Lyla came to me at nine days old— teeny, furless, and slightly alien-esque. Her eyes were still shut tight, and her ears had not even fully developed yet! I had literally just walked into the Heron Park Nature Center on the morning of October 28, 2015, when a man approached me, holding a dirty paper towel at arm’ s length and asked me a most unexpected question,“ Do you take squirrels?” He said he had found a nest while cleaning his chimney flue. The nest was destroyed during the cleaning, and the other two babies were dead, but he thought this one might be alive.
When I looked inside, I found a little pink baby, about the size of my thumb. I thought she was dead as well, but she made a few high-pitched cries, and I quickly changed my mind. I contacted a rehabber, but was told that given how young she was, she most likely wasn’ t going to make it. Furthermore, they did not have the resources to take her if she was not going to live. Knowing that I could not return her to her nest, and also knowing that I could never live with myself if I were to just leave her out in the woods to die, I thought I would give it a try.
I bottle fed her every three hours for the next few weeks,
and slowly watched her grow: first, baby hairs, then nails, then teeth. At four and a half weeks she opened her eyes and saw me for the first time, and it was literally love at first sight. After that, it was a whirlwind: she learned to stand, to walk, to jump, to climb, to eat solid food. We celebrated her first birthday on October 19, 2016, and are now fast approaching her half birthday this year.
Life with Lyla is certainly never boring. Caring for her is somewhat akin to taking care of a puppy... if your puppy could climb you and enjoyed sitting on your head! She’ s comfortable around certain people she knows and territorial around others. Sometimes she’ s aloof and cat-like, but most of the time she’ s very sweet with me.
Let it be known: I do NOT condone having a squirrel as a pet. They are wild animals, and although she is really cute and sweet with me, I would never purposely take a baby squirrel( or any wild animal) from its natural habitat, nor should you. NK
You can follow Lyla’ s adventures through her Instagram account, @ living _ the _ squirrel _ life, or through our blog( which I’ m terrible at updating), www. livingthesquirrellife. wordpress. com.
WINTER / SPRING 2017 • VOLUME 37
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