 "Photo: Tej Okun")
Tiffany Morley was minding her own business when the tiny animal attacked.
One day last spring, the UCF junior was sitting on the patio behind the Student Union. She was reading and enjoying a slice of banana bread when a squirrel jumped onto the book in front of her.
Morley instinctively reached for the bread that was sitting next to the book in an effort to keep the squirrel from running off with it, but the squirrel would not be so easily deterred. It jumped toward the bread with mouth wide open and sharp teeth shining, biting Morley's pinky instead of the tasty target.
When she went to the Health Center later that day to have the bite examined and to receive a precautionary tetanus shot, her nurse told her that she was not the first student to be treated for a squirrel bite on campus.
"[The nurse] said that the Health Center had lots of problems with squirrel bites," Morley said.
A spokesperson for the Health Center said over the phone that the records department is unable to provide statistics for the number of squirrel victims they've treated or provide any specific information due to HIPPA privacy laws, but the students of UCF don't need statistics to see that the squirrels are becoming a problem. After each attack, it becomes more and more apparent that there is a dark side to the squirrel population at UCF.
Martin Quigley, interim chair of the biology department at UCF, said that the Eastern Gray squirrels that scamper around campus are becoming accustomed to people, and they know from experience that no one will harm them.
"Urban wildlife just has no fear of people," Quigley said.
Compounding the problem is the fact that people have been feeding the squirrels, and now they expect food even when food isn't being offered, he said.
He said that he doesn't believe the squirrels pose any immediate threat, but some students are feeling threatened.
Ratna Harinandansingh, a student at UCF, said she recently saw a squirrel harassing another student on the patio of the Student Union.
She said the victim was eating french fries, and the squirrel in question was persistently begging for a handout. The squirrel tirelessly alternated between sitting on the table and perching on the back of the victim's chair, despite the man's best efforts to shoo it away, she said.
"I've never seen anything so obnoxious in my life," Harinandansingh said.
She tried to rescue the man by enticing the squirrel with a piece of lettuce but to no avail. It only wanted fries.
Heather Haynie, a student at UCF, said she sacrificed $2 for a double-chocolate-chunk muffin only to have it snatched out of her hand and carried away by an audacious squirrel.
Another student, Malinda Watkins, saw a woman throwing something away in an outside trash can. Just as she was tossing her garbage in, a squirrel that had been rooting around inside popped out and scared her half to death, Watkins said.
Further evidence of the students' growing concern over UCF squirrels is displayed on Facebook, the popular social networking Web site.
There are 18 groups in the UCF network that are dedicated to squirrel-related issues on campus. Included in this list are groups such as "It's Only a Matter of Time until the Squirrels Take over UCF" and "UCF Squirrels are Nuts."
Campus officials have also recognized that the squirrels are becoming aggressive and they have made efforts in the past to remedy the situation.
For example, TruTech Inc., a pest control company, stepped in last fall at the school's request and relocated several of the troublesome creatures to Bithlo.
A representative at TruTech Inc. said over the phone that requests for squirrel removal are not unusual.
"We have gotten a lot of calls for squirrels," the representative said. "We usually relocate them because they don't have a high risk of carrying rabies, so they don't pose a very large threat."
Quigley said that he thought extermination would be an even better solution to UCF's squirrel dilemma.
"I can see that [the relocation] is well-intentioned, but it's just silly," he said.
There are more squirrels now than there ever have been, he said, and they are reproducing all the time.
The fact that a large amount of the UCF population considers squirrels to be cute should not save them from extermination when their numbers or behavior grow out of control, he said. He said we exterminate rats all the time, and no one speaks out about that.
"Some people think that rats are cute, too," he said.
And what about the squirrel that so voraciously pursued Morley's banana bread last spring? Well, after it wounded Morley's pinky finger - and she had batted at it several times with her smoothie cup - the squirrel ran away. Morley sat back down at the picnic table, secure in the belief that her attacker had scampered off to harass someone else. Moments later, she felt a tug on her pony tail. The squirrel had re-approached from behind and had scaled the back of Morley's chair where it proceeded to yank on her hair. Enough was enough, and Morley was the first to surrender. She gathered her things and fled to class.
The persistence and aggressiveness of the squirrel that bit her still amazes Morley.
"[The Health Center nurse] said that attacks happening around the Library were especially aggressive, and I wondered," Morley said, "'How can they be any more aggressive? Are the squirrels wielding baseball bats over there or what?'"
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