March 28, 2026 • 28 mins
In this week's Classic episode: In 1918, as the planet was consumed by World War I, the government of California found itself combating an unexpected and catastrophic enemy: Ground squirrels. The rodents were wreaking havoc across the countryside, consuming crops left and right. State horticulture commissioner George H. Hecke proposed an unorthodox solution -- enlist schoolchildren in a statewide massacre of all ground squirrels. Oddly enough, it worked.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Fellow Ridiculous Historians, Welcome back to this week's classic episode.
We are quickly approaching the moment Noel where our pal
Max Williams joins the show.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
That's true, and this is a really fun episode to
mark the occasion, or you know, at least getting close
to the occasion, that time California school children participated in
something called the Great Squirrel War.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
Oh my gosh, this is crazy. We don't even want
to spoil it. Let's just roll the tape.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Let's do it.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio Friends, Neighbors, Farmers,
(01:01):
city dwellers, rural and urban residents alike. Have you ever
had an infestation of pest, say, roaches or rats or
bats and so on? Hi, I'm ben.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
No no, but I did once have a pet squirrel
named mister Muffin Tops. Was this?
Speaker 1 (01:22):
Was it an animal that lived nearby or an animal
in a cage?
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Yes? Both? Okay, I made that up. I just wanted
to say mister muffin Tops and I would honestly be
terrified to have a squirrel for a pet. I'm very
skittish around creatures that have unpredictable movements and beady eyes,
which squirrels definitely do.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
I've had in my various stages of life, I've lived
in places that were infested with bats, possums, and of
course squirrels, which are wily creatures. I have a friend
here in Atlanta, where this podcast is based who raised
a squirrel in his apartment, and the squirrel was very friendly,
(02:04):
very nice. But eventually, you know, being wild animals, when
they reach adulthood, it's time to say goodbye.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
Right.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
It was a rescue squirrel, by the way, he didn't
steal it. But how could I mention infestations without talking
about one of the number one infestations in my heart
and yours? Null super producer Casey Pegram.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
It's just an infestation of joy and kindness, I know,
and goodwill towards humanity.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
Yes, yes, and even squirrels, I would imagine, Casey, did
you ever have an infestation in your house or your
neighborhood growing up?
Speaker 3 (02:41):
Yeah? Actually my parents' house, we had bats in the
attic and my room was upstairs, and so I was
the only one kind of in close proximity to said
bats like throughout the day, and I would just hear
these like kind of faint chirping sounds, and I, you know,
I reported this to my parents over and over tried
(03:02):
to get them to believe me, and they were just like, no,
it's just like a fan that's squeaky up there, you know.
And so one day my mom goes into the attic
and what does she see but a bat like feet
in front of her face, and she screams and freaks out,
and then they believe me about the bats after that point.
But I had actually gone as far as to like
take some of my audio recording gear and put it
(03:22):
up to the vent and like record them and then
boost it and post and you know, amplify the signal
enhanced and sounded like bats to me. But it required
a little more proof.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
You, really, I think you ended up in the wrong field.
You should have become. You should have been like a
like a ghostbuster for pasts exactly, forensic tools, meters and
all that.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
That's right, your Wanda monitor, yeah, exactly, Casey. On the case,
I had the same I'm bonding with you here, Casey,
because I had the same situation I was in. I
lived in a bonus room in our house and we
had we had this unfit thing that was pretty much
an attic but had a creepy door to it. And
(04:04):
I remember vividly those weird chirping noises, but once you
see them in your house, it's surprising. The point of
this relatively circuitous introduction is to say that there is
one thing that unifies a lot of homeowners across the world,
(04:25):
and that is that we like our outside animals to
stay outside. And we often, in the course of human civilization,
come into conflict with animals. And this is this is
something historically happens all the time. You know, there are
stories of locusts in ancient text there are stories of
(04:48):
other things. I'm off the top of the dome. Here, frogs,
there we go. You know, the plagues, the biblical ones
the locusts would eat, would decimate fields of grain and
other crops.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
And that's the thing. We like animals when they're cute
and cuddly, and they keep a healthy distance from us,
and they stay in their animal lanes. But as soon
as they start eating our lunch, it will not stand.
This is this animal aggression will not stand, my friends, and.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
We often band together as humans to cooperatively combat the
threats posed by wild animals. Today's story takes us all
the way back.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
To nineteen eighteen.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
As American soldiers were battling German forces in France, there
was an entirely new war going on in California, and
it used child.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
Soldiers of all places. Yeah, this is how a fantastic
article on Alice Obscura sets up this tale. And little
spoilerlerd here in nineteen eighteen, California drafted children into a
war on squirrels, is the title of this article by
the fantastic Dave Gilson. I had never heard of this
and the squirrel war. We know about war as real
(06:02):
wars that were started by all kinds of arbitrary things,
like there's the stray dog war, there was the one
about the camel, there was the one about like a bucket.
This is not a real war, but it involves some
anti German propaganda a little down the line. That's why
the setup works so well. But here's the thing. In California,
they were in the midst of a ground squirrel epidemic.
(06:26):
These little buggers were consuming about thirty million dollars worth
of crops, which if you enter that into the old
inflation calculator, it's approaching five hundred million dollars of food stuffs. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
Absolutely, I personally think squirrels are cute. I know they're
not for everybody, but I've also never been in a
situation where they are literally eating eating the food supply
on which I would depend. So these squirrels were not loved,
not lovable. They were seen as a source of pestilence,
(07:04):
you know, and they were thought to be a vector
for the plague. So California addressed the problem. And we've
got a great quote from State Horticulture Commissioner George h. Heck,
which is a cool name, so old Man Heck says,
we have enemies here at home, more destructive perhaps than
(07:24):
some of the enemies our boys are fighting and the trenches.
