“One time I saw a squirrel take a whole molasses cookie up a tree in its mouth. Another time I saw [one with] a whole bagel on a tree branch!” said Noah Good ’23. “They’re built different.” Here at Smith, the squirrels are everywhere, as much a part of the campus setting as the buildings and lawns, and they don’t go unnoticed. I talked to different members of the Smith community about why they think squirrels here are unique.
For many, the first thing that comes to mind is food. Students have caught squirrels all over campus with a crazy assortment of edible and questionably edible items. Squirrels have been seen opening an Almond Joy packet outside of Neilson, eating an entire pancake from the Chase/Duckett dining hall and holding a whole apple cider donut on the Wilder/Comstock steps, according to Julia Kopp ’25, Amelia Bond ’25 and Leah Corckran ’25 respectively. Corckran added, “There were no events with donuts on campus that day.”
The abundance of food around Smith campus provides a lot for squirrels to work with, especially around holidays and special events such as Halloween. Emily Buck ’24 once saw a squirrel “sitting inside a pumpkin eating it from the inside.” Buck added that it was among the examples of best squirrel activity they’ve seen on campus.
Some people have noticed more intense moments between the squirrels and their food. “I have literally seen them borderline carnivorous,” said Avery Cook ’24. “One time I saw one eat a chicken nugget from the CC and you could see the moment he ate past the breading and reached the meat and the look in his eyes was not one of disgust but confusion mixed with bloodlust.”
Other times, the squirrels’ hunt for food pushes them into interacting with students; some are strangely sweet and others are scarier. “They have no fear. Like one of them chased my friend because it knew they had trail mix,” said Iz Thompson ’24. Hero Hendrick-Baker ’23J shared a story of a different, politer squirrel’s quest for food: “A Smith squirrel came up to me when I was locking my bike one time and put its paw on my leg. I was so startled that I just looked down at it as it tilted its head at me and just stayed there with its hand on my leg (probably waiting for food). It was such a human gesture.”
For those with interactions with squirrels outside of Smith, this boldness is somewhat surprising. “Having grown up in NYC where squirrels are everywhere and all they do is run from anything, I’m amazed by the Smith squirrels’ comfort with their surroundings!” said Chlo Droumenq ’25. “Specifically, my dog loves to play with them and it seems like they have some interest too, on multiple occasions they’ve stood still watching her try to slyly inch her way closer to them before running away right when she tries to pounce,” Droumenq added.
The squirrels are not only food-hungry pests; students have had sweeter interaction with them as well. “I love how they follow you around if you try hard enough,” said Brenna Curley ‘25. Raia Gutman ’26 shared “Once I saw a squirrel and I said to it ‘you’re so cute’ and it pointed at its little chest like ‘me?’”
Of course, there are other animals on Smith’s campus that also interact with the squirrels. Gillian Kendall, Professor of English Language and Literature, shared a story of watching a hawk try to catch a squirrel. According to Kendall, outside the Campus Center, the hawk circled a few times before diving at a squirrel by a tree. However, the hawk’s depth perception must have been off, since instead of grabbing the squirrel it banged right into the tree trunk and the squirrel scurried off. The hawk didn’t fly away right away, but perched on the rail by the CC for a while longer, Kendall said.
For those who live outside of Smith’s campus, squirrels — and their fellow Sciuridae cousins, the chipmunks — still have a presence. One faculty member who asked to remain anonymous began trapping and releasing chipmunks at her home about two years ago, after she found they were destroying her garden. When first researching how to deal with the problem, she came across bucket traps, but because these would drown the chipmunks, she opted for trap and release instead.
The traps she uses consist of a narrow entrance that the chipmunks go into, before getting caught in the larger container behind it. When she sets them out, this professor said she tries to collect them within twelve hours and then takes the caught chipmunks to the CVS in Easthampton, which has a grassy area by the parking lot when she leaves them. “When I go, sometimes there are other chipmunks there watching me,” she shared. “I wonder if they are ones that I previously released?” she mused.
While the practice started out as a purely practical one, this professor said she has gotten invested in the process. “Chipmunks can transform a seemingly peaceful and rational … professor into a Machine of War.” She wrote in an email. “Thank goodness none of my students has ever witnessed me running through the garden in my pajamas while hurling profanity at the chipmunks.” She added, however, that she has found the practice enjoyable as well. This past year, the chipmunk activity in her garden has been noticeably less than in past years, she noted with some concern.
Whether you experience squirrels and their Sciuridae friends in your garden, in the campus trees, or badgering you for food, it’s hard to argue that these creatures aren’t a part of daily life at and around Smith: at the same time sweet but scary; irritating yet cute; inquisitive and bold.
