NEWS

Zoo's squirrels gnaw away at Festival of Lights

John Faherty
jfaherty@enquirer.com
The Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden doesn’t mind too much when squirrels eat nuts. That’s what they’re supposed to do. But when they gnaw through wires and knock out parts of the PNC Festival of Lights, that’s a bigger problem.

Of all the animals at the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden, it is the squirrels who are causing a problem. Not the elephants or rhinos or gorillas. Not the crocodilians or peacocks or even the Visayan warty pigs.

Nope, just regular old tree squirrels who are gnawing on wires which is turning off strands of lights which is kind of a big deal during the annual PNC Festival of Lights which brings 200,000 to 250,000 people to the zoo each holiday season.

This little rodent, amidst the majesty of all these exotic animals, is running around fat and happy and causing a major annoyance. And it turns out they like hot sauce. More later.

These squirrels have to know how funny this is.

The people at the zoo are torn about this. They like the Festival of Lights because of the revenue and exposure, so they want the lights to look spectacular. But these are animal people first, even when the animal is a common rodent making their lives tricky.

Nobody is more torn than Mike Dulaney, curator of mammals, and a lifelong squirrel guy. He had a pet squirrel when he was 10, and used to ride his bike around with Gus, that was the squirrel's name, sitting on his shoulder. They would sometimes go eat pizza together in Madisonville. Dulaney and his squirrel once appeared on the "Skipper Ryle Show" in the late 1960s. So this is a squirrel man, and he is not alone.

"People come here to see all these exotic animals, and a squirrel runs in front of them and the kids all go crazy," Dulaney said. "They are nuts." Please forgive him.

The thing about squirrels at the zoo is that there are just so many of them. There is no exact count, but there are probably close to a gazillion of them, and for good reason. There are trees and water and tulip bulbs, and peanuts for elephants and pizza crust from visitors. And many of their predators are in enclosed spaces because this is a zoo.

Then each fall, the zoo lays out 2 million lights on strands covered in plastic. Turns out squirrels kind of like the plastic so they gnaw on it. It might be the smell, or the gentle warmth or simply that fall is the season when squirrels are genetically programmed to eat as much as possible before the scarcity of winter. Or maybe they just think it is funny.

Whatever the reason, each morning the grounds keepers check the lights and replace the strands that have been gnawed through. This year they even put hot sauce on some of the strands laying in spots where squirrels seemed particularly omnivorous, but to no avail. Seems the squirrels may like their cords with a little hot sauce. "They are curious and they are motivated by food," Dulaney said.

The squirrels are accounted for in much of what happens at the zoo. Brian Jorg is manager of the native plant program at the zoo and says these are lucky squirrels. Each year, the zoo plants 105,000 tulip bulbs and the squirrels really like tulips. They can be covered with plastic netting, but that only slows the consumption, it does not stop it. Even trees fall to squirrel. When Jorg wants 100 oak seedlings to grow he plants 500 of them because he knows he will lose 80 percent.

"We calculate damage, they are very tenacious," Jorg said. "When you are becoming a horticulturist you never know a rodent will be the bane of your existence."

All is Bright

The PNC Festival of Lights runs through Jan. 3. The lights are on seven nights a week. Sunday through Thursday, from 5 to 9 p.m.. Friday and Saturday from 5 to 10 p.m..

The zoo is closed on the night of Dec. 24, and all of Christmas Day.

For information on prices and packages, go to cincinnatizoo.org.