He said this as part of an impassioned call up
for what he called school soldiers to self organize, you know,
within your classroom, your friends, or your overall school to
eradicate these ground squirrels. In California as part of a
(07:45):
seven day event they called Squirrel Week. You know, because
a week is seven days long, is.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
That like Shark Week?
Speaker 1 (07:53):
It is a little more agro than Shark Week, but
deep cut, nice reference. Do we mention that on air.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
Back to the old, the old parent company. Yeah, back
several parent companies ago, Shark Week was was a regular
occurrence around the office.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
People still love Shark Week. That's still a thing, right, Yeah,
Shark Week is great. It's it's good stuff to watch.
I think what got us is way back in the
day when when we worked with Discovery, every podcast was
told to come up with something related to Shark Week.
And I don't know if I ever mentioned this to you,
but this was when Scott, Benjamin and I were still
doing car stuff and we see guys car stuff and sharks.
(08:34):
How do we make this work? But we did twice.
You can check about They're not They're not the best episodes, but.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
There I'm sure there are a lot of fun don
I enjoy that entire catalog and I miss it dearly,
just just like everyone else. It's true. But you know what,
forget move over Shark Week. It's time for Squirrel Week.
And what Squirrel Week was was a promotion that the
government pumped a pretty penny into to disseminate print and
(08:59):
dissemin pamphlets, posters, and all of all kinds of literature.
Because that's what you spent money on in those days.
I don't know, maybe some broadcast pieces, what do you think.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
Yeah, public speeches. California is set aside forty large from
their emergency wartime fund to create this Squirrel Week campaign.
And it was a pr blitz, as you said, around
thirty four thousand posters popped up around the state, half
(09:29):
a million leaflets and the pamphlet which you can see.
The pamphlet is not subtle.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
You can see.
Speaker 1 (09:38):
Victors of this in the article and then in archival
reports from papers of the time. It says it's a
nice old timey propaganda cartoon kind of approach, and it
says in the top left, kill the squirrels, and it
shows a mother or a teacher instructing children to scatter
(09:59):
poison bar and then it it shows squirrels in the
bottom mister and missus squirrel h dining on dining like.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
Kings, right, yeah, literally, and they've all got little speech
bubbles next to them. And it's like the caption for
this particular comic is our star borders as though they're
at some sort of bed and breakfast, like we're giving
them free you know, free room and board. And one
of the missus squirrel. I'm sorry, mister squirrel is saying,
(10:30):
wait time today, I'll have my favorite dish, whole wheat cakes.
And then missus squirrel replies, and you may save me
some nice young body.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
Sprouts, and she's holding up glasses like opera glasses, opera glasses.
And in the back behind the hapless waiter who has
a tag describing him as a farmer, there is a
sign that says Hotel California board bill for squirrels in
nineteen seventeen thirty million dollars. So that's the amount of
(10:59):
damage this ground squirrel infestation was doing to the agriculture
of California.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
Here's my favorite little detail. I actually didn't notice this
until just now. On the bottom outside of the circle
that's sort of the cartoon panel that's framing the squirrel
scene are two squirrels wearing those Kaiser Wilhelm kind of
spiked helmets. Yep. And that's the little touch of anti
German propaganda. And we'll hear more about that in some
(11:28):
of these other pamphlets.
Speaker 3 (11:30):
Right.
Speaker 1 (11:36):
So, what they wanted to do in this Squirrel Week
campaign was to inspire patriotism in kids who knew that
their relatives or maybe even one of their parents was
active in the war effort. They wanted these kids to
feel like they were doing their part by sprinkling rodent
side outside of these various squirrel burrows. The pamphlet even
(12:00):
included a recipe for strict nine laced grain, as well
as suggestions for other squirrel killing methods shooting, drowning, the
use of poisonous gas. This is heavy, heavy stuff for children,
but they knew that money talks, right. The heart may
want what it wants, but the pocketbook does too. So
(12:22):
just in case doing one's patriotic duty was not inspiration enough,
they also sweetened the pot with rewards for the kids
who killed the most squirrels.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
Yeah, it was a tiered rewards system, fifty bucks for
the winner at each elementary school. What the organization behind
this must have been pretty decent, right, Yeah, so fifty
bucks for the grand prize, and then you got your
runners up making thirty and twenty and ben you want
to you want to handy dandy inflation calculatron, those bad boys.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
Sure, fifty bucks is around eight hundred dollars today, zounds,
I know, especially Can you imagine you're in elementary school,
you get eight hundred.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
What are you gonna do with that? Buy more ammunition
for your red ryder bb gun. I imagine.
Speaker 1 (13:05):
I don't know, man, they might get in like this
feedback loop and just buy more strict nine.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
To poison the week. How many full blown psychopaths do
you think this program created? Ben?
Speaker 1 (13:16):
Probably about three hundred and seventeen.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
You put that on the inflation calculator.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
So if you got the runner up position and you
got thirty dollars, that was still five hundred dollars back then.
And then if you got twenty bucks, that was still
three hundred and thirty something dollars. So this is this
is good cash for psychopaths.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
Potential budding psychopaths, aspiring psychopaths, right totally. So the thing
that's that's really interesting is this was all happening during
World War One and there was always a need for propaganda,
and they were certainly able to sneak these messages into
this material for for Squirrel Week and start making the
squirrels like stand ins for the greater enemy at large,
(14:05):
and the language even really started to shift to some
slogans like this, he preys on our crops and countless hordes.
He fills the ranks of the killed in true military fashion.
You know why hesitate? We can get them, how poison them,
gas them, drown them, shoot them, trap them, submarinum. Why
(14:26):
do you submarin a squirrel?
