Cartoon by Jim Meadows
A helping hand from a distance
Re: “To feed or not to feed the squirrels,” T&V, Aug. 16
Dear Sir,
Like the majority of Stuyvesant Town residents, I too received the questionnaire about the squirrels. I was perplexed that it has come to that: current residents having to decide how they feel about the squirrels, which have been around Stuyvesant Town long before any of the current humans, and thus decide their fate! To cut a long story short, in the comments section of the questionnaire, I expressed my additional views and suggestions, which happen to almost completely coincide with those of Katherine Compitus, somebody who clearly knows a thing or two about wildlife, as expressed in your article of August 16, 2018.
She makes many excellent points about the issue, the most important being that management should install its own squirrel feeders in the property, out of the way of people. I am afraid that one key issue that has been overlooked in all this, is the fact that there would be no need for residents to feed squirrels had Tishman Speyer and now the current management, not cut down perfectly healthy and mature oak trees which have always provided plenty of acorns, the natural food for squirrels.
