Squirrel to Human Ratio by State: How many squirrels will you have to fight when they take over?

Thanks to my teacher friend, Mary Ellen Wessels, for the heads-up. :-)

I'd love to see a similar Canadian map by province!

Rogue Squirrel Blamed as 12,000 Lose Power in Upstate New York

I'm not the only one who has had power cut off because of squirrels! Apparently thousans of people in upstate New York have been affected by a squirrel who managed to knock out three substations. See the article on nbcnewyork.com. Thanks to my friend Susie Ghahremani for the heads-up!

Talking about Evil Squirrels at the SCBWI Summer Conference in LA

To those who came here because of my Illustrator Intensive session at the SCBWI Summer Conference in Los Angeles - WELCOME! The image above is from my slideshow presentation when I talked about how recurring themes in creative journals can be harvested for picture books, and thus how SQUIRRELS became an important element in my first solo picture book, Where Are My Books? (Simon & Schuster Books For Young Readers). The squirrels in that book were not Evil, however....just naughty. :-)

Also feel free to visit the companion page on Facebook: Squirrels Are Evil And Taking Over The World.

Sign in the elevator in my dad-in-law's senior residence

It's Squirrel UN-Appreciation Day!

In the photo above, I am holding just two of many, many squirrel-focused items given to me by friends who enjoying torturing me about my anti-squirrel obsession.The big squirrel is a giant FRIDGE MAGNET that came with a full wardrobe (blame goes to Gretchen and Bill Roper) and I'm holding a squirrelly nutcracker from Mary and Wesley Crowell.

I'll bet the founder of Squirrel Appreciation Day never lost HIS (or her) Internet cut  or had plants randomly ripped up, offices infiltrated or electricity cut off by squirrels. Instead, we need to have a Squirrel UN-Appreciation Day. Or at least interpret the word "Appreciation" as more like "Being Made Aware of The Sciuridific Menace."

You can see a few of my squirrel comics, doodles, gifts and photos from the past in my Flickr stream.

And then there was the Squirrel Invasion of 2009, when I woke up to find GIANT SQUIRRELS staring into our first floor windows (!!!).

Our friend Walter was the culprit behind this April Fool's Joke -- he put the squirrel posters up in the middle of the night while we were sleeping! He had pre-measured the windows while house-sitting for us earlier in the yar.

To find out more about how my anti-squirrel obsession began 35 years ago (plus read my favourite biography ever), please see my About Page.

Also, be warned that Evil Squirrels do make an appearance in my first solo book, WHERE ARE MY BOOKS? Well, perhaps they're more bilbliokleptophilic than Evil. Anyway, feel free to read the starred review on Kirkus!

Look, squirrels are infiltrating the bunny population!

Photo: Alexandre Buisse (Nattfodd) - self-made (http://www.alexandrebuisse.org)

When my friend Bruce Macintosh told me about Vizcacha (a.k.a. a Squabbit), I thought he was kidding around with Photoshop. BUT HE WASN'T!! 

Here's a Squabbit doodle for Bruce:

I'm grateful to Bruce for the heads-up. THANK YOU FOR YOUR VIGILANCE, MY FRIEND. If you haven't already, do check out the bio that Bruce wrote for me, which remains my all-time favorite bio of all time. When he isn't on the lookout for Squirrel Eviltude, Bruce researches extrasolar planets at Stanford University.

Arctic ground squirrels contributing to release of greenhouse gases

Source: BBC News website. Photo: John Schade.

More proof that squirrels are taking over the world: scientists have discovered that Arctic ground squirrels are hastening the release of greenhouse gases from the permafrost.

Killer Borneo Squirrel Has World's Bushiest Tail

Photo credit: Joseph Wolf, Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London 1856 via Wikimedia.

Thanks to my friend Peter Alway for posting a link to this IFLScience! article on my Squirrels Are Evil And Are Taking Over The World FB Page earlier this month. According to legend, the squirrel have attacked and killed deer to eat its innards! "A disemboweled deer or domestic chicken with none of its flesh eaten is a sure sign of a squirrel kill."

Also see this Popular Science article (thanks to Irina Greenman for the link), which shared this photo:

Tufted ground squirrel HOSCAP Borneo, via Popular Science

"Squirrels In My Pants" Dance

Years from now, historians will surely attribute this deceptive perky songdance to the early signs of the Squirrelpocalypse that so many humans foolishly ignored. Didn't someone say that "Ring Around The Rosie" originated with a description of the plague?

If anyone's curious, here are the original lyrics to S.I.M.P. (Squirrels In My Pants).

Thanks to Kathy Holzapfel for the link.

(Later edit: ARGH, THIS SONG WON'T GET OUT OF MY HEAD!!!)

College Student Mary Krupa, Squirrel Whisperer

At first I thought this article in Viral Nova was a joke, or that the photos were mostly Photoshopped. But I think this is actually a real thing! Apparently Penn State student Mary Krupa works with four different squirrels.

I have to question the use of the term "Squirrel Whisperer." More appropriate, I think: squirrel-controlled minion. It may seem as if Mary's the one controlling the squirrels, but WE KNOW THE TRUTH, DON'T WE?

Thanks to Noah Chinn for the link.