Speaker 1 (14:28):
It feels like just a different way of saying drown them.
They also had neat little catchphrases. Right in one text,
it says millions of food must be saved. Slay the
mother squirrel during breeding season. March to me, remember a
squirrel in time saves killing nine.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
That's right, But that's.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
The there's a loophole with that. And I don't want
to be too cold, but if we are addressing the
reward system in play, then you would want to kill
nine squirrels. You wouldn't want to kill them early, you
know what I mean. They didn't think that all the
way through, but they had a lot of money on
the line, and with this creeping propaganda, with these squirrels
(15:10):
being painted increasingly as German soldiers, if we're being honest,
we see the cause move beyond the boundaries of California.
The US Food Administrator at the time, a guy named
Herbert Hoover, who would later go on to be President
heartily approved of this effort because he said they were
(15:34):
saving vast quantities of food which might otherwise be used
for support of our armies abroad. So we're not just
fighting pests in California, We're helping the war effort in Europe.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
Yeah, for sure. I mean it's just empowering. And again,
this is kids. This is directed at kids. This is
a school like box top program essentially, but instead of
box tops, you're bringing in squirrel tales or literally entire
dead squirrel carcasses. There's an image from the Internet archive
that's posted on this outs Obscure article where it is
(16:08):
a barbed wire fence hung with dozens of dead squirrels.
I mean, it is very macab. There's even instructions published
for how to hook up a tube to the exhaust
pipe of a car and fill squirrel burrows with carbon
monoxide to literally gas them out.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
And kids loved this exactly, just gleeful murder. Kids loved this.
They also, they loved it so much that some kids
were impatient. They didn't want to wait for all the tallies,
so they started sending squirrel carcasses directly to Commissioner. Heck,
even before squirrel Weeks started, so his office literally began
(16:48):
to reek, and he made a special request that children
no longer send him any more tales directly, and he
told all the county commissioners working for him, like, okay,
count the tales, keep the tally, but then please get
rid of them, bury them or something. Stop sending squirrel
tales to my office. My wife won't touch me, she says.
(17:10):
I wreak of death and rodents. I added that last part.
There's a little bit of poetic license.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
But it was a smashing success because I think they
tallied somewhere, you know, official number. The official number was
upwards of one hundred thousand squirrels dead were recorded, but
they you know, it's assumed that that it would have
exceeded that number by quite a lot, just with the
attitude of rampant squirrel murder that was, you know, pervasive
(17:39):
in all of California around this time, and that attitude
continued into the future even once the program expired. That's right.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
We don't know how long it lasted after Squirrel Week.
We do know, however, thanks to a report called California
Ground Squirrels, a bulletin dealing with life history habits and
control of the ground squirrels in California, that this this
machine could not switch on and off. This cultural impetus
that they had created, continued on and for a quote
(18:09):
indefinite period of time. Afterwards, these kids kept killing squirrels.
We do have one example, just to give us a
snapshot of the level of squirrel genocide occurring here in
lass In County. Later in the year there was another
anti squirrel campaign. One girl, one female student brought in
(18:30):
three thousand, seven hundred and eighty tails and one boy
brought in three thousand, seven hundred and seventy. So now
we have to ask ourselves, were these kids very very
talented squirrel assassins or were there just that many squirrels.
Were the hills, you know, alive with the chitters of squirrels?
Speaker 2 (18:51):
Yeah, the hills have eyes, my friend, tiny beady, fidgety
squirrel eyes and tails. Did we talk about the difference
between a bushy tailed tree square and a little bit
more of a skinny tailed, chipmunk looking ground squirrel?
Speaker 1 (19:04):
We have not. That's a that's a good call. Let's
get into that. So ground squirrels technically are known as
odo spermophyllis Beachi.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
Yeah, I was having a hard time with that second part.
Two's got the double e and then the why and
then the why. The plot twisty is a big plot
twist why. But I think maybe any intrepid, ridiculous historians
out there that are what do you call that? Squorel
squirrel ofphiles?
Speaker 1 (19:28):
You know, it's a good question. I don't know whether
we have in this language is specific word for squirrels,
but I do have good news. We can make one up.
The language is flexible enough. Let's see. We could say
squirrel ologists, which is which is tough?
Speaker 2 (19:46):
That's real?
Speaker 1 (19:47):
No? I mean, well it is, okay, got it?
Speaker 2 (19:49):
English is a malleable language for sure. Squirrel squirrel that's hard.
That's holologists. How about?
Speaker 1 (19:55):
Okay, So squirrels are part of the scuri day family,
so maybe they could call themselves scuriologists. That sounds a
little bit more legitimate. Although wait, now that I think
about it, and I've seen this question before somewhere, I
think rodentologist is actually a word. Squirrel Ologists might not be,
(20:15):
but rodentologists, I'll bet some scratch on that.
Speaker 2 (20:19):
Surely that must be a thing.
Speaker 1 (20:20):
All right, So rodentologist is probably the closest we'll get
until ridiculous historians we hear from you, because, as you said, Noel,
English is malleable. It is a living language, and you
know this might be interesting. Hey, Casey, what's the French
word for squirrel? I'm just curious to see whether that
would be easier.
Speaker 3 (20:41):
It's not easy. In fact, it's a weird one. The
French word for squirrel is rolls off the tongue, right, oh.
Speaker 1 (20:48):
Man, Casey, on the case, I think we might have
to stick with squirrel guys or rodentologist. Squirrel weekended on
May fourth. Children continued hunting and killing squirrels to combat
this campaign, and the state considered this a great success.
(21:13):
According to reports, the crop yields bounced back in areas
where squirrels had been eradicated, so there was a clear correlation.
