I was sitting the other day when a rather surreal conversation about a plague of squirrels broke out. It seems these rodents are driving gardeners and bird lovers…. Well… Squirrelly. Whether eating plant roots or bird seed both groups are being driven to contemplate squirrel-cide,

Hmmm. A rather interesting question of poetic justice occurs to me. Is this plague a result of a population explosion or a population displacement? In the mindless drive to drive the homeless anywhere but in my backyard many patches of trees and brush were ripped out and left bare. Trees and brush that also served as home to wildlife such as – squirrels.

If this habitat destruction is in fact contributing to this plague of squirrelly behaviour it serves to underline the dangers of unthinking reaction. No one bothered to ask just where it was they expected the homeless to go when driven from where they were residing. Their habitat destruction just forced the homeless into view on the streets and into residential neighbourhoods. Just as the homeless were forced into residential neighbourhoods, the squirrels were forced to relocate as well.

When you do not think about how to actually accomplish the results you want, all to often you waste resources and at best accomplish nothing or set in motion a whole series of new, more aggravating and complex problems. Which suggests the police may want to seriously reconsider their return to harassing and moving from one spot to another the homeless. Otherwise they will just have to live with any unwanted or unintended consequences, running the risk of driving themselves squirrelly.