We feel so helpless when we see this, and there is nothing that we can do about it.
NOTE: This is a very sensitive story.
We have four of the latest squirrel litter here, and the little lady in the pictures is one of our favorites.
On this particular morning, we knew that something was wrong, because all of the little squirrels normally come to our place for breakfast, and this time they didn't. It was almost a whole day of noise, as garden services worked with loud machines to tidy up in the streets and we didn't see them the rest of the day either. Then on the second day, only three of them arrived in the morning, and later in the day the fourth one, a young female, came hobbling along. We felt that something was wrong, and it was indeed, but not what we expected.
I went into the study to take some shots of her through the window, so as not to disturb her. And you can see the way that she was sitting on her heels.
She hobbled across to sit at the other part of the garden.
And then, when she turned around, I got the shock of my life. She must have been in pain.
Just look at that. Her right back foot was frozen with a line that ran across the knuckles, and her left back foot was gone.
The injuries told us that she got singed by an electrical fence somewhere, as we have seen the scorch marks on birds before.
Thankfully none of the other three were caught by a electrical fence, as they looked fine during the breakfast session the next morning.
Later in the day this one was cleaning up an avocado pip, and you can see that its feet are fine.
We are so sad, as we haven't seen the injured one since and we don't think that she will make it. I am sure that the owners of the electrical fences would not have meant for little animals to get caught in it, as they install electrical fences here to keep burglars out. But then again, the installers of the huge wind turbines in the countryside did also not mean for the blades to injure and kill low flying birds.
Such is life.
Photos by Zac Smith. All-Rights-Reserved.
Camera: Canon PowershotSX70HS Bridge camera.
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