But here we are a little more than a century later,
and ground squirrels are still considered insidious pest, you know
what I mean.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
Yeah, it's certainly insight that we're used to around here
in Georgia, But for me, it's more the tree squirrels
that I'm used to seeing and whenever I go somewhere else,
and I see a different type of pervasive rodent, like say,
chipmunks or whatever that weirds me out, because I totally
did not remark upon like squirrels are like pigeons in
New York City or something like that. Around here, it's
just a very common occurrence and they don't really threaten me.
(21:53):
But have you ever seen like a rogue squirrel that
I'll like, it looks a little slack jawed and like
like shamble too close to you, like it's got the
rabies or something that's no fun.
Speaker 1 (22:04):
Yeah, I mean a lot of people here hate squirrels,
and Casey, you were mentioning off air that some of
your friends from different parts of the world find squirrels
a little bit what spooky?
Speaker 3 (22:16):
Yeah, I guess. I mean it's hard to imagine as
an American who's been seeing them their whole life, but yeah,
if you're not used to it, apparently they can be
quite upsetting.
Speaker 1 (22:25):
I'll tell you know, as I was looking through the
differences of ground squirrels and tree squirrels, I feel like
I ran into squirrels before what ground squirrels before? Once
long ago, and it creeped me out because I saw
them crawling on the ground, you know, like belly on
the ground, and I thought they had had their I
(22:47):
thought they had their backs broken or something, until I
realized they were just that's just their method of locomotion.
This was in Arizona, So those may not have been
ground squirrels. Oh no, right in and let let us
know what those weird little rodents were. We see the
prejudice against ground squirrels continuing today. There was a University
(23:08):
of California web page about damage caused by ground squirrels,
and it featured an image of a squirrel wearing a
helmet and aiming at the ground with a bazooka. So
there is still a problem, and it is true, as
strange as it may sound, California did indeed recruit child
(23:28):
soldiers to wage war on ground.
Speaker 2 (23:31):
Squirrels, but they weren't the first or the last to
launch a tactical strike like this against these pasts. In
eighteen ninety seven, according to the same author as the
Atlas Obscure piece, in an interview he did with The
Washington Post, The Washington Post in fact, published a report
citing that thirty US states offered quote unquote bounties for
(23:55):
troublesome animals, including like panthers, the sinister ground score of course,
pocket gophers, woodchucks, English sparrows, and wolves. So this was
definitely a thing that there was a precedent for, and
Pennsylvania paid out around ninety thousand dollars in bounties for
(24:16):
chicken hawks. And this is really interesting because the Post wrote, quote,
it appears that Pennsylvania expended ninety thousand dollars in destroying
birds worth three million, eight hundred and fifty seven, two
hundred and thirty dollars for the sake of saving one thousand,
eight hundred and seventy five dollars to the poultry interest.
What they mean by that is that these very same
birds were actually killing thousands of mice each hawk one
(24:41):
thousand mice in a year's time, and then these were
very injurious to crops. So the math wasn't quite working
out there.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
Right, because it's I think at the time it was
easy to forget how complex and interlinked every organism in
an ecosystem is. It's sort of tough to figure out
who the real hope it may be, and it's even
more difficult to figure out what the long term ramifications
of an eradication campaign will be in the future. However, today,
(25:10):
if you are a school child listening to this and
you are anxious to join in a murderous campaign against
one type of animal or another, we have some tough
news for you. Nowadays, these sorts of expeditions are left
to professional exterminators, and as a matter of fact, in
(25:32):
many states, a common pest may be protected under law.
So to bring it all back around to the example
we had from super producer Casey Pegram Casey, I imagine
your family was not allowed to kill the bats.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
Is that correct?
Speaker 3 (25:49):
That is correct, although maybe I shouldn't tell this part
of the story, but said bat in the attic caught
my mom off guard and she kind of swung at
it and happened to kill the poor thing. So I
believe the rest were safely loaded out of the attic.
We had pest control person come over, and I think
they were able to shepherd them out without costing any
(26:12):
more bad lives.
Speaker 1 (26:13):
Casey on the Case, Casey on the Case. And this
concludes today's episode, but not our show. Tune in for
our next episode, when we explore a surprising opinion about
Confederate memorials. Is that giving away too much?
Speaker 3 (26:31):
No?
Speaker 2 (26:32):
Nope, nope.
Speaker 1 (26:32):
Okay, there we go, So thanks so much for tuning in.
We would love to hear your infestation stories. We would
like to hear about the common pest in your neck
of the global woods that seem normal to you but
amazing to outsiders. For instance, this is true, you guys,
a lot of people in Australia hate kangaroos.
Speaker 2 (26:53):
Did you know that?
Speaker 1 (26:54):
I think they're so cool?
Speaker 2 (26:55):
Well, they're probably just tired of them because they're just
popping out of the woodwork there and Australia, or maybe
not right in, let us let us know. Are they
really as prevalent as we've been led to believe from
crocodile dun dfilms?
Speaker 1 (27:07):
Right? Right? Shall we travel down to Australia to encounter
kangaroo's first hand? And you can write to us directly?
But wait, dramatic SOUNDQ please, Casey, We have a new
email address. Write to us at Ridiculous at iheartpodcastnetwork dot com.
(27:31):
You can also find us on social media, right nol.
Speaker 2 (27:34):
Yeah, you sure can. We've got a pretty pop in
Facebook group called the Ridiculous Historians, where all kinds of
fun things are happening every day, and that is at
the Ridiculous Historians on Facebook. You can also find us
on Instagram, you know if you like, or you can
find us personally where I am at Embryonic Insider.
Speaker 1 (27:50):
And I am in a burst of creativity at Ben Bolin.
