The Dollop with Dave Anthony and Gareth Reynolds - 386 - The War on Squirrels

Episode Date: July 9, 2019

Comedians Dave Anthony and Gareth Reynolds are joined by a special guest to examine squirrels in America.SOURCESTOUR DATESREDBUBBLE MERCH

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bi-weekly American History podcast. Each week I, I user, man of coats. Man up. No hairy lip. That's a slight. Dave, Anthony, reach a story from American History to my friend. Gareth Reynolds who has no idea what the topic will be about. Is the mustache gonna stay the whole show? Oh yeah. The mustache just got a residency on my lip. Jack. It's not, your mom doesn't like it. She doesn't need to like it. She used the appropriate word. Which is? Rubbish. She called it rubbish. Well then maybe she's not gonna be a guest on this show any longer. You have rubbish lip. No. Yeah. I have a beautiful mustache. No. Burt Reynolds. Gareth Reynolds.

The list goes on and on. All men, those are manly men. Yeah, Gareth Reynolds and Burt Reynolds are manly men. Are manly men. Up until the second one. Hey. On your face. What? It's like someone took a pretty little baby and put a big crazy mustache on it. I take that as an enormous compliment. Like a baby has been dressed up for Halloween as Magnum PI. Yeah and that is an awesome outfit on a baby. It's not if it's permanent. It's not if the baby thinks it's good and real. Now I think we're getting into a whole thing about the intelligence of babies which I don't think is where we want this argument to go. Babies are smart. You like it. I like it.

My mother likes it. The American people like it. Let's go. Why don't you shave? No. It's a non-starter. Jose. No. Just so there's no hair right here and you guys can go out as like... What is your... What? It's like a reverse mustache for a cat. It's a reverse mustache for a... No, you can do it around the whiskers. Really? So you just have no clue what you're talking about. It's like you've never looked at a cat. Take the fucking cat to a groomer. The groomers know how to do a reverse mustache. Hey, what's up there? I need to get my cat de-mustached. It's not de-mustached. It's a reverse mustache. Oh, sorry. Where's the menu?

Oh, did you call it the reverse here? Do you know anything about fashion? No. Lots of cats are doing this. A lot of cats are doing this. Styling. No. You're listening to the dollop. No, we did this. Just play the intro song. Play the intro. Yeah, there you go. Jesus, God. And called it, quote, his jam-pack. Jam-pack? I'm the fucking hippo guy. Steve, okay. My name's Gary. My name's Gary. Wait, is it far fun? And this is not going to come to Tickly Podcast. Okay. And a five-part coefficient. Now hit him with the puppy. You both present sick arguments. No, sleep, don't hip-hop. That's like, don't hip-hop. Actually, partner. Hi, Gary. No. I sleep

done, my friend. No, no. Roda, Roda, in the car. Oh, what's happening? What happened was I went to turn my phone on, to turn down the sound, and then my phone turned off, and then it was like, hey, put in your passcode. Wow. It was really a nightmare. Well, you okay, bud? No, I'm not okay. It's not a ride you went on. I'm not okay. Quite a ride you went on. What are you eating? What are you eating, Aaron? Yeah, what's up, bud? Having some snack wells? Protein bar. Protein bar. Protein bar. Did you not eat breakfast? What's up? You skipped a meal? Oh, you know nobody is doing that. No, are you in ketosis? No. Are you almost in ketosis? Are you on the path to ketosis? He said no. He said no. He's

not. One of the things in ketosis is you don't know. Well, people fast now. People fast now to hit ketosis. Oh, right. What's hit ketosis? Hit ketosis. Ketosis is when your body is humming and your body is peaking and it's using the intermittent fasting and then the nutrients you're adding and the limited diet. All of a sudden, you're just working like you're supposed to work, you know? It's when people are starving, they have some that kicks in that allows them to keep surviving for a little bit longer to actually find food as a mammal. Ketosis. And so people act like it's a good thing when it's actually a bad thing. It's like when you're dying of hypothermia, you take off your clothes. That's the diet

I do. I'm doing that diet. But you don't have hypothermia. You don't do freezing? I do freezing. I do a fast and a hypothermia once a year. I sleep in the snow and as soon as I'm about to die, I have a banana. Yeah. And then I've never looked better. And I've never had more doctors angry at me. Yeah, yeah, they're not, except Dr. Oz. He recommends it. He just, yeah, take chia seeds. Boom. If you want to watch this, this podcast will be up later in the week on the All Things Comedy YouTube page. So you can see how pretty we all are. Yeah, you can also see Trash Tunes there, which we'll be shooting more of, which is the thing where we watch old timey cartoons. And it's really weird, but people like it.

I love Trash Tunes. Mother loves it. I love it. I think it's really good. 1500s. Whoa, 1500s. Squirrels. What is going on? That's right. The mustache is appropriate. Squirrels rule the vast wilderness of North America. Wow. Naturalist Ernest Thomas Seton estimated that at the end of the 15th century, when the first Europeans arrived, there could have been one billion. Oh my God. Yeah. That's fantastic. Yeah. They were abundant and ate what they could. I mean, that's a lot of squirrels. Fuck yeah, it's a lot of squirrels. But life changed for squirrels when European colonists arrived in the 1600s. That's our people. Yeah, those are us. What mostly you? Were they red or

gray in those? We have gray and black at the time. Gray and black. Interesting. But there's a lot of different kinds. We have the tree squirrels, we have the ground squirrels, and we had flying squirrels. Sure. And after a while, the white man began to move west and expand from the original 13 colonies. Squirrels like the Native Americans found their homeland diminishing. Before the colonists, there was a balance between human and animal need for land resources for centuries. Native Americans cycled the controlled burning of forests and grasslands to perpetuate an abundance of nutrient-rich plants, which in turn supported vast numbers of wildlife. What changed? Oh. Who or what changed? Who changed the natural cycle that was occurring? Who saw this perfect

harmonious system and thought, we've got notes? Tell us the color of this people's skins. Burning helped to increase the amount of nutrients in the soil so that plants and grasses could grow thicker. And by burning certain areas repeatedly, Native Americans created sections of land that grew thick forests around the perimeter of grasslands, as is known as the edge effect. So the edge effect promoted the growth of oak trees, which is the squirrel's favorite tree. We all know that. An oak tree and a squirrel, it's like... Yeah, it's like Montague and a Montague. What happened at the beginning? It was, like you said, Montague and then... Well, I would say the other, but it wouldn't work,

because they don't get along. But Montague's and Montague's, those, I guess, the Montague's, there was a lot of incest. Not a lot of people knows, but Juliet's parents, brother and sister. What? Say something Pam, hurry. She's just scared right now. No, it took me a while to register. Thank you. Same, I was saying. So basically Native Americans use the land as providing the soil with fresh nutrients, which help plant life and then plants, plant eating animals, you know, and then... Everything's flourishing.

That promotes predators, which keeps everything in balance. It's like there's a circle of life. When there's more plant eating animals, then there's more predators. When there are fewer plant eating animals, there's fewer predators. It all works in balance, harmonious, respectful land use. Let's... But not the way the Europeans saw things. Let's have a little fun. Let's change it up a little, huh? The white man came, saw the land.

And they saw only one thing, dollar signs, money, cash, capitalism had arrived in America. William Kroon, quote, fish, fur, and lumber were assigned high values because of their scarcities in Europe, but were more or less free goods in America. So literally just immediately turn it into a rummage sale? That is one hundred... Yeah. Tags on everything. Yeah. Everything must go. Yeah, the Native Americans are like, look at this.

We have this perfect system. Yeah, right. You do have a perfect system. We could make a lot of mula out of it. Let's cut those fucking trees down. Actually, no, those trees are very important to keep here. What for? Well, it's a balance. You see, with those trees, that promotes a lot of the wildlife that comes over here.

Yeah, fur. They have fur, but we just leave them be. No, hats. No, no, no. All I'm hearing you say is the trees help make hats. Hey, what are you talking to this guy about? How great these hats is going to be? Hell yeah.

Hey, we should make a hat out of that guy. Oh my god. Is this the start of the middleman? It might be the middleman's beginning. So, right, so the white man was so excited by the possibility of selling all these things in nature that he didn't actually own. Right. That they...

Now, this is, again, to be clear, a white? A white guy, yeah, these are white guys. Okay, interesting. That they entirely neglected the harmonious cycle created by the Native Americans. They didn't realize there was so much abundance because of the way Native Americans had worked with the land. So, what did they... I mean, I don't know what they would think.

They were just like, we're lucky. Yeah. But what a lucky trip we've had. Look at all this. Shit, this is great. There's a bunch of squirrels here and land and we have guns. Yeah. Colonial farmers used the land until the soil was depleted of nutrients and then they'd move

on to a new plot, leaving dead land behind and cutting down new forests to make new land. So, we just turned it into an Airbnb. And we were like, let's do this. We turned a four seasons into a Motel 6. Right, right. As the first states were settled, entire forests were cut down for towns and crops of corn and wheat. The wheat's supposed to be. Uh-huh.

And according to some people, airports. Yeah, that's right. There's a lot of airports. There's about the right time. Yep, there are a lot of airports. I think we have about 100 years until they make the first airport, to be fair enough. Yeah, we're in the early 1700s. Yeah, we're about 80 years away.

Yeah. Don't jump the gun so much. Some people, yeah. We'll get to the airports. Okay, come on. Get to the point. Someone had a really good joke though. They said, yeah, that's when the guardia was built.

Nailed it. That is true. Wild animals had to find a new place to live. Right, because the crops and the towns are coming in and they are living in trees and... Yeah, they, yes. But they also found an insane overabundance of corn and wheat fields, right? So the balance is gone.

When you're just planting tons of corn and wheat and you've gotten rid of the trees and the other things, now there's more for the squirrels to eat. More corn and wheat, you mean? Yeah, it's just easy. Right. Before they have to go forage for food now. Right, now they've got drive-throughs. Yeah, that's right.

Now there's a drive-through. Right. So for the squirrels, it's like a fucking party. Yeah, they're not really good at limiting their intake, their caloric intake. No, squirrels are not like... Squirrels aren't walking around being like, are we in ketosis? Where are we at with this?

They don't, they're not at all in ketosis. I can't, we're fasting. We're trying to hit ketosis as a squirrel family. And this all sounds like... Squirrels invaded the crops, their trees were gone, so they took to the crops, right? They became a notorious enemy of European colonists. Right. As, pretty much, everything is when the colonists come.

The people, the bad animals. But you create a system where if anything disrupts it, they're enemies. Yes. And you have a system that is overtaking everything. So surely, at some point, beings or animals or nature will infringe upon your... Oh yeah, because if you're, because essentially, if you're living outside of what nature wants... Yeah. ...then you, you are now fighting nature.

Yes, you are... Right. And truly, a fight that we will take... Oh, it's going good. ...to the mat. 100%. All right, nature, you think you're having, you think you're gonna have the last laugh? You probably will, but we're gonna go down hysterically.

We're gonna go down tweeting on lighting up shoes that have wheels in them. So, instead of figuring out a way to live with the squirrel and other animals, like the Native Americans had, the colonists decided the squirrel was the enemy, and it was a pest that needed to be exterminated completely. Oh, Jesus God. Now, I'm fairly intelligent. And even if you're not... He's hitting on us.

Even if you're not, and you see squirrels and just basically what a squirrel is... Yeah. And you think, I'm gonna exterminate that. Yes. That's like literally the last, the last thing that are gonna be alive are cockroaches and squirrels. Yeah. Like, you cannot...

They're called squirrels. Yeah. Just the name alone. They're squirrely. Yeah, they're not. It's a hard thing to stamp out, you're saying? Yeah. Yeah, sure.

Squirrels in England? Oh, yes. Did they get imported, or did you have them? Well, we never used to. What are their accents like? English. Oh, okay. Yeah, they're nice.

I know. Yeah, yeah. Well, I've got some nuts up here. Fancy a nut. Where's the nuts, mate? Do you want a spot? Could have got a nut. Where's the nuts?

Where's the nuts, mate? I don't like them nuts. We're not eating those nuts. We're in ketosis. They used to be a lot of red, but now I think they've almost... Oh, yeah. Yeah, and they're gray now.

Oh, the grays are taking over. Here, the blacks are taking over the black squirrels. Black squirrels. It's black. Yeah, it was. So they're a person. Oh, and the story. Oh, yeah, there's a bunch of them in New York.

And your story. Yeah. And your story. But then they got wiped out, but now I think they're coming back. But so... So you had native red squirrels, and now the gray squirrels have come back?

When I was young, I... I don't think I ever remember seeing a gray squirrel. Really? Another? Now. You never see a red squirrel. It's like the white man invasion. It is. It's a squirrel version.

Yeah, for sure. They've squirreled away. Well, I'm whiter, so I'll be taking over. You know what that means? You're going to need to evacuate this whole area here. We're going to turn it into a pink berry, obviously. Your redheads need to go. This will all go.

Yeah, the gingers are being wiped out. Yes, they're being wiped out. Oh, man, that's so great. There were so many squirrels that the Virginia House of Burgesses considered laws that would require Virginians to kill squirrels. What? A law that requires...

How do you... You have to kill squirrels if that was... Did you see one? Yes. Did you kill it? No. Well, then we're going to kill you. What?

Yes. No. Yes. You must also be eradicated. I didn't. Amongst the genocide of the squirrels, we're also getting rid of the squirrels, the enablers, such as yourself.

I just didn't see one. Well, next time you come back into existence, see one. What? Off with his head. No. Yes, slowly, too. Don't guillotine him. Really saw into it.

Let's make a lesson out of this. This... All I did was... We will teach everyone what not to do. All I did was not see a squirrel. Use the dull end of the saw. I literally did not see a squirrel. This man has sex with squirrels.

That's pretty much how arguments went back then. And now, in 1749... We had a break, though. Yeah. In 1749, authorities in Pennsylvania offered a three-pence bounty for each squirrel killed. Same in England now, right? That's a lot of money, isn't it?

Yeah, back then, yeah. Yeah, I'll be after those. Um, so they paid out over 8,000 pounds that year, which equals about 640,000 squirrels. Okay, that's a lot of squirrels. So many squirrels were killed that, quote, the state was nearly bankrupt. So they...

Wow. That's quite an investment. There were so many more squirrels out there, and more squirrels were coming in dead that the state had to cut the bounty to one pence per squirrel, and then finally cut it out completely because they had no money.

Okay, they... Yeah. There's too many fucking squirrels. No money, no squirrels. Yeah. Around the country, entire villages and countryside would engage in hunts that became known as a squirrel frolic. That makes me feel like it's like a squirrel orgy.

The winner was the person with the most squirrel tails. Okay. Kentucky and Michigan newspapers happily printed up the total number of squirrels killed. Oh, God. In 1790, Virginia passed a law that required every able-bodied man in certain counties to deliver 12 squirrel tails per year

to the local justice of the peace. If they did not produce 12 squirrel scalps, they would be fined three pence. Well, that's another... That was another word they used. The tail was the scalp. Yeah. Right.

So if you didn't kill a squirrel a month, what happened to you? You would get fined three pence at the end of the year. Okay. Sure. Sure. Normal, just fine. Totally normal stuff.

