"Sherry " <sriddles@aol.comkitty> wrote in

I'm afraid so. Nikki, huntress extraordinaire, isn't such a surprise, but
she has only killed a half-grown squirrel, but Frank has killed a grown-up
one. I have no idea how he managed it. I saw him follow a squirrel into the
woods, the squirrel was jumping from treetop to treetop and Frank was
following on the ground. Some time later he came out of the woods with the
squirrel in his mouth. My sister claims the squirrel must have fallen down
from the tree laughing at my Frank, who is not known for his hunting
prowess, or that Frank found another, dead squirrel on the ground. (Sorry
about the morbid humour, we're like that in our family.) I didn't like it of
course, but then I kept telling myself squirrels are terrible marauders of
birds' nests, so Frank did all the little birdies a favour.

Gross Warning!! BTW, do you know how I dispose of all the carcasses that
Nikki brings home? We don't have running water or a municipal garbage
service out on the island, so I put them in the big anthills that we have
there. They clean away a carcass, furs and bones and all, in a couple of
days. Mum does complain that I feed the ants, but they are such an efficiant
clean-up crew.

was at the computer working on something that required a great deal of
concentration.  I took a break and there on the floor to my left was one
alive, but alseep posseum, and lying on top of and across the posseum a
sound asleep hunter, Victor Velcro.

Charleen

Cinder, when she was still just an abandoned kitten trying to move in,
killed and ate a juvenile squirrel that was about as long as she was. She's
a tiny, elegant looking thing with the smallest mew, but underneath that
fluffy exterior there's a hell of a hunter.

In fact, when I took her for her first appointment, the vet found a bone
wedged across her palate -- flat bladelike thing about an inch or so long,
probably a squirrel shoulderblade.

Laura

I've never seen the current felines catch, or even coming close to
catching, a squirrel. But, back when I was in high school out in
California, our cat managed to bring home a ground squirrel.

Mittens wasn't a big cat, and the ground squirrel must have been as
big as he was. Not sure where he caught it, but it was about three
quarters of a mile from where we lived to any ground squirrels. He not
only had to catch it and carry it home, but then jump a 8 foot privacy
fence.

No doubt the reason he brought it home was to show off his hunting
abilities to our daschund, his adopted dad,  who was forever trying,
and failing, to catch one when we took him for walks in the foothills.

Happy and Sad rescue story:

While out walking the daschund in the foothills we found a gunny sack.
Inside we found Mittens and his littermates. Their eyes were still
unopened,  and Mittens was the only one still living. We took him home
and fed him with a medicine dropped.

As he grew older, Mittens lived in the back yard and slept in the d*g
house with Bobo,the daschund, until he grew old enough that he
realized he could climb fences. Growing up, we kids had various pets,
cats, d*gs, rabbitts, and a tortoise. Mittens and Bobo always had a
special bond and were the best of buds (though Bobo hated all the
other cats and barely tolerated most of the d*gs - he was pretty
anti-social to everyone but HIS hoomins and Mittens.) They've both
been at the RB since the mid-70s.