i feel bad for picking up that little acorn this morning now

[Guest guest]

Acorns Disappear Across the Country

 

from the curiouser-and-curiouser dept.

Hugh Pickens writes

" Botanist Rod Simmons thought he was going crazy when couldn't find

any acorns near his home in Arlington County, Virginia. 'I'm used to

seeing so many acorns around and out in the field, it's something I

just didn't believe,' said Simmons. Then calls started coming in about

crazy squirrels. Starving, skinny squirrels eating garbage, inhaling

bird feed, greedily demolishing pumpkins. Squirrels boldly scampering

into the road. And a lot more calls about squirrel roadkill. Simmons

and Naturalist Greg Zell began to do some research and found Internet

discussion groups, including one on Topix called 'No acorns this

year,' reporting the same thing from as far away as the Midwest up

through New England and Nova Scotia. 'We live in Glenwood Landing,

N.Y., and don't have any acorns this year. Really weird,' wrote one.

'None in Kansas either! Curiouser and curiouser.' The absence of

acorns could have something to do with the weather and Simmons has a

theory about the wet and dry cycles. But many skeptics say oaks in

other regions are producing plenty of acorns, and the acorn bust is

nothing more than the extreme of a natural boom-and-bust cycle. But

the bottom line is that no one really knows. 'It's sort of a mystery,'

Zell said. "