Acorn Watchers Wonder What Happened to Crop -- Starving Squirrels

[Crabtownboy]

By Brigid Schulte
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, November 30, 2008; Page A01

The idea seemed too crazy to Rod Simmons, a measured, careful field botanist. Naturalists in Arlington County couldn't find any acorns. None. No hickory nuts, either. Then he went out to look for himself. He came up with nothing. Nothing crunched underfoot. Nothing hit him on the head.

Then calls started coming in about crazy squirrels. Starving, skinny squirrels eating garbage, inhaling bird feed, greedily demolishing pumpkins. Squirrels boldly scampering into the road. And a lot more calls about squirrel roadkill.

But Simmons really got spooked when he was teaching a class on identifying oak and hickory trees late last month. For 2 1/2 miles, Simmons and other naturalists hiked through Northern Virginia oak and hickory forests. They sifted through leaves on the ground, dug in the dirt and peered into the tree canopies. Nothing.

"I'm used to seeing so many acorns around and out in the field, it's something I just didn't believe," he said. "But this is not just not a good year for oaks. It's a zero year. There's zero production. I've never seen anything like this before."

The absence of acorns could have something to do with the weather, Simmons thought. But he hoped it wasn't a climatic event. "Let's hope it's not something ghastly going on with the natural world."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/29/AR2008112902045.html

It could be just a cycle of nature, but I find it strange that the derth of acorns covers all kinds of oak trees. Could somethng man has done have pushed the oak trees past the tipping point?

No one knows.

 

[Deacon]

An overproduction of acorns last year provided a bountiful crop of squirels this past spring.

Still there's plenty of fat squirels around here.

All the strange squirels are headed to Washington DC. looking for a handout.

It's probably the President's fault the oaks aren't producing will this year.

Rob

 

[North Carolina Tentmaker]

Here in NC we have had the strongest mast crop in several years. Several deer hunters have commented to me that it made their season harder because the deer are not moving around as much.

In my own yard the acorns were several inches thick in the yard. The last couple years I racked up leaves but the squirrels took care of the acorns. This year the squirrels are so fat they can barely climb the trees and there is still a carpet of acorns on the yard.

Sounds like a local thing to me. How was their rain this year? Did they get an early or late frost?

 

[menageriekeeper]

Well the squirrels here ate my pecans and my hickory nuts as well as the 'fruit' that the wild bradford pear trees in my backyard produces. (wild because we cut the dumb things down because they break so easy and this is what came up from the root stock. Its a much hardier tree and still blooms pretty. The kids and the squirels love the fruit but for very different reasons. The kids like to throw them at each other! :laugh: )

 

[Revmitchell]

This appears to be much like the mythical starving Polar Bears

 

[rbell]

Word has it that Al Gore hugged the trees too tightly, and smothered them.

It's probably the President's fault the oaks aren't producing will this year.

Rob

Priceless.

 

[Palatka51]

It could be just a cycle of nature, but I find it strange that the derth of acorns covers all kinds of oak trees. Could somethng man has done have pushed the oak trees past the tipping point?

No one knows.

Crabby,

You worry too much. God is in control and He takes care of the squirrel as well as the sparrow. If there was a bumper crop of acorns last year there will be a "bumper crop" of squirrels this year and they will have foraged the trees clean before they could have dropped the first acorn. Next year the squirrel population will be thinner and the acorn crop will be heavier. And the cycle continues. Sounds like your neighborhood should break out the recipe for squirrel stew. :laugh: