On a 53-degree day in April, IU freshman Kaia Chatterton thought it would be too chilly to see squirrels out and about. If it’s too cold, the squirrels spend more time inside their nests. Still, she pulls the unsalted peanuts she bought from Kroger out from her bag for the occasion.
She sees two squirrels chasing each other at a corner of Dunn Woods. She makes a clicking sound to get their attention, and the two squirrels split ways. One runs up a tree. She throws some peanuts at the bottom of the tree, but the squirrel doesn’t come down to get them.
Chatterton crouches down, holding out a peanut to the other squirrel, who remained in the middle of the walking trail. It hesitates, and then slowly crawls over and takes the nut from her fingers. It runs back to the base of the tree and starts nibbling on the peanut 10 feet away from Chatterton. She smiles as she watches the squirrel eat.
A minute later, when it’s eaten about three quarters of the peanut, the squirrel drops it on the ground and runs back up the tree.
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Members of IU’s unofficial squirrel club bond over their love for squirrels. Through a GroupMe group chat called “Squirrel Chat,” members randomly send in pictures of squirrels they have taken and talk about them. There are currently 62 people in the group.
Many squirrel club members like Chatterton carry around nuts in their backpacks and feed the squirrels in between classes, seeing it as a fun way to connect with nature. Luckily, members have noticed the squirrels on campus are notorious for being unusually social around humans, accepting food from almost anyone that offers them something.
Efforts have been made to make the club official in the last few years, when founder and former IU student Emily Jones named it “Squirrels of IU.” However, the IU Office of Student Life denied the request without providing a reason why. They proceeded to sell magnets and T-shirts that said “GO NUTS” with a drawing of a squirrel surrounded by nuts; their Instagram handle “@squirrels_of_iu” was printed at the bottom. The university contacted them shortly after, claiming the name “Squirrels of IU” presented a copyright issue. They were forced to change the name to “Squirrels at IU,” because the university said they didn’t want to be associated with the club. Since then, it has remained an unofficial club.
When asked about the copyright issue, IU’s communication team referred to the Student Organization Policy, which states that self-governed student organizations are considered to be separate from the university. All organizations must agree to the Self-Governed Student Organization Agreement to use university facilities and services, which states “SGSOs that have received permission to use “Indiana University” in the organization’s names must do so only in a locational sense (i.e. “The XZY Club at Indiana University”).” The words “at IU” can be used in the name; “of IU” is not allowed. The policy states that since each SGSO is responsible for its own actions, there is an independent relationship between SGSOs and IU. Any club on the beInvolved page that has IU in the name is written “X at IU.”
Jones founded the club her freshman year at IU in 2016. She struggled with anxiety and panic attacks, but she found solace in being outside in nature. She often meditated in Dunn Woods.
“Immersing myself in the campus wildlife was so healing and therapeutic and important,” Jones said. “It motivated me to get out there and explore campus.”
She would observe turtles, crayfish and deer around campus. Watching squirrels in particular do funny things, such as taking dust baths or pancaking on the pavement to cool down their bodies, inspired her to create an Instagram page to document it all. Nine years after she created the account, it has garnered over 17,900 followers.
Jones would observe squirrels by the Jacob’s School of Music in between playing violin at orchestra concerts. It was nearby where she met Charlotte, a squirrel with golden fur and wideset eyes. Jones would spend hours on Saturday afternoons, her designated squirrel-watching time, with Charlotte. She named her Charlotte because she thought she needed a royal name.
“She practically claimed the entire Wells Quad Courtyard as her territory,” Jones said.
In the grass by the Jacobs School of Music, Jones sits a few feet away from Charlotte. Charlotte pauses as she finds a nut on the ground and nibbles at it.
A male suitor approaches Charlotte. This wasn’t the first time this had happened; Jones knows what comes next. Charlotte buries herself in some leaves, trying to hide herself. The male squirrel looks around, confused. Some time passes, and he eventually leaves. Charlotte reemerges from the pile of leaves and continues to roam around.
“She was just a queen,” Jones said. “She knew what she wanted. She knew she was too good for them.”
