UPDATED BELOW.
[CONTENT NOTE: vicious squirrel violence.]
This is no way to start my morning. In a terrifying echo of July’s assaults in Brooklyn, residents of New Orleans are suffering unprovoked attacks by the enemy rodent menace:
Squirrels attack Lake Vista residents in at least 4 incidents
NEW ORLEANS – In the Lake Vista neighborhood of New Orleans, neighbors live along lush, tree-lined lanes in harmony with nature.
But, this week nature attacked.
“All of a sudden I felt something on my back and it was a squirrel,” Gary Prechter said. “I grabbed it and I flung it down on the lane and it turned around and came back at me. It attached itself to my ankle and started biting me and scratching me and I tried to get it off as best I could.”
Astute readers will recall that this is the exact same M.O. as the squirrel that attacked little Maria Guerrero in July. Coincidence? OH I THINK NOT. Now I’m not saying it was the same squirrel involved in both incidents – that would be ridiculous. But the two may very well have trained together in the same squirrel terrorist camps. Just sayin’…
Prechter is one of at least four people who’ve had violent encounters with Lake Vista neighborhood squirrels in recent days.
The pastor at St. Pius Catholic Church confirms two women were attacked in his parking lot after Sunday mass.
Another man was reportedly assaulted by a squirrel that managed to get into his house.
Breaking and entering, what a shocker.
“I’m telling everybody in the neighborhood beware of the squirrels,” Prechter said. “Don’t feed them any longer. They’re not you’re friend.”
Don’t feed them any longer? &%$(@#?! WELL I THINK WE CAN ALL SPOT THE PROBLEM HERE. JFC. At least he finally had some sense bitten into him.
Prechter is now receiving a painful series of shots for rabies as a precaution.
“I paid my daughter ten bucks to take the garbage out to the lane because I’m not going outside,” Prechter said. “I’m wearing boots and long pants to my series of rabies shots set in and then I’m ready to take on the world.”
This poor man. He has to endure excruciating rabies treatment, and is terrified to leave his own house! He doesn’t seem to understand that he is simply no match for the Sciuridae – none of us are. Also: ten bucks to take the trash out? Outrageous! I think it’s pretty obvious his daughter is working with the fucking squirrels in this extortion plot. For shame!
The staff at St. Pius reported the incident involving the two parishioners to New Orleans Animal Control which is now taking steps to trap the offenders.
The city is looking for two squirrels of interest, living not far from the church
Once they are caught, the state veterinarian has agreed to test them for rabies.
How magnanimous. And brave!
And as usual, the money quote is aaaall the way at the end of the article, paragraph 16 out of 16.
A city spokeswoman passed on some advice on how to live with nature.
She said keep your distance and don’t feed wild animals, it desensitizes there natural instinct to steer clear of humans.
I’m going back to bed.
__________
UPDATE:
Three squirrels have been apprehended and the number of attacks by the animals in Lake Vista may be as high as six, including one that was caught on camera.
This time, a weak-ass suggestion from a local expert that feeding squirrels just might be a terrible fucking idea appears in the second-to-last paragraph.
Claudia Riegel of the Mosquito, Termite and Rodent Control Board said the aggressive squirrels are probably the result of people feeding them.
Gosh, ya think?
Presumably, there is not a good enough description of the perps to uniquely identify them.
But the two may very well have trained together in the same squirrel terrorist camps.
The CIA also runs ‘gray camps’ where they train squirrels. :/
I’ve probably already said too much.
johnson cartman:
Perhaps…unless they’re already in the system.
Marcus: Wait, does this mean you have to kill us, or the squirrels? ASKING FOR A FRIEND…
It’s been a long time since I was last down there, so I don’t know if they’ve been neutralized or not by now but…
The squirrels on the campus of Texas A&M were/are so aggressive we all called them “Aggie Death Squirrels”. You could always spot the First years early in the semester. “Awww what a cute little squirrel…aaaahhhhh”
Neither. It means the Vogons will have to bulldoze the entire solar system. Again. This time maybe they won’t botch the job and will leave poetry readings behind, just to make sure.
You’ll be happy to hear I saw a dead squirrel the other day.
You’ll be disturbed to hear I saw, on another day recently, a dead magpie with a couple of other magpies eating it.
(I also saw a dead pigeon lately, and just this morning a dead pigeon and a freshly dead magpie. If I were the type to believe in evil omens…)
And they hate chipmunks.
https://boingboing.net/2017/09/14/watch-clever-squirrel-uses-sl.html
(CONTENT NOTE: extreme slinky violence.)
There is a solution to this serious form of terrorism.
To explain: I live in Baton Rouge, which is close enough to New Orleans that a flying squirrel can easily make the trip; and there are enough trees between the two cities that the non-avain terrorist squirrels can also get here. It takes them longer and they have to carry more rations, but the trees also give them cover so that law enforcement agencies and military Special Ops forces, which are all spread too thin, have great difficulty in intercepting them. I must note that our beloved president has promised to build a great wall between New Orleans and Baton Rouge so that these illegal migrants will be stopped well away from this fair city.
Until the New Orleans Border Wall is built, citizens can protect themselves through their neighborhood watch programs by hiring guard cats. I know this is effective because a year or so ago, the local Neighborhood Watch Cats intercepted a well-armed squirrel – certainly trained to kill at a secret base deep in the La. bayous – and killed it. They carried the corpse around for a couple of days so that squirrels would be warned away. We have not had any squirrel infiltrators that I have seen since then. As long as we can afford to keep the cats on patrol, I feel we will be very safe.