Hope College Seems to be a Full House of Squirrels!

Squirrels are out in droves around West Michigan. It must have been a bumper breeding season because I swear I'm seeing more and more of these cute critters.

HOPE COLLEGE

Hope College in Holland with their beautiful tree-filled campus sure is seeing a bountiful harvest of squirrels. They seem to be everywhere. So many in fact that rumor has it the college may open a new dorm -- Squirrelly Hall! It will be small, of course.

At any rate some clever folks at Hope decided they should create a video because of the incredible squirrel population. This is way too cute. Check it out!

Very Clever Hope College, clever.

But, lets examine this squirrel thing. Is it really good to have so many squirrels in our yards?

Besides being cute, squirrels do play an important role in our ecosystem. They help control plants by eating some invasive ones. Along with plants they do eat bugs and small birds. Wait a minute! The eat birds? Yes, they are known to eat baby birds. Ick!!

On the down side, how many times have we lost power because of our cute furry friends? Thousands!

SQUIRREL POWER OUTAGE

Did you know that the NASDAQ stock market in 1987 and 1994 was shut down briefly because of a squirrel?

NASDAQ BLACKOUT

And amazingly squirrels have taken down the power grid more times than the zero times hackers have.

HACKER

Why? Electrical lines are no match for squirrel teeth. While that little squirrel may have been fried biting into that power line, so were we, so to speak. Lights out!

But back at Hope College, surely we can come up with more names for our little friends. What about Squirrelly Jones, or Acorn Adams?

Maybe Hope should change their nick name from the Flying Dutchmen to the Flying Squirrels? It's a thought!