Comments on: Men Gather Around Dying Squirrel, Ship it to Calabassas

By: solanasaurus

solanasaurus — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 21:31:16 +0000

Some humans help humans, others help animals. It reminds me of how during Hurricane Katrina, millions of dollars were donated to saving pets while so many of their humans were left to fend for themselves. I don’t think it’s a particular LA thing. Americans in general, perhaps? The tone of the health care debate would certainly seem to indicate people are more interested in squirrel health, or maybe just squirreling healthcare? Your story reminded me of a video I saw on Facebook once “Hero dog”. One dog saving another on a highway in Chile. Sweet. In the version I saw, some construction workers came to help the dogs once they reached the curb. Let’s hope there was a happy ending.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXXaRECHHT4

By: Rick Ungar

Rick Ungar — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 16:36:00 +0000

I like that they helped the squirrel! Its a better use of our money in Los Angeles than, say, paying for Michael Jackson’s funeral. The fact that Solomon wouldn’t lift a finger to help a homeless person dying in the street says considerably less about Los Angelenos than what it says about Solomon who is clearly…a putz! I mean, who would leave a dying person alone in the gutter?

By: lann

lann — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 02:49:38 +0000

Animal stories always get me. Maybe it’s because they are, in their lowly position under modern man’s dominion, helpless and too often injured. There is a distinction between a helpless animal fallen in the street and a grown human being who, for whatever reason, is not working but instead living in the street, maybe drunk, maybe crazy. More hearts favor the helpless than the useless. In spite of this, there are many institutions established in cities to help the homeless and also there’s usually a humane society too. I don’t worry too much about what it cost to send that little squirrel to wherever for reasons I did not understand. There are too many other things to think about and worry about and not just in Calif.

By: Matthew Fleischer

Matthew Fleischer — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 20:28:56 +0000

Hi David,

You make some good points. Death is indeed fascinating, but for a group of people to stand around watching a squirrel write in agony FOR HOURS goes beyond mere morbid curiosity. Unless the people in question were goths who had just come from a Hieronymus Bosch exhibit at LACMA, hovering over an agonizing squirrel, waiting for its stare to go soft, is pretty bizarre behavior.

And, I don’t know about you, but if I see a rabid or bubonic plague stricken animal I don’t stand next to it in a group. I call animal control and get the hell away. If you read the original article the person who put the sign up wasn’t a public health expert, she was a strange cat lady named Amy, who, when contacted, decided she was too busy to deal with the situation.

That all said, perhaps you’re right that I am selling these people slightly short. Maybe their concerns did extend beyond emotional grief. But I definitely think there’s room for social analysis here.

By: davidlosangeles

davidlosangeles — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 19:48:21 +0000

Mr. Fleischer,

I think the what is missing in the analysis is the fact that the squirrel was dying, as opposed to being dead. It was twitching and writhing. Had it been dead no one would have given it the slightest attention. There is nothing more fascinating that watching something die, it has the same attraction that a car wreck does. This particular event is not really a window into the soul of Los Angeles, the same thing could happen anywhere.

What is somewhat unique is that it is possible that this particular squirrel had bubonic (or murine) plague. In the summertime in southern California one has to be on the look out for rodents that are behaving strangely, such as this one was. That may well be why there was a sign up. There is actually a state agency (it used to be called “Vector Biology Control”) that monitors the rodent population for such activity.

So this is a bit LA-ism, but of the public health variety, not social psychology.

By: Lewis DVorkin

Lewis DVorkin — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 19:20:19 +0000

I once lived next to the Bird Man of 77th Street. He owned an entire town house. The top floor was a pigeon coop. On all other floors, the pigeons flew wild. Once a month, a tractor trailer rolled down 77th St — in Manhattan!! — to deliver 50-pound bags of feed that he kept in his basement. Need I tell you what that produced? No matter how hard I tried, no city agency would do anything about it. Perhaps that’s why I draw the line at pigeons and not squirrels.

By: Matthew Fleischer - L.A. Flaneur – How the English Handle Injured Squirrels - True/Slant

Thu, 20 Aug 2009 18:37:39 +0000

[...] Los Angeles, when stumbling across an injured squirrel, we wait patiently by its side for hours until an animal control expert can ferry it to an [...]

By: Matthew Fleischer

Matthew Fleischer — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 18:14:53 +0000

It’s funny, I think just about all Americans hate pigeons, but for some reason we don’t eat them. In other countries they call it squab and it’s a delicacy. An injured pigeon in Morocco isn’t getting sent to a hilltop clinic. It’s going to be stewed and served over couscous.

By: Lewis DVorkin

Lewis DVorkin — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 16:49:39 +0000

I am very sensitive to all this… but I do draw the line at pigeons.