Despite petitions, letters and calls pouring in from people around the world, it appears that stubbornness and inbreeding is going to override common sense and compassion in Holley, New York and the senseless squirrel slaughter planned for the middle of this month by the local fire department will be undertaken with, if the comments from locals are representative of Holley’s 1,000-odd residents, obviously uneducated, pridefully ignorant cruelty. 

It just breaks my heart.  I don’t know the source of this photo, but for every asshat in Holley, New York, as well as those hanging out in Albany who are in a position to do something about it but continue to look the other way, this is how real firemen act:

 They walk amongst us.  The misguided, the anthropocentric, the insufferably insecure and therefore immeasurably cruel.  But while one of the last places one would expect to find them is in a firehouse, it has come to light that just such evil lurks inside the fire hall in Holley, New York; a tiny village located west of Rochester, not far from the cold winds and waters of Lake Ontario whose apparent pasttime during these long winter months is inbreeding.

On February 16th, these so-called lifesavers are holding a fundraiser in which the goal is to head out into the winter woods and blast as many squirrels as possible out of existence.  Ticket purchasers may enter as many as five squirrels for the weigh-in at the end of the day and there are prizes for the most weight murdered, as well as other drawings, including raffling off some pretty nice guns.  Not only is this slaughter needless and senseless, all of it disturbingly includes and encourages participation by children.

An enormous outcry is now taking shape.  There is a page on Facebook against it and a petition at change.org.  The following is my own letter to the mayor of Holley, a copy of which is also going to both the governor and head of wildlife of the state of New York.

Mayor John W. Kenney Jr.
Village of Holley
72 Public Sq
Holley, NY 14470

Dear Mayor Kenney,

 I write you today as a concerned citizen.  Not of Holley, New York but simply of the United States, a country that currently finds itself in the midst of an extremely divisive political climate in which our very foundation finds itself under attack.

 It is no secret that I am a Constitutional conservative and support the 2^nd Amendment as it is intended.  But this also means I am pro-life.  That means ALL life and when I was notified that your local fire department hosts a fundraiser that sends children out with guns to slaughter squirrels, well, frankly, I couldn’t quite get my head around how that puts any “fun” in “fundraiser”.  As a state-permitted wildlife rehabilitator who specializes in tree squirrels, while my job is saving the lives of orphaned, abandoned and injured wildlife, I also understand the need for and the role of wildlife management and have reconciled with hunting both for that purpose and for sustenance when these activities are performed cleanly and humanely.  As both a wildlife rehabilitator and president of our state wildlife rehabilitation organization I work closely with my own state’s Department of Natural Resources Wildlife Division, as well with as our Natural Resources Commission so therefore I am familiar with the delicateness often required to balance conflicting interests.  In my inner circle I count a former California Fish & Wildlife USDA large predator nuisance control expert, as well as a former City of Detroit firefighter now working down in North Carolina.

 It is from this perspective that I must state this fire department fundraiser is simply wrong – on multiple levels.

 First of all, your own state laws clearly state that “Minors under the age of 12 may not obtain a hunting license or hunt wildlife.”  Yet the Holley Fire Department is including a “14 years and under” category.  While your state laws do provide for children ages 12-15 to hunt (only) small game, there are multiple requirements:

 •Youth must have completed a course in Hunter Education.

•Youth must have a Junior Hunting license.

•12-13 year old youth must be accompanied by a parent, legal guardian, or a person who is 21 years or older and is designated in writing on the Mentored Youth Hunter and Trapper Permission Form (PDF) (24 KB). Adult mentor must have a license to hunt small game.

•14-15 year old youth must be accompanied by a parent, legal guardian, or a person who is 18 years or older and is designated in writing on the Mentored Youth Hunter and Trapper Permission Form (PDF) (24 KB). Adult mentor must have a license to hunt small game.

