Photo by Pianoman75.

Even though John Kelly accused us of hating old people, we still find his column interesting from time to time. This week, he tells us where D.C.’s black squirrel population came from. As with many things, Canada is to blame for this.

There was a squirrel exchange in 1902: the National Zoo received 8 black squirrels from Thomas W. Gibson, Ontario’s superintendent for parks. Smithsonian secretary Samuel P. Langley sent Canada an unspecified number of gray squirrels.

Instead of keeping the black squirrels in an exhibit, they were released in the northwestern part of the zoo. Since then, the squirrel population continued to grow – soon overtaking much of Washington. The zoo also released even more black squirrels into the wild back in 1906. Kelly says that in some areas of D.C., black squirrels compose up to 25 percent of the squirrel population.