Totally normal stuff. Yeah. In October, 1803. And you know, there would be people like me too who would wait the 12 months happily and then like with a week left be like, I got to kill 12 squirrels. Fuck!

I procrastinated. Oh, I would totally... Dude, let me buy a couple tails off you, bro. You got 14. Well, also... Put me up with two tails. Also, what if you didn't have a gun and you had to walk around with like a hammer

and try to kill them? Well, I mean, it's probably not a great look. Harry, not now. In October, 1803, Virginia farmers called upon the army to help them from the squirrels. Is it getting pathetic? Is this now officially pathetic? Now that it's an Abaddon Castello plot line,

is this now sad? It's so sad. We need the army, the Air Force, Navy Seals, Blackwater. The squirrels are here. They needed the new president. Yeah. Yeah. Captain Andrew Fulton assembled his militia

to defend the crops from hordes of squirrels. Today, we fight the battle of our lives. Is it the British or the... No, not the British. The Canadians? No. Smaller. Spain.

Furrier. Furrier. Spain. Furrier. Spain. More nuts. Oh, Portugal. No.

Mexico. Squirrels. Squirrels. What? Squirrels. I'm sorry. Little baby squirrels. We will eradicate them.

They are vermin. We will be done with them. It's impossible. We will kill them all. And we will have sex with their wives. No. Yes. I don't...

We will marry squirrels. Are they... We will take over from the inside. We will live as squirrels after we've killed the men. What? We will live amongst them, pretending to be them. At which point at the eleventh hour, we will turn around and say,

You fools, we were the army the entire time. Now, to shrink ourselves to an eightieth of our size. So, just... I'm just throwing out that this is a volunteer militia. Yes. And I'm going to involuntary, you know. No. Please.

Because I'm not... I'm not super into being a tiny squirrel fucker. That's what I'm hearing. You don't need to have sex with the squirrels. You could have a marriage with one and make it non-sexual very easily. Gentlemen, we just need to be in marriages with the women. I don't... Look, I'm already married, number one.

That's fine. This is a fake marriage. Number two... Surely your wife will understand the mission. No, I don't think she... Let me explain it to this cold-hearted bitch then. Your wife doesn't understand. Okay, so here's something I'm getting from all this.

I think that you have a weird sexual deviation. No. You do. You're attracted to squirrels. No, you do. And so you're trying to get us all to fuck squirrels. Stop hitting yourself. Stop hitting yourself.

Stop hitting yourself. Yeah, you're not in charge. You can't be in charge anymore. Right. Now, I'm sure some of you think that I'm just 150 squirrels and a man's skin trying to take over your army. We don't. That's ludicrous as well. Are you?

Follow me! I see that movie. So Captain Fulton divided his men into hunting parties and they went out one day and they killed over 8,300 squirrels. Which still... But that's like nothing, right? No, it's absolutely nothing. There's so many squirrels.

It's almost like when you shoot a squirrel, 10 squirrels pop out. Like it's just naturalist Ernest Thompson Seaton quote on Christmas Eve, 1807, the newborn state of Ohio declared war by passing an act providing that county taxes in the state might be paid in squirrel scalps. Wait, what? He's going to turn it into currency? So yeah, I mean essentially you can pay... So this is money now.

Are we cool? Do we... Is anybody feeling weird because we're now going to use this as money? This is a five. These are 20s. Yeah, so you can pay your taxes in squirrel scalps. Uh-huh, sure. That accountant was like, by the way, I'm done.

That's normal. Yeah. So these types of laws spread to other states like Kentucky and Missouri. But man is no match for the squirrel. Naturalist David Godbentz, as he traveled through Ohio in 1822, quote, parts of the country appeared to swarm with squirrels which were so numerous that they might be seen scampering in every direction. The woods and fields might truly be said to be alive with them.

Yeah, they are. God, I want to be alive at that time. Yeah. Just squirrels everywhere. Yeah, and just the general is like, they are very good. And can you imagine the squirrel's underground? Yeah, screw this guy. Yeah, I'm loving it.

All right, guys, what we should do is run up his pant leg, bite his dick. Let's go. No, I don't want that. They're doing it to him and he's like, guys, I think he likes the plan. No, no, keep. We're still fighting. He doesn't try to touch us.

I'm almost there. I'm reaching, ever so slightly. He goes on. How you doing, babe? He is, I'm fine, thank you. He goes on. Quote, a farmer who had a large field of Indian corn near the road informed us that now withstanding the continued exertions of himself and his two sons,

he feared he should lose a greater part of his crop in addition to his time and the expense of ammunition used in killing and scaring off the little robbers. Yeah. The man and his sons frequently took stations in different parts of the field and killed squirrels until their guns became too dirty, any longer to be used with safety. Yet they always found on returning that the squirrels had mustered as strongly as before. And keep in mind the squirrels don't know they're fighting a war.

No, the squirrels are just like, I'm having wheat. I'm going to eat corn. They're brilliant tacticianers. The swinging door technique, you've done it. All I do is eat and fuck. What's your war? Gosh, they've just got the instincts we don't have. During this journey, we frequently met squirrel shooters heavy laden with this game

in which many instances they had only desisted from slang, from want of ammunition or through mere fatigue. I mean, that is like, it's amazing, right? I mean, they're just like these, they're just tiring themselves out, just punching body blow after body blow. But the squirrels are just like, we're just, there's a lot of us. I literally cannot think of a worse thing to try to exterminate. I mean, it's white people who are the cockroaches.

And the more white men came to America, it would be harder to get rid of ants. You may as well fight a war on ants. That's right. And the more white men came to America and planted corn and wheat crops, the more squirrels there were, right? So they're just creating their own nightmare. So in a way, they're just putting out more food and going, why do they keep coming? They like the food.

So the squirrels are the groundhog and we, America, are Bill Murray. That's correct. Right. We're all right. And the Native Americans are just watching going, yeah, we had this all worked out. Yeah, it was actually really great. We're trying to get rid of them. The squirrels know the white man. So more and more squirrels, farmers started

having what they called a barbecue. They would get a bunch of young men together with rifles. They would have a squirrel quota each man. And the men would also make a wager for who could kill the most squirrels. The farmer would kill and cook a hog for them. Scottish botanists, John Bradley, quote, there is plenty of liquor and the frolic ends in shooting at a mark. I have heard of more than 2000 squirrels being killed at one of these hunts.

The squirrels are the greatest enemy of farmers. Just to be clear, the order is eat, get drunk, then go kill. It sounds like it. Yeah. Now, my instinct would be, yeah, go ahead. Go on the mission. Yeah. Come back, have a party to celebrate after the mission.

Yeah. You don't have the party and then go out on the drunk mission. Maybe you don't know how to party. Yeah. That's probably the Scottish way. Oh, there's absolutely no doubt in my mind the Scottish way. Whiskey. Yeah.

Come on. Get pissed. Let's go. Doing a squirrel call. Lose your legs. Then we're going to go kill them. Now they were too pissed to bloody work. Let's go finish the thing we started earlier.

What do you mean you've got no legs? Get going. Okay. Yeah. We're going to pace. All right. Go get them. It's time for the hunt.

And after that, we have a party. In 1822, the Alexander Herald in Ohio reported, quote, it is impossible to describe the havoc and destruction of the gray and black squirrels. Whole fields of corn, five to 10 acres, are wholly destroyed, not an ear left. In an attempt to save the crops from total destructions, hunters there killed almost 20,000 squirrels in a single week.

Jesus. But remember, not only are they putting out just like a constant buffet. So it's like Vegas. Right. But then also like Vegas, they've removed all the predators. There's no one attacking squirrels. Right. Right.