Exactly how are these requirements being met for the fundraiser?  A mere disclaimer on the website saying “All NYS hunting and licensing rules are to be followed” means nothing without enforcement.  How are you to determine if the so-called “winner” is a legal winner?  Frankly, you can’t.

 Second, the current political foray attempting to curb our Second Amendment right has been spurred on by so-called mass murders committed by what are essentially children.  Please take a good look at this sad list:

• Eric Harris (17), first on Zoloft then Luvox, and Dylan Klebold (18) killed 12 students and 1 teacher, and wounded 23 others, before killing themselves during the Columbine school shooting in Littleton, Colorado. (Klebold’s medical records have never been made available to the public.)
• Jeff Weise (16) had been prescribed 60 mg/day of Prozac (three times the average starting dose for adults) when he shot his grandfather, his grandfather’s girlfriend and many fellow students at Red Lake, Minnesota. He then shot himself. Ten dead, 12 wounded.
• Cory Baadsgaard (16) Wahluke High School, Washington, was on Paxil (which caused him to have hallucinations) when he took a rifle to his high school and held 23 classmates hostage. He has no memory of the event.
• Chris Fetters (13) killed his favorite aunt while taking Prozac.
• Christopher Pittman (12) murdered both his grandparents while taking Zoloft.
  Mathew Miller (13) hung himself in his bedroom closet after taking Zoloft for 6 days.
• Kip Kinkel (15), on Prozac and Ritalin, shot his parents while they slept then went to school and opened fire killing 2 classmates and injuring 22 shortly after beginning Prozac treatment.
• Luke Woodham (16), on Prozac, killed his mother and then killed two students, wounding six others.
• A boy in Pocatello, Idaho had a Zoloft-induced seizure in 1998 that caused an armed standoff at his school.
• Michael Carneal (14), on Ritalin, opened fire on students at a high school prayer meeting in West Paducah, Kentucky. Three teenagers were killed, 5 others were wounded.
• A young man in Huntsville, Alabama went psychotic while on Ritalin, chopping up his parents with an ax and also killing one sibling and almost murdering another.
• Andrew Golden (11), and Mitchell Johnson (14), both on Ritalin, shot 15 people, killing 4 students, 1 teacher, and wounding 10 others.
• TJ Solomon, (15), a high school student in Conyers, Georgia on Ritalin, opened fire on and wounded 6 of his class mates.
• Rod Mathews (14) beat a classmate to death with a bat while on Ritalin.
• James Wilson (19), from Breenwood, South Carolina, on various psychiatric drugs, took a .22 caliber revolver into an elementary school killing 2 young girls, and wounding 7 other children and 2 teachers.
• Elizabeth Bush (13) was responsible for a school shooting in Williamsport, Pennsylvania in 2001 while on Paxil.
• Jason Hoffman (18), taking Effexor and Celexa, was responsible for a school shooting in 2001 that injured 5 people in El Cajon, California.
• Jarred Viktor (15), after five days on Paxil he stabbed his grandmother 61 times.
  Chris Shanahan (15) while on Paxil, walked up and shot a woman in the back of the head with his rifle during a robbery attempt in Rigby, Idaho, killing her.
• Jeff Franklin (17), taking Prozac, Ritalin and Klonopin, killed his parents in Huntsville, Alabama in 1998 as they came home from work using a sledge hammer, hatchet, butcher knife and mechanic’s file; he then attacked his 6-year old and 9-year old brothers and 12-year old sister and left them to bleed to death.
• Kevin Rider (14), was withdrawing from Prozac when he died from a gunshot wound to his head. Initially it was ruled a suicide, but two years later, the investigation into his death was opened as a possible homicide. The prime suspect, also age 14, had been taking Zoloft and other SSRI antidepressants.
• Alex Kim (13) hung himself shortly after his Lexapro prescription had been doubled.
• Billy Willkomm, an accomplished wrestler and a University of Florida student, was prescribed Prozac at the age of 17. His family found him dead of suicide – hanging from a tall ladder at the family’s Gulf Shore Boulevard home in July 2002.
• Kara Jaye Anne Fuller-Otter (12) was on Paxil when she hung herself from a hook in her closet. Kara’s parents said “…. the damn doctor wouldn’t take her off it and I asked him to when we went in on the second visit. I told him I thought she was having some sort of reaction to Paxil….”
• Gareth Christian, Vancouver (18) was on Paxil when he committed suicide in 2002.  His father could not accept his son’s death and later killed himself.
• Julie Woodward (17) was on Zoloft when she hung herself in her family’s detached garage.
• Matthew Miller was 13 when he saw a psychiatrist because he was having difficulty at school. The psychiatrist gave him samples of Zoloft. Seven days later his mother found him dead, hanging by a belt from a laundry hook in his closet.
• Kurt Danysh (18) killed his father with a shotgun while on Prozac. He is now behind prison bars, and writes letters, trying to warn the world that SSRI drugs can kill.
• Hammad Memon (15) shot and killed another student at Discovery Middle School in Huntsville, Alabama in 2010.  He had been diagnosed with ADHD and depression and was taking Zoloft and “other drugs for the conditions.”
• Matti Saari, a 22-year-old culinary student, shot and killed 9 students and a teacher, and wounded another student in 2008 before killing himself. Saari was taking an SSRI and a benzodiazapine.
• Steven Kazmierczak (27) shot and killed five people and wounded 21 others before killing himself in a Northern Illinois University auditorium. According to his girlfriend, he had recently been taking Prozac, Xanax and Ambien. Toxicology results showed that he still had trace amounts of Xanax in his system.
• Finnish gunman Pekka-Eric Auvinen (18) had been taking antidepressants before he killed eight people and wounded a dozen more at Jokela High School – then he committed suicide.
• Asa Coon from Cleveland (14) shot and wounded four before taking his own life. Court records show Coon was on Trazodone.
• Jon Romano (16) on medication for depression, fired a shotgun in Columbia High School, East Greenbush, New York in 2004, wounding a teacher.
• Adam Peter Lanza (20), killed 26 and wounded 2 in Newtown Connecticut; allegedly autisitic, no records of medication have yet been released. 