Thanks as always to super producer Casey Pegram, Thanks to
Alex Williams who composed our track.
Speaker 2 (28:00):
Thanks to you, Ben Bolin for being the benniest Bolaniest
pal I could ever hope for. We'll see you next time.
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Fellow Ridiculous Historians, Welcome back to this week's classic episode.
We are quickly approaching the moment Noel where our pal
Max Williams joins the show.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
That's true, and this is a really fun episode to
mark the occasion, or you know, at least getting close
to the occasion, that time California school children participated in
something called the Great Squirrel War.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
Oh my gosh, this is crazy. We don't even want
to spoil it. Let's just roll the tape.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Let's do it.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio Friends, Neighbors, Farmers,
(01:01):
city dwellers, rural and urban residents alike. Have you ever
had an infestation of pest, say, roaches or rats or
bats and so on? Hi, I'm ben.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
No no, but I did once have a pet squirrel
named mister Muffin Tops. Was this?
Speaker 1 (01:22):
Was it an animal that lived nearby or an animal
in a cage?
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Yes? Both? Okay, I made that up. I just wanted
to say mister muffin Tops and I would honestly be
terrified to have a squirrel for a pet. I'm very
skittish around creatures that have unpredictable movements and beady eyes,
which squirrels definitely do.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
I've had in my various stages of life, I've lived
in places that were infested with bats, possums, and of
course squirrels, which are wily creatures. I have a friend
here in Atlanta, where this podcast is based who raised
a squirrel in his apartment, and the squirrel was very friendly,
(02:04):
very nice. But eventually, you know, being wild animals, when
they reach adulthood, it's time to say goodbye.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
Right.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
It was a rescue squirrel, by the way, he didn't
steal it. But how could I mention infestations without talking
about one of the number one infestations in my heart
and yours? Null super producer Casey Pegram.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
It's just an infestation of joy and kindness, I know,
and goodwill towards humanity.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
Yes, yes, and even squirrels, I would imagine, Casey, did
you ever have an infestation in your house or your
neighborhood growing up?
Speaker 3 (02:41):
Yeah? Actually my parents' house, we had bats in the
attic and my room was upstairs, and so I was
the only one kind of in close proximity to said
bats like throughout the day, and I would just hear
these like kind of faint chirping sounds, and I, you know,
I reported this to my parents over and over tried
(03:02):
to get them to believe me, and they were just like, no,
it's just like a fan that's squeaky up there, you know.
And so one day my mom goes into the attic
and what does she see but a bat like feet
in front of her face, and she screams and freaks out,
and then they believe me about the bats after that point.
But I had actually gone as far as to like
take some of my audio recording gear and put it
(03:22):
up to the vent and like record them and then
boost it and post and you know, amplify the signal
enhanced and sounded like bats to me. But it required
a little more proof.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
You, really, I think you ended up in the wrong field.
You should have become. You should have been like a
like a ghostbuster for pasts exactly, forensic tools, meters and
all that.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
That's right, your Wanda monitor, yeah, exactly, Casey. On the case,
I had the same I'm bonding with you here, Casey,
because I had the same situation I was in. I
lived in a bonus room in our house and we
had we had this unfit thing that was pretty much
an attic but had a creepy door to it. And
(04:04):
I remember vividly those weird chirping noises, but once you
see them in your house, it's surprising. The point of
this relatively circuitous introduction is to say that there is
one thing that unifies a lot of homeowners across the world,
(04:25):
and that is that we like our outside animals to
stay outside. And we often, in the course of human civilization,
come into conflict with animals. And this is this is
something historically happens all the time. You know, there are
stories of locusts in ancient text there are stories of
(04:48):
other things. I'm off the top of the dome. Here, frogs,
there we go. You know, the plagues, the biblical ones
the locusts would eat, would decimate fields of grain and
other crops.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
And that's the thing. We like animals when they're cute
and cuddly, and they keep a healthy distance from us,
and they stay in their animal lanes. But as soon
as they start eating our lunch, it will not stand.
This is this animal aggression will not stand, my friends, and.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
We often band together as humans to cooperatively combat the
threats posed by wild animals. Today's story takes us all
the way back.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
To nineteen eighteen.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
As American soldiers were battling German forces in France, there
was an entirely new war going on in California, and
it used child.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
Soldiers of all places. Yeah, this is how a fantastic
article on Alice Obscura sets up this tale. And little
spoilerlerd here in nineteen eighteen, California drafted children into a
war on squirrels, is the title of this article by
the fantastic Dave Gilson. I had never heard of this
and the squirrel war. We know about war as real
(06:02):
wars that were started by all kinds of arbitrary things,
like there's the stray dog war, there was the one
about the camel, there was the one about like a bucket.
This is not a real war, but it involves some
anti German propaganda a little down the line. That's why
the setup works so well. But here's the thing. In California,
they were in the midst of a ground squirrel epidemic.
(06:26):
These little buggers were consuming about thirty million dollars worth
of crops, which if you enter that into the old
inflation calculator, it's approaching five hundred million dollars of food stuffs. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
Absolutely, I personally think squirrels are cute. I know they're
not for everybody, but I've also never been in a
situation where they are literally eating eating the food supply
on which I would depend. So these squirrels were not loved,
not lovable. They were seen as a source of pestilence,
(07:04):
you know, and they were thought to be a vector
for the plague. So California addressed the problem. And we've
got a great quote from State Horticulture Commissioner George h. Heck,
which is a cool name, so old Man Heck says,
we have enemies here at home, more destructive perhaps than
(07:24):
some of the enemies our boys are fighting and the trenches.
He said this as part of an impassioned call up
for what he called school soldiers to self organize, you know,
within your classroom, your friends, or your overall school to
eradicate these ground squirrels. In California as part of a
(07:45):
seven day event they called Squirrel Week. You know, because
a week is seven days long, is.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
That like Shark Week?