So they've gotten rid of security and they kept the casino open. That's right. And the squirrels are just in heaven. Oh my God. In states, Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Tennessee, the goal became the total eradication of squirrels. Quite a goal. At the same time, the colonists were pushing Native Americans further west.

And as this happened, large colonies of gray squirrels also moved west. Some migrating colonies of gray squirrels during the 1800s were said to be over 100,000 squirrels and covered hundreds of miles. I mean, just imagine seeing that. I just. Just like a herd. I would just pay. I'd pay so much money to see 100,000 squirrels.

I mean, imagine just like standing there. Mach. Huh? Like an avalanche of squirrels coming at you. Hey, wait. Oh my God. And more than light little soldiers. Yeah.

Yeah. In California, the squirrel problem was as bad as anywhere else, except with the ad addition that here squirrels carry the bubonic plague. Yeah, they do. Everyone's small. People are like, the squirrels got the plague. We're like, yeah, the squirrels have plague here. Yeah.

Okay. So what? Just shoot it. Yeah. Just shoot. There you go. Wow. She's a European.

She's a boy. That's what Jackson just said with Garfy. Yeah. Do you mean you poorly? I'll shoot you. Garfy. It's a pop. It's a pop gun.

Communities came together to gas and poison squirrels. They're gassing them? Gassing them. Yeah. Okay. I wish I had done the pictures because there was a great one. Quote, everyone helped. The job was finished, followed by a barbecue.

What? So the community would come out and they'd gas them. Gass them, yeah. How would you gas them? So they're ground squirrels. So you're putting it into the ground and yeah. I imagine little masks on them. Yeah.

Yeah, damn sure they had gas masks. Put them on, boys. Inhale. They're coming. Squirrel poisoning crews worked state lands. On March 7th, 1876, the legislature passed an act that allowed localities to create squirrel inspectors. That is just a great title.

What do I do, ma'am? Let's just say I'm a squirrel inspector. I'm out of here. Why? That's a great job. It's got benefits. You don't understand how important my work is. Squirrel inspectors made sure landowners were killing squirrels on their land.

You guys are, you ain't housing any squirrels in the main house, is you? You got a little fellows around here, run around. Matt, I trouble you for a glass of milk. Are you the squirrel inspector or the owner? That's a reach. That's an glorious bastard's reference. Oh yeah. Oh yeah.

Never saw it. Oh. I tried. I couldn't get through it. I did. Don't like them. Okay. I call that one table talk.

Sure. What about a movie that's just conversations over a table? What about not? If they, so if landowners are not killing squirrels, the squirrel inspector comes, he gives them a deadline to kill their squirrels. And if they don't, then he has a squirrels killed and then charges the owner for how much it costs to have the squirrels killed. But how do you know like how many, like squirrels are mobile?

So they're like, they, Well, he's a, he's a, well, he's a squirrel inspector. This is his job. But he can't, but just like we're saying, like this is like fingers in a dam. Like there's, they will, they're always going to be there. So you could feasibly be like, yeah, I killed all of them. And then he's like, why are there these squirrels? He's like, cause there's a lot of squirrels here.

Yeah. So there's a, there's an issue with the. Okay. So the squirrel inspector is just a lot of like bravado, essentially. Y'all better be killing them. I definitely read a lot of articles about newspapers and there were some really, yeah, there's, there were squirrel inspectors that were just like, there's tons of squirrels on this property. Yeah. There's tons of squirrels everywhere.

And like, the language that he used to be like, he's allowing squirrels to burrow on his land. And the guy's like, what do you mean allow? Crazy, Jack. I'll handle this. They're fucking squirrels. Yeah. See, he's winking towards that. I'm not winking. Have you ever tried to kill? The dog whistle. It's a squirrel whistle.

That's what this is. It's a squirrel whistle. I can't kill all the squirrels. Do you know why? Not with that attitude. Because they're squirrels. Yeah. Exactly. See? He enables them. There's the, You know what we should do?

What? Get really drunk. Does anyone think that's a viable option? We'll hit him with logs. So in California, the squirrel problem was as bad as anywhere else, except with the, like I said, we'll already do that. So squirrel inspectors. They come, they kill, blah, blah, blah.

Sure. Are you giving me the tagline for the TV show? Yeah. In August, 1914, World War I broke out across Europe. But the US was looking to stay out. President Wilson said he would remain neutral. And Americans were down with no involvement. They didn't want to. We were like, eh, it doesn't seem that great.

The public opinion changed after the Germans sunk the British Ocean, a liner, a Lusitania in 1915. 128 Americans died. And then 2000 other blah, blah, blah. Sure. That's how Americans see it. Yeah. 128 of us are gone.

What about the people died? 120. We didn't care about that part. There was a threat of alliance between Germany and Mexico. So Wilson ends up asking Congress for a declaration of war. And we entered the war on April 6, 1917. Sorry. Declaration of war? War. Yeah, we used to do that.

We used to what? We used to go to Congress and ask them. To Congress? Yeah. Congress. So Congress. Yeah. Congress is this thing who... And you would say, I declare war and you would need to have it ratified or something. They would have to approve it.

Yeah. So you're not like a king just making a decision. Oh, as opposed to now where you can just fight war? Wars. What do you mean? We're not fighting a war? I mean, seven. No, we're not fighting any wars. No, no, we are.

No. Right. Bombing people is not war. Sorry. I'm the one who keeps getting caught up on what war is. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. If you just bomb a bunch of countries, that's not war. Right.

So you don't need a declaration for that. Because all you're doing is bombing countries. As opposed to war when you're bombing countries. That's right. Got you. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Yep, the war would entirely change US food infrastructure.

In the US, the food supply was so plentiful that when the war broke out, we were the biggest supplier of food relief in the world. Aid was sent to France and Belgium. But then when we joined the war, the American primary concern became feeding our own troops. And because we're Americans, we wanted to feed them super well. Wait a goddamn minute.

No, it's not. That's not. It should be, but it's not where we went. Okay. How you boys liking that beef? I mean, we really should have. Oh, tiny bones in this cow. Ah, don't worry about that. A typical daily ration for US infantrymen was up to 5,000 calories

from a pound of meat, preferably not canned, 20 ounces of potatoes and 18 ounces of bread. This was 20% more than the French or British could supply their men and way more than the Germans. Because of this, US housewives were told to be patriotic and that they should mine their pantry, keep down food waste, and go without grain. Okay.

So quote, the boys over there could be fed, and this led to conservation and the birth of advertising. Oh, no. President Wilson. What a horrible thing. President Wilson created the US Food Administration, mining executive Herbert Hoover was made director. Hoover became known as America's food dictator.

Good. Good. That's what we need. That is good. It's Gordon Ramsay now. Yeah, that's great. The USFA fixed the price of wheat, took over rail lines to improve transportation, and prevented food monopolies.

Okay. And so to push support for the war, Wilson created the Committee on Public Information, which is a propaganda factory. Okay, good. CPI cranked out press releases and informational pamphlets. Uh-huh. They deployed around 75,000 four-minute men

who were public speakers. Okay. So these people would show up in parks, churches, social gatherings, vaudeville theaters, and give quick four-minute lectures. Okay. To get people fired up. Hey, everybody, I'm just here for a quick lecture.

To get people fired up about the war. Like in three. They, the lectures, yeah, I guess at four minutes, about 7.5 million speeches were given in a year and a half. Some of them, of course, were about food. Okay. Which you love, you love food.

I do, I find it important. So campaigns were created, like Meatless Mondays. Wow. Local is best, eat less wheat. Jesus. Yeah. Very great thoughts. I know, when you think about this, you're like,

oh, Meatless Mondays? Yeah, we should be doing that now. Well, actually, I think when we were going to some of those climate change things, the way that they would talk about what is happening, how it has to be a World War II type effort. Like all hands. Yeah, like because it does need,

there were certain times where the country was united for the greater good of the country. I thought it was just something that happened. Yeah, and that's exactly what, when people say we need a World War II type thing. Yeah, you need the thing where you're just like, all hands on deck, everybody is a part of figuring this out and we are doing it.

