Wisconsin Squirrels Rescued From 'Gordian Knot' Of Tails

WISCONSIN -- Wildlife workers in Milwaukee rescued five young squirrels after their tails became entangled while they were still in their nest.

According to a report from the Wisconsin Humane Society's wildlife rehabilitation program, a concerned citizen spotted five young gray squirrels that became "hopelessly entangled" by their tails along with long-stemmed grasses and plastic strips that their mother used as nest material.

"You can imagine how wiggly and unruly (and nippy!) this frightened, distressed ball of squirrelly energy was," the humane society said in a Facebook post.

The humane society said their first step was to anesthetize all five squirrels at the same time.

With that accomplished, workers began working on unraveling the tightly-tangled tails and nest material. "It was impossible to tell whose tail was whose, and we were increasingly concerned because all of them had suffered from varying degrees of tissue damage to their tails caused by circulatory impairment," the Humane Society said.

Workers snipped away at the grass-and-plastic knot with scissors, being very careful to make sure they weren't snipping anyone's tail in the process. It took about 20 minutes to free the young squirrels. And soon after they began to recover from anesthesia.

One day later, they are all bright-eyed, and three of the five are "bushy-tailed."

"We'll need to monitor all of them for a couple of days to watch for tail necrosis caused by impaired blood flow," the Humane Society said.

Workers said the entanglement was a "Gordian Knot," a historical aphorism used to describe an impossible problem.

Image Via Wisconsin Humane Society