The Squirrel Incident

For a career that is ostensibly about looking at or for animals, most wildlife jobs involve a stunning amount of driving. That makes it even more devastating when there is an interloper.

Over the years, I’ve had a lot of trouble with animals getting into field vehicles. There was the rancher’s bloodhound that jumped into the passenger seat and slobbered all over my datasheets. The badger that escaped from its trap and wreaked havoc inside the truck. The canyon towhee that flew in through an open window and ate my tortillas. The golden-mantled ground squirrel that jumped into my food crate while I was cleaning out the car which I unknowingly lifted back into the car. Not to mention all the times I woke up during the night to marmots, raccoons, and mice chewing on the cables.  

There’s one incident that haunts me.

Driving to the survey from my campsite in rural northwest Colorado, I could tell something was wrong with the jeep. It refused to go faster than 30mph, no matter how much I floored the accelerator. As soon as I got to my survey point, I opened the hood of the car as though staring at the engine block would help. My knowledge of cars is limited to checking the tire pressure and, if I feel mechanically inclined, the oil level. My knowledge of fixing them mostly consists of turning up the volume on the radio if there are any concerning noises coming from the motor.

Even with this limited understanding of cars, I diagnosed the problem in a matter of seconds. A rock squirrel peered up at me from on top of the engine block with the outraged expression of a German man who has found out that inflation has raised the price of an Aldi pretzel to 65 cents.

The squirrel retreated deeper into the mass of metal, hoses, and wire and chattered at me defiantly. The skies had unleashed a torrential downpour soon after I arrived at my camp the night before. The squirrel must have crawled on top of the engine block in pursuit of a warm and dry place to sleep. Clearly it felt at home, as it was surrounded by frayed wire ends it had chewed through to make itself more comfortable and the feces from where it had designated a latrine.

The squirrel hid behind the engine block and peered out at me. I found a fallen fence post and tried to use it as a pool cue to prod the squirrel out. It retreated deeper into the bowels of the car and curled its tail around its face reproachfully.

At this point in the summer, I suspected that the car rental company answered the phone with dread when they saw my phone number come up on caller ID.

“A squirrel?” They asked for the third time.

“Yes, it chewed through some crucial wiring and is refusing to leave,” I explained while making a rude gesture at the rodent in question.

After finally convincing them that there was indeed a squirrel in the engine and that this was, in fact, a rather significant problem, the rental company told me they could have someone drive out with a replacement vehicle.

“What’s your location?”

“I’m outside of Rangely, Colorado, five miles south of highway 68 on County Road M.”

“Can you give a landmark for the driver to navigate to?” I looked around at the rolling sagebrush stretching out in every direction without a building in sight.

“There’s a cow,” I offered.

“Like a statue of a cow?” The woman on the other end of the line asked.

“No, a real one. Wait. It’s out of sight now. I don’t see it anymore.” This was not as useful of a direction as I had hoped.

There was silence on the other end of the line.

I was informed in a cheerful customer service voice that they could bring a replacement car to me in as few as 3 days. This was, to put it mildly, a bit of an inconvenience.

“You can also pick up the car yourself in Grand Junction,” she gave as an alternative. Grand Junction was only a 2-hour drive away, but I had no idea if the jeep was going to make it in its frayed state. Then again, 3 days was a long time to wait in this place. And I only had enough cookies to last for 2 days.

That sobering thought made the decision for me.

I checked that the hazard lights, turn signals, and brakes worked, and then began the slow slog towards Grand Junction. If I could drive the speed limit, the drive would have been 2 hours, but with the speed cut to a crawl it was going to take 4.

I went slowly, as fast as I could, the hazard lights blinking the whole time. Pickup trucks roared past me, the drivers peering suspiciously at me as they did, eager to get a look at this Sunday driver. The car refused to shift into anything over second gear and I tried to keep the rev counter from climbing into the red.

I parked at a small trail system halfway through the drive to stretch my legs and give the squirrel a chance to disembark. The engine must be hot, and I figured the squirrel must have had enough of its adventure by now. The squirrel was still there. I was a little worried it had died from the heat of the engine, but it flicked its tail at me in irritation. I had to admire its tenacity.  A retired couple in an RV stared open-mouthed as they drove by while I alternately shouted at and ineffectively prodded the squirrel with a window scraper.

The road climbed higher and higher in hairpin bends that took my stowaway and I up and over Douglass Pass. The muscles in my back were cramping from sitting behind the wheel for so long and a line of impatient cars inched closer behind me until I could find a place to pull over and let them pass.

The last part of the drive was the worst. Semi-trucks barelled down the highway at 80mph, the grills at the front filling up the entirety of the rear-view mirror before they changed lanes at the last possible second and blasted their air horns at me. Despite driving in the right lane with my hazard lights flashing, each one seemed intent on scaring years off my life just to make a point.

It was a relief to pull into the parking lot of the car rental company and slump my way out of the car. Sweat stained my shirt from the stress of driving while not knowing if the car was going to keep going or not.

“Hi, I talked to Jessica this morning about exchanging a rental car? There is a squirrel in the engine of this one,” I told the clerk sitting behind the desk.

He blinked slowly and pulled a clipboard toward him.

“Right. Why do you think there’s a squirrel in the engine of the car?” He sighed.

I had had it. Normally I treat people who work in customer service with kindness. That was not the case this day. I was tired, stressed, and profoundly sweaty. Instead of enjoying a scenic lunch, a run on some new trails, and finding a nice campsite for the night, I had spent four hours driving to a city and had the prospect of another 2 hours driving back. My back was hurting, I had been honked at by truck drivers for the last half hour, and I was hungry. This was not the time for someone to make a snarky comment at me.  

“How about I just show you?” I said in my sweetest voice. The clerk lumbered out of the office after me, and I popped the hood. The squirrel had miraculously survived the drive, although it had patches of pink skin where the heat of the engine had signed off its fur. I pointed at it.

“It’s because I’m a damn biologist, and I know that thing isn’t a fucking zebra.”