Tia Powell is now being called the “squirrel whisperer” after she was approached by a mother squirrel who asked for her help.
Powell had been walking down a trail in Kiwanis Park, Virginia when a squirrel appeared on the path and blocked Powell’s way. At first, she was hesitant about whether the squirrel was aggressive or not, but after she deemed it to be relatively harmless, she decided to continue on her way.
To her surprise, the squirrel did not want her to leave. As Powell was about to walk away, the critter ran up and tugged on her pant leg.
She then found that there was an injured baby squirrel near to the path. She suspected that it had sustained the injury from a local stray cat, so she decided to interpret the squirrel’s behavior as a plea for help.
Powell moved the baby squirrel off the path and into the foliage. After she tried to walk away a second time, she noticed that the squirrels were now following her, with the baby limping along on its injured leg.
Powell stopped once more and fed the squirrels a sandwich that she had tucked into her bag. After that, she watched them try to climb into a nearby tree—and when she saw the baby struggling to scale the bark, she decided to call for backup.
After dialing the number for the Pulaski Police Department, Powell also called her friend at the Humane Society for help.
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“In their defense, I did sound like a crazy lady saying the squirrels wouldn’t let me leave,” Powell told CBS News. “But they showed up and assisted as much as they could.
“We were able to get the baby and mother to a different area with more trees and it was able to climb all the way up and they looked very happy.”
The Pulaski Police Department later published a video of the event saying that it was something “that you would’ve had to see to believe!”
“Had Tia not been willing to trust her instincts that something was wrong, this might have had a very different ending!” they added.
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The department also mentioned that they had tried to call several wildlife rescue centers and rehabilitation facilities, but there had been “several issues at hand and the baby was unable to be transported.”
Regardless, Powell says that she returned to the same spot with her kids several days later so she could show them where the rescue had taken place—and she reportedly saw two squirrels staring at her from the safety of a nearby tree.
(WATCH the video below or our international viewers can watch the original coverage on the CBS News website)
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