The screwy squirrels

For many years a small population of siberian chipmunks have been cavorting in forest a few kilometers outside of Copenhagen. Nobody has the slightest idea where they have come from. Common logic would dictate, that they are the descendants of escapees from some hamfisted local who forgot to close the cage on his pet chipmunks. The population has been rather small for many years - sightings goes back at least to sometime in the 70's - but now they seem to be on the rise. And in a strange quirk of fate a nature school has opened smack in the middle of their general living quarters. How's that for at funny twist of fate? What's even more interesting is a letter recently sent to the writer of this blog. It is from 1954, from the father of the person who sent the letter to me. In it he describes very clearly to a friend hos he has relased 4 squirrels in the woods near his home, very close to where the animals are found now. This presumably is the original release, but unfortunately he doesn't say anything about where he got the squirrels from - I presume siberian chipmunks were not readily available in the pet trade in Denmark in the early 1950's. And I also wonder why nobody then saw neither hair nor hide of the chipmunks for at least 20 years until sightings started to be reported in the middle 1970's. I willinvestigate further, and try to get a little bit closer to the critters.