 This is horrible, incomplete yet still much too long.  Now ask yourself this:  exactly how many of the children being taken out to indiscriminately slaughter another sentient creature simply for the sake of so-called “sport” in the guise of a fundraiser are taking some kind of psychotropic drug (or drugs)?  Truth is you have no way to know this due to medical privacy laws.  Then ask yourself how many of them are allowed to spend a large part of their time playing violent video games, too?  Again, you can have no idea.  The only honest answer is that another Sandy Hook incident is merely a matter of when, not if – and it is being actively encouraged by your fire department’s fundraiser.

 Last but certainly not least, there are those oft-inconvenient moral implications.  Whether you believe in God, Buddha, Mohammed, plain old garden-variety karma or the Great Pumpkin, premeditated, deliberate cruelty is never condoned.  If we are to be truly considered “enlightened” as a species, it behooves us to teach our children by our words and most importantly by our deeds that life is sacred and is never to be taken without very good reason.  Certainly those first responders in the Holley or any other fire department believe this and they walk the talk every time the alarm sounds.  How many photos have been circulated about a brave, kind firefighter carrying someone’s beloved animal out of a burning building?  Such is the “picture worth a thousand words” of selfless compassion and mercy.  Why then – and how then – can those who willingly risk their lives to save lives even consider, let alone condone, plan and actively encourage the needless, senseless taking of lives that is your so-called “Squirrel Slam”? 

