{"id":391,"date":"2007-06-04T10:11:47","date_gmt":"2007-06-04T17:11:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vernabob.com\/blog\/2007\/06\/04\/tree-squirrel\/"},"modified":"2007-06-04T10:11:47","modified_gmt":"2007-06-04T17:11:47","slug":"tree-squirrel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/vernabob.com\/blog\/2007\/06\/04\/tree-squirrel\/","title":{"rendered":"Tree Squirrel"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" id=\"image390\" src=\"http:\/\/vernabob.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/06\/tree-squirrel.jpg\" alt=\"tree-squirrel\" class=\"right\" \/>Sometimes I see squirrels foraging around the grounds adjacent to the Manhattan Beach Marriott when I take my after-lunch walks. You might think these are just little cute guys looking for a handout, but in reality, they are a potential menace. Yep &#8212; squirrels are like rats &#8212; only they have better press agents.<\/p>\n<p><em>Image: squirrel foraging near Marriott Hotel<\/em><\/p>\n<p>From WikiPedia:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Squirrels are often the cause of electricity outages. The animals will enter transformers or capacitors looking for food. The squirrels are then electrocuted and cause a power surge that shorts equipment. Squirrels have brought down the high-tech NASDAQ stock market twice and were responsible for a spate of power outages at the University of Alabama. They will often chew on tree branches to sharpen their teeth but cannot tell the difference between a tree branch and a live power line. Rubber plates are sometimes used to prevent access to these facilities.<\/p>\n<p>Squirrels caused 177 power outages in Lincoln, Nebraska, in 1980, which was 24% of all outages. Estimated annual costs were $23,364 for repairs, public relations, and lost revenue. In Omaha, in 1985, squirrels caused 332 outages costing at least $47,144. After squirrel guards were installed over pole-mounted transformers in Lincoln in 1985, annual costs were reduced 78% to $5,148.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sometimes I see squirrels foraging around the grounds adjacent to the Manhattan Beach Marriott when I take my after-lunch walks. You might think these are just&#46;&#46;&#46;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-391","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-critters","category-photography"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/vernabob.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/391","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/vernabob.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/vernabob.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/vernabob.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/vernabob.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=391"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/vernabob.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/391\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/vernabob.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=391"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/vernabob.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=391"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/vernabob.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=391"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}