Squirrels at the Zoo

I have been volunteering at the local zoo since July, working mostly with monkeys. At the zoo is a good population of fox squirrels. Some of them are tame, but I haven't had any come to me for handouts yet. I have attached a video featuring one of these squirrels (and lazy tapirs).

Defending Squirrels Rationally

I want to start off by saying that I accidentally rejected some comments that were posted. There was one post about cooking squirrels that I was trying to delete, but I accidentally deleted all of the ones I selected thinking I was only deleting that one post. I apologize for the inconvenience.

Anyways, I wanted to talk about how I noticed that most of us squirrel enthusiasts are very compassionate people, but we tend to use emotions to defend our little friends. Emotions are part of what makes us human. However, I believe it is also possible to defend squirrels with logic and rationality, in addition to emotion.

When scientists study squirrels in the wild, they appreciate the roles squirrels play in the ecosystem. The more knowledge that is obtained about squirrels, the greater our appreciation of them becomes.

The squirrel haters claim that they have logical reasons to hate squirrels. They also claim that squirrel lovers "feel" too much. The main problem with their arguments is that they become cold and relentless with their reasoning, which robs them of their humanity. While it is okay to show emotions, and perhaps use only emotion, to care for small creatures. But adding sound reasoning skills will improve our ability to confront the squirrel haters who assume that all we do is feel and not think. I believe a good balance between logic and emotion is necessary.