Stowaway squirrel back home
A STOWAWAY squirrel that hitched a ride from Limpopo to Kenton-on-Sea under the bonnet of a car has been taken home.
Yesterday, the small tree squirrel – which only grows to about 35cm and weighs about 200g – arrived in Limpopo following an 18-hour car ride to Polokwane.
The squirrel had been staying with Sandula Conservation owner and environmentalist Mark Marshall for the past five weeks.
Marshall left the Bay at 3am on Sunday to get the squirrel back to Limpopo by Monday morning.
“It was a long drive but she was fairly calm most of the way,” he said.
“She was released [yesterday] morning. We did not want to release her at night as we had to canvass around to find a resident population in an ideal area.
“By mid-morning, we found the perfect place in the Louis Trichardt area where there was an existing population.” Marshall said that the release went off without a hitch.
“I took the nest box out of the cage and held it against a tree with the intention of her going into the tree to hide,” he said.
“Instead, she jumped out of the box and ran into the bush. No hanging around or even a goodbye.”
The release was made possible after Marshall held a fundraiser on the fire-stricken Lady’s Slipper Mountain on Friday.
The fundraiser was to look for endangered Elandsberg chameleons, which may have been affected by the fires.
“A total of R2 200 was raised, which helped us to pay for the petrol to take her home,” Marshall said.