There is always something new to learn about the University of Illinois, even though I’ve been in this community since coming here as a student many years ago. Squirrels have long been a topic of conversation in relation to the university: their sheer numbers, as a possible mascot, and most recently through the short-yet-legendary life of Pinto Bean.
One of the feature stories in the latest edition of The Quadrangle, the biannual College of Liberal Arts and Sciences magazine, details the story of one man’s mission to bring populate campus with gray squirrels. Geology professor Charles Rolfe, a.k.a “the squirrel master,” was hell bent on replenishing the gray squirrel population that had been decimated in Illinois by hunting and forest clearing. His plan, now known as the squirrel experiment of 1901, was wholeheartedly supported by the administration, yet it quickly became a disaster as many of the imported squirrels met untimely ends, either during the shipping process, as the prey of local dogs, or because people in the community shot them.
But somehow, the few that survived became the origin of a thriving squirrel population.
You can read the full, wild story on the College of LAS website.