That's right. Period. They are giving all, will you send them wheat? Yeah, they're giving, it's just like a poster of soldiers and it says they're giving their all, will you send them wheat? The kitchen is the, she's holding a big key, to victory, eat less bread. Wow.

Yeah, so there's probably all this. I mean, now it would be like, let's, man, fuck you. Fuck you, me mom, fuck you, I like meat. Yeah. Okay, so this is all being done through the U.S. Food Administration. Also anything, German was vilified, sauerkraut became liberty cow,

hamburgers became liberty steaks. And then we did all that shit again with freedom. Yeah, of course we did. We're very good at this. The CPI cranked out 1500 posters and buttons. USFA created so much art that it filled more than $19 million worth of donated advertising space. The main message, quote,

food will win the war, waste nothing. Yeah. This need to produce food led to fighting an old foe at home. Oh no. The squirrel. Oh no. Oh boy. In the summer of 1970, team, papers began reporting on the danger of squirrels.

The danger of squirrels. The Oakland, because I guess it over time it had been forgotten because of the advancement in agriculture and everything we were doing. And so the actual threat of squirrels sort of faded away. They're still a past, the farmers still know, but they're like, okay, fucking squirrels. An Oakland Tribune article on July 8th read, this is the headline, squirrels are enemies, allies, danger to food supply.

Our enemies, allies. So squirrels are working in league with the Germans. Essentially, they are in conjunction with the Germans coming after us. Quote, the ravages of the ground squirrel and gophers must be checked. The California ground squirrel stands first today as an undisputed ally of the country's enemies. Every day, he is working most industriously to destroy large quantities of the food, products of the state of California. Okay, so let's win this war that we've been unable to win the whole time.

That's right. The article went on to say the farmers were important defenders of the country. Okay. Quote, it is an act of defense to prevent the deviation of large quantities of food from the mouth of the soldier to the greedy jaws and sharp teeth of the ground squirrel. Greedy jaws. Meanwhile, they're just like, where's squirrels? Greedy jaws.

Look at the beady little eyes. Where's the squirrel? I'm at squirrels. Where's squirrels? We're from trees. I like weeds. I'm underground now. Look at them.

The brilliant planting. The Germans sent squirrels. They've always been here. They've always been here. Where's the tree now? We like nuts. The article in ours, so the California state horticulture commissioner, horticultural commissioner.

Sure. G.H. Heck announced that pests, mainly the ground squirrel, were destroying anywhere between five to 25% of the state's grain crop. Is that true? Yes. Wow. 25%. Yes.

I mean, they were like genuinely like smoking at this point. You know what? I mean, I got to tell you, I'm pretty much overworking. Like that I'm done with. I'm retiring it too. I really am. So the commissioner said he was enlisting the sport of county boards of supervisors and county councils of defense to combat squirrels.

Now there's horticultural commissioners in every county. It's like a. So this is a movement. It's a movement. This was to be a statewide campaign to eradicate squirrels. Okay. And again. 1917.

An impossible mission. Well, you'll see. No, I have seen. There's no more squirrels. No, no, no. No, you haven't seen a squirrel. No, I have. Not in your life.

Yes, I have. The California legislature agreed and passed a law providing for the destruction of squirrels and noxious weeds. And noxious weeds? They drew in some weeds. That guy just showed up. That's right. Squirrels and the noxious weeds.

Harry, what are you doing? I'm just saying that we got to get rid of these bad weeds. I didn't get paid by Monsanto. What are you talking about? What? Come on. I'm just against weeds. Come on.

We got to get rid of these squirrels. They're killing everyone. Plus, some people are saying these noxious weeds is a big problem too. A lot of my constituent days are saying such. Some people are saying the squirrels and the noxious weeds talk. They got a team. Is that teaming up? Little jackets made.

The legislature also passed a law against harboring squirrels. That's the craziest. That's just the craziest. Like people would, like, you'd just be like, yeah, it's a squirrel. What's it doing in your place? It got in. So you admit it. It became, it was a misdemeanor and punishable by a $500 fine or six months in jail.

What are you in for? Squirrel? Same. Crazy. Crazy, man. I just fell in love with this little guy. I made a little hat form, put a little glove on his hands. They look so great in gloves.

They're awesome. Plus, they're so fat now you can catch them so easy. Huge. It's like grabbing a hair. My guy can't even, his feet don't even touch the ground. That's the problem. That's what I was trying to say to the inspector. He can't leave.

He can't get through the door. He's too big. Great little guys. Yeah, hell yeah. The play, the Herald quote, the question now is a matter of whether you will do it or leave it to the official exterminator to do. I'll do that. The squirrels must go.

Where's squirrels? They still just have no clue. Do you think they've noticed the drop in their numbers? Well, unfortunately, Commander, they are squirrels. We don't know what they're thinking. Oh. In November, the California Rodent Control Division released a 200 page report titled California Ground Squirrels.

So is this now like in a movie where it's like the police and the FBI show up and it's like, this is our case now. Yeah. It's like now you've got like, we're Rodent Control. You guys can't seem to handle this. And they're doing all this propaganda. Right. The answer to this is leaflets.

We're dropping these all around squirrel communities, letting them know. A bullet in dealing with the life histories and habits and control of ground squirrels in California. So that's what it was. It's 200 pages. I read some of it. A lot of it's just different kinds of ground squirrels and then it goes into how to kill them. You just got to read this dense thing before you.

Yeah. All right. I think I know every kind. I know all about squirrels now. All right. Now to eradicate them. They described the many different types of ground squirrels in California as well as ways to kill them.

On November 21, 1917, the two-layer advance register reported cryptically, quote, County Commissioner Roliard of Fresno has discontinued for the time being four squirrel inspectors and a deputy having to do with the squirrel campaign. Wait, they're done with them? They fired them. They fired them. This is because of certain private interests being advanced at the expense of the county. We work with big squirrel.

Hey, what are you guys doing here? Inspector, we just want to have a word with you. I'm out here trying to find a bunch of squirrels. Well, we've always loved your commitment. That's why I want to talk to you. We represent the squirrels. They're our friends. We're squirrel lawyers.

What? How do you get approached by these guys? I don't know. I couldn't find anything else about it. Hey, Bobby, you working with the squirrels? What's in your pocket? Nothing. Just look away, Tim.

Are those squirrels? No, it's nothing. Why are your pants moving? Look, I made a move I had to make for my family. Are you working for big squirrel? They have great ideas and they pay unbelievable. How much? Plus, the thing they told me.

Yeah. There's no goddamn way we'll ever get rid of all the squirrels. Come on. No, so it's stupid. Are you fucking kidding me? No. We're going to kill these bastards. No, we're not.

It's easy. There's billions. No, I gave up. Have you ever heard the term they're breeding like squirrels? No. Well, that's a term. I don't think it is. It's a saying.

Not a word. It's not a phrase. It's not either. Yeah, it is. It's an hip-hop lyric. There's no such thing. Look, I got to go. Are you a time traveler?

I, yes. What is hip-hop? So in December it was announced the state was giving 40,000 to horticultural commissioner Heck for the extermination of ground squirrels. OK. A plan was then formulated. Sure, which we haven't seen yet.

We have not. No, we have like eight times, right? Yeah, a lot. In March, a convention of state horticultural commissioners was held in Fresno. OK. They discussed and laid out the plans for the squirrel eradication campaign, which was to begin on April 12, 1918.

