[Merrymeeting]

This past Thursday, I was out with a group of people touring the lake. I pointed to what looked like an animal in the water, far enough away to make it difficult to tell what it was. One of the passengers with a pair of binoculars looked and said it was one of our baby loons.

Something didn’t seem right to me. Seemed too low in the water, and why all of a sudden would it be without the parents for the first time? But I figured it was possible and forgot all about it. This was at about 11 AM

Later, after the tour ended, I was heading back to my house in my boat when I saw the same thing in the water, at about the same location. Looked to me as being what I had originally thought it was… a grey squirrel.

Sure enough, as I got close, it was a young grey squirrel. It was clearly in distress/confused as it just kept swimming around in circles. I’m guessing it had lost sight of shore at that water level and had no idea what to do. I can’t believe it was still there, still swimming, and hadn’t gone under yet. This was at about 1 PM!

Any experts out there who could verify that a squirrel could tread water for 3 hours?!!! But it also seems unbelievable that it would be a different squirrel, in the same place, doing the same thing (this was at least 100 yards from shore)

I know they are over-populated, and pretty much just large rodents, and I was probably just delaying the inevitable, but I couldn’t just watch it drown, especially given how hard it had been working to avoid it. So, against my better judgement, I got out my long boat hook and put it nearby. Needless to say, it grabbed and clung onto it like a life preserver. While visions of a rabid squirrel racing around my boat danced through my head, I picked it out of the water and placed it on the swim platform.

It proceeded to sit there, looking at me, then looking behind the boat, clearly trying to decide if it was better to die by drowning or by attack from this monster that had picked it up. But it was clearly too terrified or exhausted to do much else than sit there and look pitiful.

I then drove down the shoreline to a closed children’s camp on the lake and put it off on the dock there. It didn’t move much as I drove away. Exhaustion taking over I’m sure. For all I know it sat there until the eagle came by and scooped it off. Or as I hope, it finally warmed up and had enough energy to head into the woods.

As I said, probably delaying the inevitable, but at least I feel better having tried.