Speaker 1 (07:53):
It is a little more agro than Shark Week, but
deep cut, nice reference. Do we mention that on air.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
Back to the old, the old parent company. Yeah, back
several parent companies ago, Shark Week was was a regular
occurrence around the office.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
People still love Shark Week. That's still a thing, right, Yeah,
Shark Week is great. It's it's good stuff to watch.
I think what got us is way back in the
day when when we worked with Discovery, every podcast was
told to come up with something related to Shark Week.
And I don't know if I ever mentioned this to you,
but this was when Scott, Benjamin and I were still
doing car stuff and we see guys car stuff and sharks.
(08:34):
How do we make this work? But we did twice.
You can check about They're not They're not the best episodes, but.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
There I'm sure there are a lot of fun don
I enjoy that entire catalog and I miss it dearly,
just just like everyone else. It's true. But you know what,
forget move over Shark Week. It's time for Squirrel Week.
And what Squirrel Week was was a promotion that the
government pumped a pretty penny into to disseminate print and
(08:59):
dissemin pamphlets, posters, and all of all kinds of literature.
Because that's what you spent money on in those days.
I don't know, maybe some broadcast pieces, what do you think.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
Yeah, public speeches. California is set aside forty large from
their emergency wartime fund to create this Squirrel Week campaign.
And it was a pr blitz, as you said, around
thirty four thousand posters popped up around the state, half
(09:29):
a million leaflets and the pamphlet which you can see.
The pamphlet is not subtle.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
You can see.
Speaker 1 (09:38):
Victors of this in the article and then in archival
reports from papers of the time. It says it's a
nice old timey propaganda cartoon kind of approach, and it
says in the top left, kill the squirrels, and it
shows a mother or a teacher instructing children to scatter
(09:59):
poison bar and then it it shows squirrels in the
bottom mister and missus squirrel h dining on dining like.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
Kings, right, yeah, literally, and they've all got little speech
bubbles next to them. And it's like the caption for
this particular comic is our star borders as though they're
at some sort of bed and breakfast, like we're giving
them free you know, free room and board. And one
of the missus squirrel. I'm sorry, mister squirrel is saying,
(10:30):
wait time today, I'll have my favorite dish, whole wheat cakes.
And then missus squirrel replies, and you may save me
some nice young body.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
Sprouts, and she's holding up glasses like opera glasses, opera glasses.
And in the back behind the hapless waiter who has
a tag describing him as a farmer, there is a
sign that says Hotel California board bill for squirrels in
nineteen seventeen thirty million dollars. So that's the amount of
(10:59):
damage this ground squirrel infestation was doing to the agriculture
of California.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
Here's my favorite little detail. I actually didn't notice this
until just now. On the bottom outside of the circle
that's sort of the cartoon panel that's framing the squirrel
scene are two squirrels wearing those Kaiser Wilhelm kind of
spiked helmets. Yep. And that's the little touch of anti
German propaganda. And we'll hear more about that in some
(11:28):
of these other pamphlets.
Speaker 3 (11:30):
Right.
Speaker 1 (11:36):
So, what they wanted to do in this Squirrel Week
campaign was to inspire patriotism in kids who knew that
their relatives or maybe even one of their parents was
active in the war effort. They wanted these kids to
feel like they were doing their part by sprinkling rodent
side outside of these various squirrel burrows. The pamphlet even
(12:00):
included a recipe for strict nine laced grain, as well
as suggestions for other squirrel killing methods shooting, drowning, the
use of poisonous gas. This is heavy, heavy stuff for children,
but they knew that money talks, right. The heart may
want what it wants, but the pocketbook does too. So
(12:22):
just in case doing one's patriotic duty was not inspiration enough,
they also sweetened the pot with rewards for the kids
who killed the most squirrels.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
Yeah, it was a tiered rewards system, fifty bucks for
the winner at each elementary school. What the organization behind
this must have been pretty decent, right, Yeah, so fifty
bucks for the grand prize, and then you got your
runners up making thirty and twenty and ben you want
to you want to handy dandy inflation calculatron, those bad boys.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
Sure, fifty bucks is around eight hundred dollars today, zounds,
I know, especially Can you imagine you're in elementary school,
you get eight hundred.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
What are you gonna do with that? Buy more ammunition
for your red ryder bb gun. I imagine.
Speaker 1 (13:05):
I don't know, man, they might get in like this
feedback loop and just buy more strict nine.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
To poison the week. How many full blown psychopaths do
you think this program created? Ben?
Speaker 1 (13:16):
Probably about three hundred and seventeen.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
You put that on the inflation calculator.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
So if you got the runner up position and you
got thirty dollars, that was still five hundred dollars back then.
And then if you got twenty bucks, that was still
three hundred and thirty something dollars. So this is this
is good cash for psychopaths.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
Potential budding psychopaths, aspiring psychopaths, right totally. So the thing
that's that's really interesting is this was all happening during
World War One and there was always a need for propaganda,
and they were certainly able to sneak these messages into
this material for for Squirrel Week and start making the
squirrels like stand ins for the greater enemy at large,
(14:05):
and the language even really started to shift to some
slogans like this, he preys on our crops and countless hordes.
He fills the ranks of the killed in true military fashion.
You know why hesitate? We can get them, how poison them,
gas them, drown them, shoot them, trap them, submarinum. Why
(14:26):
do you submarin a squirrel?
Speaker 1 (14:28):
It feels like just a different way of saying drown them.