It would be called? No. Squirrel Week. Squirrel Week. Still have that in England, don't you, Mum? Yeah, it's a big celebration, particularly my family. What do you guys do? Someone dresses up like the squirrel.

Did you do it? You put a bunch of presents and nuts. Yeah, and we have a tree. Yeah, you hide them in the tree. And we have all the squirrel hostages. Yeah, whoever puts the most cashews in their mouth gets a squirrel pillow. A squirrel pillow?

Mm-hmm. Yeah. This all sounds made up. Well, that's crazy. Yeah, and it's all understocking. Yeah. It has Christmas stocking. I mean, squirrel days.

Yeah, don't mess up. No, sorry. So to show. Oh my god, no. Yeah. This is not. To show how behind the plan they were, the commissioners, we'll get there.

The commissioners ate stewed Mendocino County caught gopher. OK. The grain fed gophers were served to show the possibilities of meat supply in the state. OK, I was thinking like that to me would be. Right, that's how that would be a way to convince. Yes, that's a way to propagandize people pretty easily to be like, squirrel burgers.

Yeah, they did that a little bit, but not that. Also gopher, gopher burgers. It's like a jerky burger. Commissioner Howard said it tasted like wild duck and that it was, quote, not half bad. Well, and that's the man who's supposed to be lying to you saying it's not half bad. So it's probably really not good.

So it's half bad. Yeah, it's all bad. Yeah, definitely. It's bad. It's not good. Though the SF Chronicle reported, quote, liberal portions of beef were served to those who did not like the gopher meat.

Liberal portions, yeah. Hey, can we get some beef in here? This is shit. This tastes like an animal that's been living in a hole. Give him more gopher. Here's some gopher. No. I don't want the head.

I've got a piece of fur in my mouth. Yeah, yeah, these have not been furred, guys. Squirrel Week was to be a seven-day squirrel killing competition during which... Oh, here we go. California children were encouraged to kill off the state's ground squirrels. Oh, that's terrible.

Newspapers repeatedly declared that squirrels were destroying $30 million worth of crops a year in the state, which is about $550 million today. Okay, the patriotism and help in fighting Germany was emphasized. Of course. I mean, the tie-in's obvious. Heck, quote, we have enemies here at home

more destructive perhaps than some of the enemies our boys are fighting in the trenches. That's absolutely right. Absolutely right. I'm talking about squirrels, boys. That's right. Defending. Sure, you're pops over there getting mustard gassed

and whatnot. Yeah. But what about the squirrels? Seems less bad. Little tiny animals eating little tiny pieces of wheat. When you put it like that, it really doesn't sound that bad. And killing our bread. Seems like a leaf.

And when they kill our bread, what do they kill? It's been mean what you said about my dad. Your dad in the trenches. Why is it all about my dad? Because the squirrels are killing your father, son. Eat your gopher, boys. Less that question-question-more-choo-choo-choo-choo-choo-choo. Tomorrow we'll cook them for you.

All right. So now even children could fight the Germans. Heck, called the kids school soldiers. That's good. Well, by the way, we're pretty much there again, aren't we? Yep. He encouraged kids to do their part for Uncle Sam by organizing, quote, a company of soldiers in your class or in your school

and destroy the, quote, squirrel army. Well, we're looking for our children-based militias. That's not dangerous, right? Let's just do that. And let's arm them. The state began an anti-squirrel publicity blitz. 34,000 posters were printed up and put up around the state and 50,000 leaflets were distributed.

Hex, called to arms, was written in a pamphlet called Kill the Squirrels. Jesus. Jesus Christ. The pamphlets- It's insane. The pamphlets cover- Look at this guy. Look at the guy at the bottom talking to the squirrels.

Look at the poison, look at the poison barley. Yeah, she's got poison barley, like with a child. She's like, now you can take this poison barley. Okay, ma'am. So the pamphlets cover illustration included a young woman holding a pail of poison barley, saying to kids around her, quote, children who must kill the squirrels to save food, but use poisons carefully.

Use poisons to a child. And then below, there's some weird dude with the squirrels, and he goes, and you may have to serve me some of that nice young barley sprouts, which has been poisoned. Yeah, he's a waiter. But look at the squirrel with his glasses and his cake. Yeah, yeah, he's lived a long life off of our land. The opening sentence in the pamphlet, quote,

is there one of our number who would like to be a member of a company made up of American boys and girls fighting to protect our big brother or cousin at the front in Europe? We have enemies here at home, more destructive perhaps, than some of the enemies our boys are fighting in the trenches. That's insane. Trying to get the kids, so the kids, you know, they're kids, and there's a war on, and a lot of their dads are out fighting,

and so they want to be a part of it. So you're just tugging on this emotional... Yeah, yeah, the manipulation, yeah. There was a recipe to make strict nine laced grain. Should a child be... A child be involved in anything near that? They just had to be careful. Sure, sure, sure, sure.

I took part of it. So 16 quarts of barley, one ounce of strict nine, one ounce of baking soda, and so on, and so forth. There it is. First two ingredients really set it all. So you want to do one part strict nine for every 16 parts barley in case you're making a big cake or something. Fortunately, there was a warning to keep all poison containers

and utensils used in preparation and preparing the poison to be plainly labeled and out of reach of irresponsible persons and livestock. Yes, yes, yes, just like guns and pills. That's right. The great squirrel bake-off. That's right, yes. Oh, yes.

Also, children should be cautioned in the use of poison barley, as they said. Yeah, no, for sure. Here's a bunch of poison. Now, guys, don't abuse this. That's right. Just go willy-nilly, toss it all over land, trying to kill squirrels.

The pamphlet also described other squirrel killing methods like shooting poison gas and drowning them, which they called submarining. Great. Great, great, great, great. Awesome. Heck offered $50 to each elementary school whose students killed the most squirrels.

Second place, 30 and third place, 20. And then the same offer went to high schools. Oh, my God. The pamphlet ended with a warning, quote, remember that poison grain is dangerous to handle and be careful in using it. That's right. Let us make these squirrels less days.

That's right. And that's right, don't forget, poison's really poison. Good luck, children. All right, toddlers, you've got your walk-in orders. Propaganda was cranked out. Jesses was for the war effort, right? So you've got this war effort on, and you've got this giant organization

made to create propaganda. So they started making anti-squirrel propaganda. Squirrels, menace the crops, kill them. Oh, that came back to the same page. So they're just cranking out all of these posters that are all about squirrels. Well, this is probably around the time, right, when they realized the power of not only influence,

but like pamphlets, leaflets and shit like that. Or just like all of a sudden, like. Pamphlets, posters, ApiWalker, StrayC, big poster. Mr. Farmer, join in the great spring drive, now on 30,000 annual losses. And then there's a little picture of a squirrel with a German hat. With a German helmet on.

He's eating up your money. The law says, kill him. It's just nuts. In the corners of the kiln. I just wish squirrels knew that they won the war. Yeah. That they didn't know was on. They had no idea.

No, they're prolific today. In the corners of the kiln, the squirrels cover illustration. Two squirrels started attention wearing pick and hobbin, which were the spike helmets of the German armies. So this became very common, putting squirrels in German army helmets. Sure. Another squirrely poster showed a Germanic squirrel family

wearing spike helmets and iron crosses. The father squirrel had an upturned mustache, just like Kaiser Wilhelms. Oh my God. Newspapers got kids all fired up. Here's another one. Death to squirrel. Death to the squirrel.

