Puja Thapa
Administrative Executive Editor
“High-flying, nut-loving, and quick-thinking” squirrels are part of any Keene State student’s college experience. Putnam Theatre at Redfern Center was filled with adults and children on October 10 at 7 p.m. to celebrate Squirrel Awareness Month.
The Harris Center for Conservation Education, the Monadnock Conservancy and the KSC Film Society showed a PBS NATURE documentary called “A Squirrel’s Guide to Success”. The documentary explores different species of squirrels found from frozen arctic tundras to baking deserts and how they succeed. It also shows the journey of a rescued baby squirrel from the National Wildlife Rescue Center of Scotland to the wild.
Some of the highlights of the documentary were slow-motion fight scenes between chipmunks, close up shots of squirrels nibbling nuts, X-ray images of squirrel’s teeth and their legs and shots of squirrels’ aerial abilities. Seven-year old Colin Rohde was one of the spectators. “Their jumping power is really amazing,” he said. Rohde further explained that the squirrels are amazing because of “their cool surviving skills.” According to the documentary, the grip of squirrels and their quick decision-making skills allow them to jump high. A scientist studying squirrels said in the documentary that the ordinary jump of squirrels is equivalent to a human jumping two bus lengths from the starting stand.
Harris Center naturalist and mammal enthusiast Susie Spikol was the speaker at the event. She had a ‘squirrelly’ selection from the Harris Center’s natural history collection on a table at the front.
According to Spikol, the squirrels seen at KSC are most likely grey squirrels. “That’s like the real common, grey with a big bushy tail, are probably in a lot of trees around campus; maybe if you went to the edges where there might be evergreen trees, you might see the red squirrels, that’s smaller red, furrier squirrels,” she said. Spikol also said Keene might have flying squirrels which nobody sees that often because they are nocturnal.
According to the Science Director of the Harris Center Brett Amy Thelen, the Harris Center will co-sponsor another film at the Putnam in either January or February.
Puja Thapa can be reached
at pthapa@kscequinox.com