They also had neat little catchphrases. Right in one text,
it says millions of food must be saved. Slay the
mother squirrel during breeding season. March to me, remember a
squirrel in time saves killing nine.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
That's right, But that's.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
The there's a loophole with that. And I don't want
to be too cold, but if we are addressing the
reward system in play, then you would want to kill
nine squirrels. You wouldn't want to kill them early, you
know what I mean. They didn't think that all the
way through, but they had a lot of money on
the line, and with this creeping propaganda, with these squirrels
(15:10):
being painted increasingly as German soldiers, if we're being honest,
we see the cause move beyond the boundaries of California.
The US Food Administrator at the time, a guy named
Herbert Hoover, who would later go on to be President
heartily approved of this effort because he said they were
(15:34):
saving vast quantities of food which might otherwise be used
for support of our armies abroad. So we're not just
fighting pests in California, We're helping the war effort in Europe.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
Yeah, for sure. I mean it's just empowering. And again,
this is kids. This is directed at kids. This is
a school like box top program essentially, but instead of
box tops, you're bringing in squirrel tales or literally entire
dead squirrel carcasses. There's an image from the Internet archive
that's posted on this outs Obscure article where it is
(16:08):
a barbed wire fence hung with dozens of dead squirrels.
I mean, it is very macab. There's even instructions published
for how to hook up a tube to the exhaust
pipe of a car and fill squirrel burrows with carbon
monoxide to literally gas them out.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
And kids loved this exactly, just gleeful murder. Kids loved this.
They also, they loved it so much that some kids
were impatient. They didn't want to wait for all the tallies,
so they started sending squirrel carcasses directly to Commissioner. Heck,
even before squirrel Weeks started, so his office literally began
(16:48):
to reek, and he made a special request that children
no longer send him any more tales directly, and he
told all the county commissioners working for him, like, okay,
count the tales, keep the tally, but then please get
rid of them, bury them or something. Stop sending squirrel
tales to my office. My wife won't touch me, she says.
(17:10):
I wreak of death and rodents. I added that last part.
There's a little bit of poetic license.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
But it was a smashing success because I think they
tallied somewhere, you know, official number. The official number was
upwards of one hundred thousand squirrels dead were recorded, but
they you know, it's assumed that that it would have
exceeded that number by quite a lot, just with the
attitude of rampant squirrel murder that was, you know, pervasive
(17:39):
in all of California around this time, and that attitude
continued into the future even once the program expired. That's right.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
We don't know how long it lasted after Squirrel Week.
We do know, however, thanks to a report called California
Ground Squirrels, a bulletin dealing with life history habits and
control of the ground squirrels in California, that this this
machine could not switch on and off. This cultural impetus
that they had created, continued on and for a quote
(18:09):
indefinite period of time. Afterwards, these kids kept killing squirrels.
We do have one example, just to give us a
snapshot of the level of squirrel genocide occurring here in
lass In County. Later in the year there was another
anti squirrel campaign. One girl, one female student brought in
(18:30):
three thousand, seven hundred and eighty tails and one boy
brought in three thousand, seven hundred and seventy. So now
we have to ask ourselves, were these kids very very
talented squirrel assassins or were there just that many squirrels.
Were the hills, you know, alive with the chitters of squirrels?
Speaker 2 (18:51):
Yeah, the hills have eyes, my friend, tiny beady, fidgety
squirrel eyes and tails. Did we talk about the difference
between a bushy tailed tree square and a little bit
more of a skinny tailed, chipmunk looking ground squirrel?
Speaker 1 (19:04):
We have not. That's a that's a good call. Let's
get into that. So ground squirrels technically are known as
odo spermophyllis Beachi.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
Yeah, I was having a hard time with that second part.
Two's got the double e and then the why and
then the why. The plot twisty is a big plot
twist why. But I think maybe any intrepid, ridiculous historians
out there that are what do you call that? Squorel
squirrel ofphiles?
Speaker 1 (19:28):
You know, it's a good question. I don't know whether
we have in this language is specific word for squirrels,
but I do have good news. We can make one up.
The language is flexible enough. Let's see. We could say
squirrel ologists, which is which is tough?
Speaker 2 (19:46):
That's real?
Speaker 1 (19:47):
No? I mean, well it is, okay, got it?
Speaker 2 (19:49):
English is a malleable language for sure. Squirrel squirrel that's hard.
That's holologists. How about?
Speaker 1 (19:55):
Okay, So squirrels are part of the scuri day family,
so maybe they could call themselves scuriologists. That sounds a
little bit more legitimate. Although wait, now that I think
about it, and I've seen this question before somewhere, I
think rodentologist is actually a word. Squirrel Ologists might not be,
(20:15):
but rodentologists, I'll bet some scratch on that.
Speaker 2 (20:19):
Surely that must be a thing.
Speaker 1 (20:20):
All right, So rodentologist is probably the closest we'll get
until ridiculous historians we hear from you, because, as you said, Noel,
English is malleable. It is a living language, and you
know this might be interesting. Hey, Casey, what's the French
word for squirrel? I'm just curious to see whether that
would be easier.
Speaker 3 (20:41):
It's not easy. In fact, it's a weird one. The
French word for squirrel is rolls off the tongue, right, oh.
Speaker 1 (20:48):
Man, Casey, on the case, I think we might have
to stick with squirrel guys or rodentologist. Squirrel weekended on
May fourth. Children continued hunting and killing squirrels to combat
this campaign, and the state considered this a great success.
(21:13):
According to reports, the crop yields bounced back in areas
where squirrels had been eradicated, so there was a clear correlation.
But here we are a little more than a century later,
and ground squirrels are still considered insidious pest, you know
what I mean.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
Yeah, it's certainly insight that we're used to around here
in Georgia, But for me, it's more the tree squirrels
that I'm used to seeing and whenever I go somewhere else,
and I see a different type of pervasive rodent, like say,
chipmunks or whatever that weirds me out, because I totally
did not remark upon like squirrels are like pigeons in
New York City or something like that. Around here, it's
just a very common occurrence and they don't really threaten me.
