Black Squirrel Research Funded
Posted by: Loren Coleman on February 11th, 2008
There is news of a considered and thoughtful educational effort to do “black squirrel” research. Due to a growing population on Long Island, New York, a new “Black Squirrel Headquarters” has sprung up in the Lake Grove neighborhood.
Noting the black squirrels have also “colonized suburban Washington D.C.; Reedsburg, Wis., and Princeton, N.J.,” Bill Roe’s organization gave out a research award.
They just announced a “$3,000 grant to Michele Miller and April Mindlin, fifth-grade teachers at the Eugene Auer Memorial Elementary School in Lake Grove, whose students are combining scientific methods and high-tech gadgets to study the area’s black squirrel population.”
Good for Mr. Roe, but it does point up a great gap in funding for unusual natural history research, doesn’t it?
Read more here.
Not surprisingly, therefore, Cryptomundians must ponder the fact that more research money has been given to study melanistic squirrels than has been granted to research Bigfoot, to date, in 2008.
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What is it going to take to advance cryptid research? Money, of course!
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About Loren Coleman
Loren Coleman is one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, some say “the” leading living cryptozoologist. Certainly, he is acknowledged as the current living American researcher and writer who has most popularized cryptozoology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
Starting his fieldwork and investigations in 1960, after traveling and trekking extensively in pursuit of cryptozoological mysteries, Coleman began writing to share his experiences in 1969. An honorary member of Ivan T. Sanderson’s Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained in the 1970s, Coleman has been bestowed with similar honorary memberships of the North Idaho College Cryptozoology Club in 1983, and in subsequent years, that of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club, CryptoSafari International, and other international organizations. He was also a Life Member and Benefactor of the International Society of Cryptozoology (now-defunct).
Loren Coleman’s daily blog, as a member of the Cryptomundo Team, served as an ongoing avenue of communication for the ever-growing body of cryptozoo news from 2005 through 2013. He returned as an infrequent contributor beginning Halloween week of 2015.
Coleman is the founder in 2003, and current director of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine.
ONE, all right, TWO lousy camera traps in a sasquatch sighting hotspot.
Talk about a fifth-grade project! (They’ll probably be better with those cameras than the grownups.)
Black squirrels: color phase of the gray squirrel. There. Research, done.
Very interesting article. I think it may point out a possible area to explore in bringing more positive light to the Bigfoot subject.
People like cute, cuddly animals. Like the above-mentioned squirrels. Bigfoot is usually depicted as a large, smelly, ape-man.
Perhaps some of the artists out there, like William Rebsamen, could focus on the young Bigfoot. When I think of Diane Fossey, or Jane Goodall, I many times think of the young chimps or gorillas they worked with.
It might go a long way to changing public perception.
Just a thought.
Well I guess we don’t know much about black squirrels. I remember as a young hunter about 55 or more years ago trying to shoot one.They come in gray,black also Fox squirrels, and I think the little critters have cousens all over the country. So what don’t we know?
Oh I forgot people are different to. Great way to teach the kids but we need some money for BF research.
Simple reason why black squirrels are worth studying more than bigfoot: They actually exist!
But seriously the squirrels do sound like an interesting and worthy subject to study and though I am skeptical of most of the popular cryptids sasquach is of great interest to me and IMO one of the more plausible cryptids. It is difficult to promote funding for something that we aren’t even sure exists though. I guess the real question isn’t why we’re researching squirrels instead of sasquach but rather why aren’t we focusing more on sasquach instead of extraterritorial life. We have the technology to find bigfoot (but not so much aliens). If the animal exists and our government wanted to they could probably find one within the week.
Did I actually just write extraterritorial life? Sorry about that folks, I think you know what I ment!
My town has a lot of black squirrels, they’re just about as common as red squirrels around here.
No greys though, extraterrestrial or squirrel.
When it comes to conspiracy theories I am a cynic. But here is a thought that crossed my mind lately. What if BF is not a cryptid at all but an officially recognized though classified animal? Maybe an echelon of scientists (Loren included? LOL) have long discovered BF and are concerned that if people find out about it it might get hunted to extinction. You just never know.
Re; DWA,…Well said!
These can also be seen in the National Zoo in Washington DC. I have video of one of the critters cooling off in the misters of the Red Panda exhibit. However, controversy has erupted since following this video is a clip of five otters cavorting in the water, on top of my assertion that I saw several “apes” on the property, but my camcorder’s battery had just conked out.
Amusing stuff.
I did not know squirrel research was that riveting. Less hazardous and scary than BF research, though. At least for fifth-graders. (Chuckle.)
Unfortunately our society goes for the ultra-rationalistic, “If I cannot see it, it does not exist” line of thought. That is one of the reasons Bigfoot is not given the attention it deserves.
When I lived in Brookline MA a couple years ago, we had a little black squirrel who used to frequent our backyard. It was a bit smaller than the other gray ones. Also, last year my boyfriend saw an albino squirrel several times a couple miles away near Jamaica Pond. We do have photos of both of them. I wish we could catch them and get them to mate so we could create hybrid Holstein squirrels!