The spring drive is on. Millions, millions in food must be saved. The squirrel in time saves killing nine. A squirrel in time saves killing nine. I'll get to why that isn't a sec. Newspapers got kids fired up. The Lompoc Journal wrote excitedly that, quote, all the killing devices of modern warfare

will be used in the effort to annihilate the squirrel army, including gas. Oh my God. Don't wait to be drafted. So they're literally. No. Like there's literally all these men being horribly killed and their lives fucked by mustard gas,

and they're using that as. Right. A rationale for gassing the squirrels. Getting kids excited about it. The four-minute man jumped into the propaganda push and began giving speeches to get the public fired up for the squirrel genocide. Talking points were given to the four-minute man,

including the best squirrel is a dead squirrel. The Hotel California Board Bill for Ground Squirrels in 1917 was 30,000, yet unpaid. The squirrel does not recognize daylight saving. He uses it all. Just so dumb. Why hesitate? We can get him.

How? Poison him, gas him, drown him, shoot him, trap him, and submarine him. Are you not willing to give your whole hearted support to this statewide movement to kill the squirrel? Nope. Also, go out and kill the little ally of the Kaiser. Who's side you on, squirrel?

We're at war. I just like we. I'm a squirrel. He's brilliant. He's got such a brilliant military mind. Meetings are also held in many chambers of commerce around the state. In Salinas, the local horticulture commissioner

and a professor discussed squirrels. Farmers were told that spring was the time to kill squirrels before they had their babies. Each female squirrel averaged eight babies, so killing a female in the spring was as good as killing nine squirrels. Right. So a squirrel in time saves killing nine.

There you go. Slay the mother. Right. Slay the mother. And one farmer neglected his squirrel killing duties would undo all the killing efforts of his neighbors. Jesus Christ. Yeah.

So turning neighbor versus neighbor. Totally. So that's like keeping an eye on each other now. Are you killing your squirrels, Jimmy? Yeah. Why are you asking? Why are you keeping your squirrels aside? Well, I'm worried about you.

I ain't seen you killing a bunch of squirrels. See a lot of squirrels on your property, buddy. Well, what am I supposed to do? They're probably telling each other, telling squirrels on my side to come over to your side because you're probably feeding them. All right. You're jamming, son of a bitch.

You make me sick. You support the Kaiser squirrel. You probably got a bunch of little helmets in there, don't you? You put them on them? Huh? She shut your- Freaking weirdo.

You shut your goddamn mouth. You shut your goddamn mouth. You're the one who came over here accusing me of holding squirrels. All I do is kill squirrels. Moms too, bro. Killing all the momma squirrels. You know what I do?

What? I let them have babies and then I kill the babies right in front of the mom and then I kill the momma. That seems foolhardy because one of the babies could probably get away. Not from me, mother fucker. Well, it's still dangerous to do it like that. If you read the pamphlets, they say,

don't do it like that. Kill the mom right away, but you're waiting. Months for birth. What are you, some sort of sick bastard? Why don't you get a mustache? Huh? Why don't you grow a mustache? This morning.

It's a squirrel. You know us as a mustache? Kaiser will. What is that? Yeah. Yeah, if you get about that. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Let's see it's 6 p.m. For bye. I love bye. Thank you. Sometimes you just don't know how to end a sketch. The children were told to verify their kills by bringing squirrel tails to their schools.

By the way, if you're a counterfeit tail maker, this is the best time. But some eager kids got to jump early and look for credit. A week before Squirrel Week was due to begin, Commissioner Heck's office asked kids to stop sending dead squirrel tails to his office. Oh, wow.

Can't imagine that backfiring. San Francisco Chronicle quote, because of the pronounced odor, which has begun to permeate the offices of the state of the horticulture commission as a result of the accumulation of ground squirrel tails being sent as evidence, Commissioner Heck issued instructions

to county commissioners to receive the tails and bury them. Right. Yeah. Right. Instead of having them in his office, that's nice. But just think how many squirrel tails there were. Oh, yeah.

It's such a reading. Sitting at his desk. Yeah. Just surrounded by tails. Yeah, with these little face. Yeah. Also, why don't they just get rid of them? Yeah, that makes sense too.

Either way, how do you want to handle it? He said it would be fine for children to just give the kids credit for tails delivered and send that to his office instead. Oh, OK. On April 29th, the day the campaign started, Herbert Hoover told the state's children, quote, understand you are taking up a campaign

for the eradication of ground squirrels in California. This has my hearty approval. Cool. Mr. President, thank you. And the killing began. The Viscalia Times reported that the road and control division indicated widespread activity amongst schoolchildren.

The Chino champion newspaper said everyone must be involved, quote, if your neighbor is not doing his duty, report him. This wasn't just the paper saying this. The Kings County Horticulture Commissioner said, quote, anyone knowing of cases where no attempt has been made to kill the squirrels as has been asked by the government, report him. It's crazy.

And it's also like they probably are like, we're making a dent. No, you're not. It's like it sounds like how we deal with terrorism. Yeah. No, we're fighting ghosts. It totally. Yeah.

The commissioner said people who don't kill squirrels were, quote, no better than a slacker, and such persons will be dealt with accordingly. Yeah. What are you going to do? I'm told they will be dealt with. I'm going to shut the door. You're, sir, you're very much troubled.

I mean, really? What are you going to do? So please start. No. You're going to get a squirrel lecture. All right. Bring in one of the four minute fellas. OK, sure.

You ready for this, you son of a bitch? Yeah, I guess. That's what he's going to talk about. You squirrel loving motherfucker. What's the word? He's going to talk for four minutes? How dare you? I'm just saying.

Four minutes. You think that's going to be easy? It's not going to be easy. OK. He's got squirrel talking points. Great. I really just, I'm like, I don't think it's going to make a difference.

So I'm kind of just going to take a knee on this. Take a knee? Yeah. I'm out. I'm not doing it. Buddy. Yeah. We're fighting squirrels here.

Yeah, I understand. The enemy. Yeah, it seems a little crazy. Have you seen the German helmets? Yeah, I think. Squirrels have German helmets. No, I think that. Now they started wearing them.

No, I think that's just something that a guy drew. No. Yeah. He drew that based on an actual squirrel sighting. So someone said they saw a squirrel with a helmet on? Didn't see it, drew it, because he's eight years old. What the fuck does that mean? What, are you a kid?

I mean, if you believe that, I got a bridge, I'll sell you. You should be out over there with those school kids trying to kill squirrels. You're like a six-year-old. Let me just say. What? It's your naivete that's going to lose this war. Yeah.

You think we can win the war without killing the squirrels? The allies of the German? I see. I get that you're conflating things. They made a pact. Who did? The Germans on the squirrels? Yeah, the king squirrel.

Where did they meet? Wilhelm. Wilhelm? He went to the squirrel shire. He went to the squirrel shire. They had a meeting. So why don't you just go to the squirrel shire and blow it up if there's such a thing?

Oh, you're so fucking stupid. Dude, I'm not even waiting for this four-minute guy to show up. Knock when he's here. I'm the four. This is part of the four minutes. That's brutal. That's what I thought. I'll kill some.

Just take it in. So Squirrel Week ended on May 4th. It had been a year. I like to celebrate year-round. We do in our family. We celebrate squirrel week year-round. Yeah. It had been an incredible success.

Oh, good. Georgia and across the state turned in 100,409 tails. OK, pretty good. This number was believed to be just a fraction of the total squirrel casualties. OK. Because many were killed by gas in their burrows, and they could not be counted.

Sure. And kids were so into it after the contest ended, Heck reported that kids' enthusiasm for killing squirrels continued for, quote, an indefinite period. That's great that they have a blood thirst. That's good. That's not a side effect. Once you get it, once you kill one squirrel,

you're like, this is awesome. Well, once you've just given your kids the green light to go gas animals, you're pretty much being like, the world's your oyster, son. There really is nothing better than gassing an animal. No, for sure. Have you ever done it? It is here.