(21:53):
But have you ever seen like a rogue squirrel that
I'll like, it looks a little slack jawed and like
like shamble too close to you, like it's got the
rabies or something that's no fun.
Speaker 1 (22:04):
Yeah, I mean a lot of people here hate squirrels,
and Casey, you were mentioning off air that some of
your friends from different parts of the world find squirrels
a little bit what spooky?
Speaker 3 (22:16):
Yeah, I guess. I mean it's hard to imagine as
an American who's been seeing them their whole life, but yeah,
if you're not used to it, apparently they can be
quite upsetting.
Speaker 1 (22:25):
I'll tell you know, as I was looking through the
differences of ground squirrels and tree squirrels, I feel like
I ran into squirrels before what ground squirrels before? Once
long ago, and it creeped me out because I saw
them crawling on the ground, you know, like belly on
the ground, and I thought they had had their I
(22:47):
thought they had their backs broken or something, until I
realized they were just that's just their method of locomotion.
This was in Arizona, So those may not have been
ground squirrels. Oh no, right in and let let us
know what those weird little rodents were. We see the
prejudice against ground squirrels continuing today. There was a University
(23:08):
of California web page about damage caused by ground squirrels,
and it featured an image of a squirrel wearing a
helmet and aiming at the ground with a bazooka. So
there is still a problem, and it is true, as
strange as it may sound, California did indeed recruit child
(23:28):
soldiers to wage war on ground.
Speaker 2 (23:31):
Squirrels, but they weren't the first or the last to
launch a tactical strike like this against these pasts. In
eighteen ninety seven, according to the same author as the
Atlas Obscure piece, in an interview he did with The
Washington Post, The Washington Post in fact, published a report
citing that thirty US states offered quote unquote bounties for
(23:55):
troublesome animals, including like panthers, the sinister ground score of course,
pocket gophers, woodchucks, English sparrows, and wolves. So this was
definitely a thing that there was a precedent for, and
Pennsylvania paid out around ninety thousand dollars in bounties for
(24:16):
chicken hawks. And this is really interesting because the Post wrote, quote,
it appears that Pennsylvania expended ninety thousand dollars in destroying
birds worth three million, eight hundred and fifty seven, two
hundred and thirty dollars for the sake of saving one thousand,
eight hundred and seventy five dollars to the poultry interest.
What they mean by that is that these very same
birds were actually killing thousands of mice each hawk one
(24:41):
thousand mice in a year's time, and then these were
very injurious to crops. So the math wasn't quite working
out there.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
Right, because it's I think at the time it was
easy to forget how complex and interlinked every organism in
an ecosystem is. It's sort of tough to figure out
who the real hope it may be, and it's even
more difficult to figure out what the long term ramifications
of an eradication campaign will be in the future. However, today,
(25:10):
if you are a school child listening to this and
you are anxious to join in a murderous campaign against
one type of animal or another, we have some tough
news for you. Nowadays, these sorts of expeditions are left
to professional exterminators, and as a matter of fact, in
(25:32):
many states, a common pest may be protected under law.
So to bring it all back around to the example
we had from super producer Casey Pegram Casey, I imagine
your family was not allowed to kill the bats.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
Is that correct?
Speaker 3 (25:49):
That is correct, although maybe I shouldn't tell this part
of the story, but said bat in the attic caught
my mom off guard and she kind of swung at
it and happened to kill the poor thing. So I
believe the rest were safely loaded out of the attic.
We had pest control person come over, and I think
they were able to shepherd them out without costing any
(26:12):
more bad lives.
Speaker 1 (26:13):
Casey on the Case, Casey on the Case. And this
concludes today's episode, but not our show. Tune in for
our next episode, when we explore a surprising opinion about
Confederate memorials. Is that giving away too much?
Speaker 3 (26:31):
No?
Speaker 2 (26:32):
Nope, nope.
Speaker 1 (26:32):
Okay, there we go, So thanks so much for tuning in.
We would love to hear your infestation stories. We would
like to hear about the common pest in your neck
of the global woods that seem normal to you but
amazing to outsiders. For instance, this is true, you guys,
a lot of people in Australia hate kangaroos.
Speaker 2 (26:53):
Did you know that?
Speaker 1 (26:54):
I think they're so cool?
Speaker 2 (26:55):
Well, they're probably just tired of them because they're just
popping out of the woodwork there and Australia, or maybe
not right in, let us let us know. Are they
really as prevalent as we've been led to believe from
crocodile dun dfilms?
Speaker 1 (27:07):
Right? Right? Shall we travel down to Australia to encounter
kangaroo's first hand? And you can write to us directly?
But wait, dramatic SOUNDQ please, Casey, We have a new
email address. Write to us at Ridiculous at iheartpodcastnetwork dot com.
(27:31):
You can also find us on social media, right nol.
Speaker 2 (27:34):
Yeah, you sure can. We've got a pretty pop in
Facebook group called the Ridiculous Historians, where all kinds of
fun things are happening every day, and that is at
the Ridiculous Historians on Facebook. You can also find us
on Instagram, you know if you like, or you can
find us personally where I am at Embryonic Insider.
Speaker 1 (27:50):
And I am in a burst of creativity at Ben Bolin.
Thanks as always to super producer Casey Pegram, Thanks to
Alex Williams who composed our track.
Speaker 2 (28:00):
Thanks to you, Ben Bolin for being the benniest Bolaniest
pal I could ever hope for. We'll see you next time.
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History News
Hosts And Creators
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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