 For those of us most familiar with those furry denizens of the trees, it is not merely a matter of the taking of a few squirrel lives that causes our disgust and outcry but the exponential amount of suffering that inevitably follows.  Of all the mammals, the squirrel is an amazing survivor and, notwithstanding countless bad shots that send a wounded squirrel off to suffer and eventually die a slow, painful death from infection, every single nursing mother coldly blasted into the fur-filled hereafter leaves behind babies who will, unlike their helpless human infant counterparts, do whatever they can to find her.  If they do not succumb to the cold and exhaustion from calling for their mother, even naked, blind and deaf neonates will make their way out of their nest in order to seek out their life-giver.  Inevitably they fall and the lucky ones end up in hands like mine that become their foster mother and provide them with a second chance to live as Nature intended.  The unlucky are killed by predators but the most unlucky of all die an excruciating death from exposure – starvation, dehydration and hypothermia – with each second of their final moments filled with fear.

 If you would not throw your own child down a well in the middle of winter and walk away to let them die a slow, painful death; if you would not throw your cat or dog down a well in the middle of winter and walk away to let them die a slow, painful death, then why in the world would you set out to cause essentially the same horror to any other living creature? 

 If your answer is you simply did not know or understand, you may be forgiven.  But with knowledge comes responsibility, so I am asking that you please shut down this fundraiser.  There are many other ways in which to raise money; there are a myriad of things to do to raise money that will also teach children a proper respect for life and the responsible use of firearms.

Thank you,
PJ. Garner

 CC:  NY Governor Andrew Cuomo
          NY DEC Commissioner Joseph Martens

 It’s been a long week.  As suspected, Suki did develop pneumonia and while it seemed the antibiotic quickly began its bacteria-killing magic and my precious Lazarus would surprise us yet one more time, instead what we’d always known was the possibility of something serious brewing became a grim reality.

Suki awoke this morning with a good amount of brightness; breakfast was taken eagerly, though the medicine for dessert caused him to grumble a bit.  All he wanted for lunch was his lately much-beloved apple and though my spider sense began to ping, when he sat up to eat it and then polished off a nice-sized piece of pear, too, I brushed aside the worry.  Such a long and serious illness was simply going to take time to get through.

But what I call getting through was not how Suki saw it.  Midafternoon today Suki called it quits and, as I held him and stroked that white, grizzled muzzle one last time, he quietly took his real and final leave.

Somewhere in what we humans call heaven, in that precious, sacred place those of us who love the nonhuman know as the other side of the Rainbow Bridge, a holy trinity is now again complete.  Sunny, Eleanor and Suki; each one a keynote ringing pure and true through my years of wildlife rehabilitation are now together to forever sound a single glorious chord.  One that will forever haunt this battered, aching human heart they’ve left behind.

You’d think that having thought I said goodbye to Suki once already, forced by those mysterious circumstances to live without his bright, daily presence until resignation of the loss was reached, this one might somehow, maybe, possibly be just the slightest bit easier.  It’s not.  Second chances don’t come often in life so the best thing to do is to treasure every second but, at least in this moment, those second chance seconds now numbering almost a year seem just that much more knowing how much I must miss for the rest of my own life.

Through a blinding veil of hot tears, as a chapter closes in ways I can not yet clearly see, the one thing I do know is that despite this wracking, deep pain, there isn’t a single moment I would trade for anything different.  It has been a privilege and it has been a blessing to have shared my life with each one of these great and grace-filled souls so cleverly clothed in a fox squirrel fur coat.

Godspeed, Suki; my precious, real-life Lazarus.

We don’t take on long-term cases blindly.  Often they are fraught with frustration and even though the grace and spirit displayed by each wild soul is inevitably the most valuable and most treasured of lessons, getting through to whatever end each story holds isn’t easy.

Suki’s journey is now become one such tale. 

While he eventually recovered from his initial acute attack of pancreatitis, he was hit with a second attack a month later.  Not quite as severe, it seemed touch-and-go the first 24 hours but, to our surprise, it was over in only 3 days.  Once again eating well, he was finally starting to regain some strength and some weight and plans to move him back to a larger cage were being made.  Now, however, not even a fortnight later, he is having another acute attack and, of equally great concern, Suki also appears to have aspiration pneumonia.  I’d worried about this being a possibility when he threw up while taking a drink from his dish at the start of the previous attack but then he recovered so quickly and so well the worry gradually faded away.

