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I have two large, hard plastic garbage cans, a coon kept knocking them over, the lids stayed on so he chewed a hole in the bottom of them.
I know it was a coon, I caught the little bandit in the act.
Now I keep my garbage cans in my shed and he hasn’t figured out how to work a door knob..........................yet.
Should have launched that squirrel on a catapult into next week!
Its rare and the complete hairlessness is probably due to a genetic defect as this is rarely seen in the wild.
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Very much like so many metrosexual males and gays who shave their body hair. ....Genetic defect
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