People took care of this squirrel and let her back into the woods but it came back to them when she was about to become a mother
This wild squirrel knew exactly where to go when she was about to give birth. She never forgot the people who rescued her and came out, and she knew her baby would be safe with them, too.
It all started in South Africa in October 2016, when a girl named Serfontein found a baby squirrel that had fallen out of its nest on a windy and cold day. The squirrel was squeaking and calling for its mother, but its mother never came. The girl gave the little squirrel the name Dingetjie.
Serfontein didn’t know how to nurse the little squirrel; she was only trying to keep him warm at first and was afraid he wouldn’t make it through the first night.
«She was very cold and very cold, and she was also scared. She was just a baby and her eyes hadn’t opened yet. I was able to warm her up and she finally stopped squeaking.»
Serfontein and her boyfriend Christophe decided to nurse the squirrel together and began to learn how to do it. Within a short period they had read a great deal about how and what to feed the squirrel. It turned out that the squirrel must be fed with a special milk formula every few hours, including at night.
«I never thought it would be so hard to nurse a squirrel.
When the squirrel opened its eyes and started moving, it could no longer sit in its cage. She made a bed for him in a shoebox, and he loved it. But beyond that, Serfontein had to carry him to work for three months and keep him in his T-shirt or scarf.
When the squirrel became quite grown up, the girl realized that the best thing would be to let it out into the woods, where the wild animal would be more comfortable. The border of the forest was not far from the girl’s house (it’s a big Kruger reserve) and one day the girl and her boyfriend went to the woods and let Dingetji out into the wild.
The squirrel sat down for a while and then, obeying her instincts, climbed a tree and hid in the foliage. It seemed that this happy story had come to its logical conclusion. But it was not.
The squirrel, as it turned out, remembered well where the house of her saviors was and soon returned to them. And then she ran away into the woods again. And then she came back again. And so it was several more times. In the end, the girl and her boyfriend got used to the fact that a squirrel could practically live in two houses and began to leave a half-open window for him so that the squirrel could run into the house at any time.
More than once, it happened that when Serfontein woke up in the morning, she would find a squirrel sleeping on her blanket nearby.
«She just knew we were very comfortable and also safe. And there’s a lot of wildlife in the Kruger Reserve, including predators.»
It had been six months since Serfontein and her boyfriend released Dingetjee the squirrel into the woods, but one day on one of her visits, they noticed that the squirrel had gained a lot of weight. Her belly had rounded out.
«At first we thought she was just eating a lot. We didn’t know she could be an adult, we thought it was a long way off. But it turned out to be just that, she was pregnant.»
Dingetje started coming into the house more and more often, and then she started making a nest in her desk drawer, using toilet paper torn into small pieces to build it. And then she gave birth, but alas, the baby was stillborn. It was a great misfortune for Serfontein, but she understood that the reason was probably that the squirrel was too young to be pregnant.
But a year later, when the squirrel rounded her sides again and started building a nest in the box (again out of toilet paper), all went well. On April 24, 2018, Dingetji gave birth to a cub and it was strong and healthy.
«Dingetji trusts us so much that she lets us touch her baby and take him in our arms. She is very smart and a good mom.»
«It’s very hard to explain the relationship we have with a squirrel, but it’s the most incredible thing that has ever happened in my life,» the girl says.
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