I could kick myself now.  I cannot help but fear the worst, yet Suki’s will to live remains strong.  Weak as a newborn kitten, he still makes feeble attempts to groom and equally feebly, yet with a surprising underpinning of gut-rooted strength, occasionally tries to fend off my attempts to minister to him.  Tonight he’s been given an appropriate antibiotic and through my tears I’m praying like a madwoman it starts to do its job quickly.

‘Twas the night before Christmas and all through the ‘hood,
Not a creature was stirring, not even the shoulds.
The ‘possums, the ‘coonies, the owls had all ceased
As the wind began coldly to howl from the east.

The humans were nestled all snug in their beds
As jolly old visions a’danced in their heads.
And Bob in his boxers and I in my sweats
Had just settled in for one last tete-a-tete.

When out in the back there arose an odd sound,
Causing us both to leap up with a bound.
Away to the windows we flew like a flash,
We peeped through curtains; had we locked the sash?

The moon on the grass that was barren of snow
Showed nothing at all was lurking below,
When what to our wondering eyes should appear
But a wee little squirrel missing part of one ear.

He was old, he was bright, he was lively and quick;
We knew right away that his name must be Nick.
Before we could blink he began a fast chatter
And his tiny paws tapped in a sharp pitter-patter.

“Now winter has come and what do you do?
Do you ever consider those so unlike you?
From the tops of the trees to the burrows so deep,
Do you know what they do to have safe and sound sleep?

 ”As the days become short and the nights cold and long
The furry must scurry, the birds sing no song;
There’s no time for much but the briefest forray
To find just a bite to live just one more day.”

And then, in a twinkling, we heard on the roof,
A padding of paws, not the prancing of hoof;
We turned from the window and as our gaze shifted,
Down the chimney Nick tumbled; the soot, how it drifted!

He was followed by several squirrels, large and small,
Each of them sporting black ashes to fall
All over the hearth to then darken the rug;
Each of them grinned and then each gave a shrug.

Their eyes, how they twinkled!  Their tails, oh-so-bushy!
Their noses were twitching; our hearts grew all mushy.
Their droll little mouths were drawn up in a bow
And one or two muzzles shown white as fresh snow.

Their tails were a’twitching with anticipation
That sent the soot circling in dark celebration.
They had tiny smudged faces and round little tummies
That shook as they laughed; as if we were the dummies.

Together they looked like right jolly wee elves
And we laughed at the sight, in spite of ourselves;
A wink of dark eyes, a slight tilt of their head,
Soon gave us to know we had nothing to dread.

Though now even Nick was not speaking a word,
What was needed we heeded for clearly we’d heard.
Handfuls of nuts, a cherry or four,
And a big dish of water were set down on the floor.

After eating and drinking, they all sat up tall,
Then away to the chimney they dashed, one and all;
But we heard them exclaim as they leaped out of sight,
“Happy Christmas to all!  And to all a good night!”

Well, slap my ass with a hairless cat; I am sitting here watching as Joy devours several big leaves of Romaine lettuce and then, best of all, at long last and better late than never, it is now being followed by the oh-so-satisfying loud and crunchy sound of a monkey biscuit being eaten with eager determination.

Whatever tummy troubles the girl had earlier this fall seem to have finally abated.  To be sure, she’s lost a lot of weight since her bout of intestinal blockage and the seasonal period of spending more time asleep than awake so she’s now quite slim and trim.  The newfound lightness on her feet (well, as light as anything built like a groundhog can ever be) also finds her running around in play and more than once I’ve caught her doing a squirrely “happy feet” dance. 

Such sights are truly a joy.

Of course we continue to watch her like a hawk.  This newfound love of biscuits, while excellent for her overall health, has taken a bit of getting used to on the part of her guts. 

But so far, so huge-sigh-of-relief good.