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In Minneapolis, MN, there is a historical plaque that notes the day and location of the first gray squirrels introduced to the city as a gift from Seattle/Washi

In Minneapolis, MN, there is a historical plaque that notes the day and location of the first gray squirrels introduced to the city as a gift from Seattle/Washington. It’s in Loring Park. So kind of opposite direction.

tzs 2y ago
That's interesting, so I searched for more information. Does the plaque actually say Seattle or just Washington? What I found [1] suggests the squirrels were introduced around 1909 and came from Washington DC, bought from this guy [2]. Here's a summary, but read the article I linked. I'm leaving out lots of interesting details. Unlike Seattle, the problem in Minneapolis wasn't that the native squirrels didn't like the trees. The park had plenty of native red squirrels. The problem was that Theodore Wirth, the park supervisor, hated red squirrels. He thought they killed too many songbirds, and he loved songbirds. Red squirrels did occasionally eat songbird eggs but the actual main threat to songbirds in the park was humans. Red squirrels are also very territorial and aggressively defend that territory. They are happy to live off the food the trees provide so don't really warm up to humans. Instead they yell at humans to try to drive them away. Grays love to eat all kind of things, and so quickly come to see humans as friendly bringers of all kinds of food. To address this perceived red squirrel problem Thomas ordered park police to execute all the red squirrels and brought in the Eastern gray squirrels. The grays adapted so well that by the 1930s some people were complaining: > They adapted to city life so eagerly that by 1930, the Tribune was lamenting that Loring Park's squirrels had become spoiled "cream-puff squirrels" that bore little resemblance to their ancestral "true" gray squirrel of the American wilderness. > "Any day in Loring Park a squirrel may choose between ice cream cones, cake and a dozen kinds of sweetmeats, or enjoy all of them to his capacity," the Tribune reported. "Instinctively they still store acorns from the old oaks. But it is a lackadaisical effort." [1] https://www2.startribune.com/gray-red-squirrels-theodore-wirth-loring-park-birds-minneapolis/600245052/ https://www2.startribune.com/gray-red-squirrels-theodore-wir... [2] https://www.ebay.com/itm/395169313155 https://www.ebay.com/itm/395169313155

tzs 2y ago

That's interesting, so I searched for more information. Does the plaque actually say Seattle or just Washington? What I found [1] suggests the squirrels were introduced around 1909 and came from Washington DC, bought from this guy [2]. Here's a summary, but read the article I linked. I'm leaving out lots of interesting details. Unlike Seattle, the problem in Minneapolis wasn't that the native squirrels didn't like the trees. The park had plenty of native red squirrels. The problem was that Theodore Wirth, the park supervisor, hated red squirrels. He thought they killed too many songbirds, and he loved songbirds. Red squirrels did occasionally eat songbird eggs but the actual main threat to songbirds in the park was humans. Red squirrels are also very territorial and aggressively defend that territory. They are happy to live off the food the trees provide so don't really warm up to humans. Instead they yell at humans to try to drive them away. Grays love to eat all kind of things, and so quickly come to see humans as friendly bringers of all kinds of food. To address this perceived red squirrel problem Thomas ordered park police to execute all the red squirrels and brought in the Eastern gray squirrels. The grays adapted so well that by the 1930s some people were complaining: > They adapted to city life so eagerly that by 1930, the Tribune was lamenting that Loring Park's squirrels had become spoiled "cream-puff squirrels" that bore little resemblance to their ancestral "true" gray squirrel of the American wilderness. > "Any day in Loring Park a squirrel may choose between ice cream cones, cake and a dozen kinds of sweetmeats, or enjoy all of them to his capacity," the Tribune reported. "Instinctively they still store acorns from the old oaks. But it is a lackadaisical effort." [1] https://www2.startribune.com/gray-red-squirrels-theodore-wirth-loring-park-birds-minneapolis/600245052/ https://www2.startribune.com/gray-red-squirrels-theodore-wir... [2] https://www.ebay.com/itm/395169313155 https://www.ebay.com/itm/395169313155