What? Proclamation Squirrel Week. I do hereby set aside the week of April 29th to play as Ground Squirrel Week and trust that during that time, the schoolchildren and all other persons will do their utmost to relieve the country of all ground squirrel pests.

And there's three squirrels watching. Three squirrels are like, huh, that's not a good proclamation. This is bullshit. There really was a campaign, huh? Yeah, no, it's really, it's really crazy. Oh, yeah, that's the one we just looked at. So, oh, this is a good one.

Oh, no, that was a different one. So this is the weird thing is they're all there. All their campaigns sort of look alike. It's all propaganda posters, whatever. Now we're getting to German stuff. Here it is. Whatever. So there's a lot of art went into this.

Yeah, no, it's important. Killed the squirrels. Food is needed for our allies. Yeah. In June, the winners were announced. You want to join the army? Sulphur Banks Grammar School in Lake County won first prize. David Creek Grammar School in Modak County won second prize

and Delta View Grammar School in Kings County won third. Also, Squirrel U did terribly. Some schools are out of its total failures. In Oxnard, the Oxnard Courier reported that Santa Paula High School reported only three squirrels killed. What were they doing? They didn't give a shit. They're near the beach.

We thought we were supposed to kill students. No, you idiots. Squirrels. God damn it, how many kids are left? Five. The paper reported other high schools in the area had killed none. Quote, the grammar schools were a little better. The grammar schools.

So they're not that patriotic. Yeah, they don't love America. So it was considered a success. Farmers became more aware of the squirrel menace. Crop yields bounced back and areas cleared out of ground squirrels. Wow, OK. So it kind of works. Yeah.

Heck congratulated the children for their successful slaughter in patriotic service. He also urged them to take every opportunity in the future not to kill, in the future, not one to kill the squirrel but other rodents as well. So feel free to kill any animal you see real. Yeah, any rodent. Get on it.

Squirrel inspectors remained active. Oakdale Squirrel Inspector Frank Knot said property owners along local canals were not getting rid of the squirrels and that he had to send them notices that if they failed to get rid of them he would take care of it and the fee he would assess against the property, which now could be sold to pay for squirrel eradication. You could. Now.

Yes. Because somebody had not taken a full throttle approach to the squirrel genocide. That's correct. You could now. Go ahead. Sell their home and take that money and use that. Yeah. As financing for the cause?

Yeah, good anti-squirrel cause. You could see. Where's your home? It's a long story. Bad ending. Local areas continued to hold children's squirrel killing contests and now they were local contests. Sure.

During an anti-squirrel campaign in Lassen County later in 1918, one girl brought in 3,780 tails and a boy brought in 3,770. What? An eighth girl. I mean, they're killing it at an adult level. An eighth grade girl who killed so many squirrels that she was allowed to take part in the essay contest. So there was an essay contest, but the only way to get an essay contest was to

enter it by having enough tails. Right. So, right. Perfect. Makes sense. In her essay, she wrote, quote, the squirrel is about the most destructive animal in California. If you would only stop for a moment and compare a squirrel with a German soldier,

you would find them very much alike. Do you think that, and this is a serious, do you think that the propaganda has worked on this young girl at all? Oh my God. They were like, what a great essay. Where'd you come up with such a great angle? I don't know, but it's what I feel. So the squirrel killing continued and squirrel eradication programs continued

until the forties and when they started to weigh in off, just not a level where children were turned into, you know. Squirrel murders. Squirrel massacres. A squirrel is still considered a pest by farmers today. Sure. Jesus. Do you have any idea about that?

I had no idea. Yeah. And whatsoever. The amount of squirrels. No, no, no at all. Can't believe it. I like squirrels. I do too.

Actually, I heard that people from countries that don't have squirrels get extremely freaked out by them. Really? Yeah. I went to them in the common in Boston, I was just sitting there having lunch and a squirrel just ran up on my knee and just sat there for like five minutes just like. That means people feed it.

Means that I made a friend. And by the way, in the common, that makes sense. But it always amazes me that we can look at population control for any other species of anything besides our own. Like the idea that we look at any, I mean, there are like in Wisconsin where, you know, where we live like it would be deer. Like you'd be like, yeah, you have to keep the deer population. It's not not true.

Like it is true. You do. But there is also this one species of animal that needs to have its population controlled in the to the nth degree. And we just sit around. We ignore that. We're like, yeah, yeah. But it's like how I mean, if you're gonna like, if you're talking, I'll tell you what,

you need to start a campaign for children to kill adults. That's what we need, Dave. They're very old. Yes. They're very old people. Well, some excluded. No, no, no, no, no. Definitely, definitely me.

No, no, no. Well, like I mean, modern agriculture is it keeps people alive, but also allows us to keep making people. Yeah. And back back in the old days, you would have a famine. Yeah. And it's it's same thing with deer. Like there's too many deer.

They have a famine and it calls the population or they get they get a sickness. It's like a carrying capacity. And no, but there now we allow that to take place in any other part of nature except for our own. That's right. And it is, yeah, I mean, it's what I call a problem. And now we create pills to keep everybody alive. Yeah.

No, that's true. I mean, like you just there are too many. I mean, there are too many old people. Well, my grandmother, not just old people. There's too many new people, too. There's too many fucking people. It's called a new people. My grandma is not new.

Yeah. My grandma was 96 and I went to see her in the hospital and she's like, I'm done. I just don't. I was like, what do you mean? She goes, I she goes, I don't want to live anymore. And I go, don't you want to see like me have a grand kid? And she goes, I met your wife and guess what? I've seen a bunch of babies and I know how it all goes.

And that's great. I'm really happy for you. She goes, but I'm just like I've done this. Yeah. And I've done it all and now I'm in pain a lot. And I, you know, this isn't a fun life. I can't get around people. I mean, the level of like honest to God, at some point,

we need to bring the duggers up on a war crime. Anyone who's having like teen number. Like if you're if you if your family is starts with 20, like if that's the amount of kids you have starts with 20, you need, you need to be submarine. Yeah. Like a squirrel. It's, yeah, it's really, yeah, it's bad.

And those people are doing it for the reason of- Yes, biblical. Yeah, biblical stuff. Yes, that's right. They want to take over. Oh, the Lord said, cometh, cometh in thy wife until she hath a barren womb. Finish her.

More. Stack them. Treat them like pancakes in a belly. One on top of the other. I think the main moral of this is man keeps trying to conquer nature and it keeps not working. It's also a beauty. It's a, it is that story in particular is hilarious because the one side doesn't know there's a war.

That's right. And there's one. That's right. They won. There's not, it's not like in the annals of squirrel history, they're like inside a tree like that was close. They're just like, we're squirrels. We're still squirrels.

We've always been squirrels. We eat these. Don't eat those. Those are berries. They were squirrels. Yeah, we're pretty fucked up. Yeah. But like we keep saying this will be okay.

We are going to be okay. We don't need to do anything differently. Do what you're doing regularly and it'll be fine. It's so hard for people to wrap their heads around the fact that modern society is structured around not, not just, not just like the production of carbon in the atmosphere, but our entire way we are structured. There's, soil is dying.

Like we, we don't, a soil the way we use it, we're killing the soil. We're literally not going to be able to feed people in the near future. Yes. And, and it's a big issue of it. And a lot of that is because what we talked about, just coming in, destroying land, farming it till it's dead

and then moving on. That's, that's why the Amazon is getting knocked down because you knocked down the Amazon, you plant crops, they don't last that long and you knocked down more Amazon. No, it's not. It's pretty straightforward that precipitation is key and we are finding every way we can to get fucking rid of it. Yeah, it's pretty good.

Yeah, it'll be good. Anyway, things are fine. Don't worry about it. But yes, we did turn the squirrel story into a climate change talk. Thanks. We did it. We did it.