Squirrels are going nuts on campus in northeast Ohio

CANTON, Ohio Squirrels that have taken on a minor celebrity status at a northeastern Ohio university have become a costly nuisance.

The squirrels at Malone University in Canton have multiple Twitter accounts with hundreds of followers, a lip-syncing band has been named after them, and videos of them posted on YouTube have been viewed thousands of times.

But now Malone President David King is imploring students and staff at the private liberal arts school to stop feeding the cute critters.

The squirrels have caused thousands of dollars of damage at the university, destroying everything from gutters to compressor control wires, said Jim Palone, physical plant director at the university.

Palone said the squirrels have gotten into buildings and chewed through Internet connection wires and fire alarm cables.

Theyve even built nests in heating and cooling units, causing air-flow problems.

Most recently, Palone said theyve begun damaging the cedar siding of a popular campus building.

They found ways to chew the outside of that building and created openings and holes on the wood skin of the building for nests, Palone said.

They just tend to be very intrusive and quite damaging as they go about seeking shelter and food sources and everything else.

Palone said its hard to quantify just how much money the university has spent to repair the damage caused by the squirrels, but he estimated the figure to be in the tens of thousands of dollars over the years.

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Squirrels are going nuts on campus in northeast Ohio