Tails of Compassion: My 24 Hours with "Billy Graham"

The other evening I arrived home at about 6:00. Immediately my ears became aware of a different sort of sound- an animal no doubt- a high pitched chirpy wine, almost birdlike, but different and more insistent. I followed the sound into the garden to the patch of red clover cover behind the corn, and found who was to eventually become known as "Billy Graham," a tiny furry squirrel with eyes still closed from birth. He stumbled blindly through the foliage, crying and yelling for his mama.

At this point in the story I will stop and comment for a moment. The first thing I will say is, I do not know for the life of me how anyone, I mean Anyone, can encounter a baby animal of any sort and respond with anything other than unadulterated care and compassion. Even if the ultimate action chosen is to kill, is there not a biologically hard-wired response to help and care for the helpless babies? Someone, no names will be mentioned, said to me upon hearing of my night with Billy Graham- "Why all the fuss- it's just a squirrel- a tree rat," and went on to inform me that his/her course of action would be to put it in a bucket and drown it. A) I think that is bullcrap- I don't think this person would kill anything, and B) I am convinced that the response I had to Billy Graham is one that pretty much anyone would have.

First I picked up Billy Graham and talked pretty to him for a good long time while I thought. While I was thinking and pretty talking I heard the demanding chatter of an adult squirrel coming from the woods, not too far away. I followed the sound, carrying Billy Graham in the palm of my hand, until I saw a messy nest of leaves up in a tree in the general vicinity of the chattering adult. I decided to leave Billy Graham in a flat nook at the base of a nearby hemlock tree and give him a chance to be fetched by his mother before dark. I wished him well and set off to do some chores.

At just dark, I returned to the hemlock tree where I had left Billy Graham, and found him curled up in a tiny ball, sleeping soundly. I figured he didn't stand much of a chance overnight on his own like that, so I gently scooped him up, startling him into a brief fit of spastic yelps, and took him down with me to the camper. I didn't have much on hand in the way of baby squirrel formula, so I heated a bit of raw cow's milk and fed it to Billy Graham through a tincture dropper. I tried to feed him slowly enough that it wouldn't give him a belly ache. When I reckoned he had had enough, I put him into a bus tub with dry sawdust and leaves. He immediately burrowed down to the bottom of the bedding, managing to completely hide himself and insulate his wee little body from the nighttime chill.

The next morning, Billy Graham woke up hungry. I gave him a couple more droppers of the warmed milk and left him in his little box under the hemlock when I went to work, hoping that he would wake up hungry and cry for his mama- and that she would come for him in the daylight.

All day long I thought about Billy Graham, wondering how he was faring, and thinking of what I would do if I came home and he was still there. I posed a question to my co-workers: If any of them happened to be a lactating woman, would they extract a little of their own milk and feed it to Billy Graham with a dropper. Most of the answers were a grossed out negative. I was curious where people drew the line. My answer was hands down, without even thinking about it- of course I would. The instinct to help a baby seems so natural and it's not like one that small would require a lot of it.

On the way home from work I bought some goat's milk to feed Billy Graham in case he was still there. My neighbor said that cow's milk is really hard on a baby squirrel but that goat's is easier. When I got home he was gone. I found out that Todd had been up there working and heard Billy Graham screaming and went into the woods to find that he had climbed out of his box and was stumbling around 30 ft away, crying of hunger. Todd fell in love and fed him some milk through the dropper, which was laying out, and returned him to the box. What happened in the 2 hours between that feeding and when I came home will remain a mystery. Did Billy Graham wander away? Did his mother come for him? Did a natural predator eat him up and survive another day by the bounties of the forest?

I am completely comfortable not knowing the fate of Billy Graham. I wish him the best- I knew him to be a survivor with a lot of vitality left in him. Mostly I will remember him for how strongly he made me aware of my core inclination to help animals. Somehow it is comforting to remember that Life wants to perpetuate Life. I believe it is one of the great laws of the planet we live on, and the fact that it crosses the boundaries of species and rationality brings me much delight.