ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1995, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, December 10, 1995 TAG: 9512080051
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: F-2 EDITION: METRO
EVERY BIRD and bird-lover knows it. The squirrels are winning.
You put out the bird seed. The squirrels feast.
You put out the bird seed in a hundred-buck squirrel-proof bird feeder. The squirrels falter. Maybe. Then they feast.
The battle has escalated now, with new weapons technology brought to bear: a bird-feeder that delivers a small electrical charge through its roost.
Birds, whose feet and beaks don't conduct electricity, are unaffected. Squirrels get zapped. It doesn't really injure them, its inventor, John Boaz of Centreville, Va., told The Wall Street Journal. "They give it sort of a look of wonder."
They probably are stunned that those weird humans would go to such lengths to deny them a little snack.
Sure, it's frustrating to feed the thieves, but really this is shocking. Well, mildly. Besides, it's just a matter of time before the rodents figure out how to lean a wooden ladder against the feeder and munch away at their leisure.
You think not?
Consider the bird-feeder designed to literally slam the door on the greedy creatures. The roost drops under the weight of a squirrel when it jumps on, triggering a sheet of metal to drop down and close off the food opening. At $80 a pop, lots of folks looking out for their feathered friends have snatched them up. And several report seeing one squirrel standing on a counterweight bar behind the feeder, holding the little metal shutter open while another gobbles down seed.
If you can't beat them - well, no need to join them. But you have to admire, if grudgingly, that kind of ingenuity and teamwork from animals with brains the size of - what? Peanuts?
If there's no way to fight this nuisance, perhaps humans can figure out some way to put squirrels' problem-solving abilities to work for us. Scientists have yet to figure out how to make cold fusion occur, for example. They're not even sure it is possible.
There's one way to settle that question: a test tube, a bag of bird seed, two squirrels. The bag must be opened by energy created by cold fusion. If the problem can be solved, it will be. Two days, max.
LENGTH: Short : 47 linesby CNB