After spending hours taking videos and pictures of squirrels like Charlotte, Jones was able to recognize and track them. Squirrels have good memories, and are able to recognize humans as a source of food. Jones said there are the Ballantine squirrels, the Jacobs squirrels, the Dunn Woods squirrels and the School of Education squirrels.
There are many different squirrels around campus. Sammy 2, daughter of Sammy 1, had darker orange skin and a goofy, cartoonish grin; they lived by the Jacobs School of Music. Elsa, who has been spotted by the Indiana Memorial Union, has a whiteish tail. King has a brown, white and black striped tail. Erica has a birthmark on her right eye.
Jones also taught Hazel, a squirrel in Dunn Woods, how to spin around. Jones would make a clicking sound to call Hazel down from the tree she was in.
Jones would then make a hand motion and Hazel would spin around. Jones awarded her with a walnut.
Charlotte disappeared in 2020; Jones was never able to find her body.
Jones was watching Stephanie eat by a tree in Dunn Woods a few yards away. Jones looked away for a second, and when she checked back on Stephanie, she saw a hawk pinning her down, its claws in her fur. As the hawk started flying away, Jones heard Stephanie squealing in pain.
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Heidi Juds, a freshman and new member, said she heard about the club during freshman orientation and it piqued her interest.
“I decided to join because I just think squirrels are really cute and it's really fun to feed them on campus,” she said. “I have a bunch of cats at home, and so it's like they kind of replaced my cats, not, not really, but they're just cute.”
She even made a squirrel-themed boardgame for her tabletop revolution class.
Jonathan Kitch, another freshman at IU, also heard about the club during orientation.
Growing up camping and hiking a lot, Kitch developed a passion for taking pictures of animals. He likes sending squirrel pictures to his sister.
“Half my camera roll was already squirrels, so I thought, might as well start sending them to people,” he said. “One of them just sat there and, like, did, like, a whole photo shoot.”
Members in the GroupMe previously discussed what not to feed squirrels: Cheetos. One of the only human foods that’s safe to feed squirrels is unsalted mixed nuts and non-citrus fruits. Sugary or salty foods like granola bars and pretzels are not good for squirrels. Their bodies and kidneys can’t process salt efficiently in the same way human bodies do, so consuming high amounts of salt can lead to health issues such as dehydration.
Once, a member sent a picture of a squirrel eating part of an ice cream cone by Forest Quadrangle. Someone else posted a picture of a squirrel laying stomach down on a concrete ledge in the sun, saying it was “getting tan.” Another picture shows a squirrel in a pile of leaves, a small piece of a leaf stuck on his head.
Juds carries unsalted almonds in her bag for when she decides to randomly feed squirrels around campus. She once tried to feed a squirrel a strawberry, but it didn’t like it. She interacts with the squirrels at least three to four times a week.
“It feels very comforting,” Juds said. “It’s just really nice, really sweet. And it's de-stressing, because I'm just, like, I'm just sitting here, like feeding a squirrel almonds in between classes.”
Most of the time, both Juds and Kitch can’t tell the squirrels apart.
“Even though a ton of them look the same, if you look really closely, you can notice, ‘Oh, this one has like, a patch here and a patch there,’” Kitch said. “It's very hard to tell, but you can differentiate them if you like, look hard enough.”
Daisey Smith, who graduated two years ago and now runs the club, first started following the Squirrel Club Instagram account the summer before her freshman year in 2018. She met Jones that October.
On a chilly night around 8:30 p.m., Smith was walking by Neal Marshall Black Culture Center, when she noticed an opossum sitting atop a black, metal trash can. Its toes were frozen and bleeding. It was shivering. It seemed stuck.
“Whoa, this is weird,” Smith said about the opossum. “How often do you see that?”
Smith wasn’t sure what to do, but she decided to direct message the Squirrel Club’s Instagram account for help. In her message, she wrote that she had found an abandoned opossum that appeared to be sick, and she didn’t have anything to help it besides her coat to wrap it in.
Jones responded almost immediately, saying she’d meet her in 10 minutes with food and blankets. She brought a can of cat food and boiled eggs. They wrapped the opossum in a blanket while it ate the food before it ran away.
They named the opossum Marshall after the culture center. He got hit by a bus six weeks later. Even so, Smith became more involved in the club. Later that October, she participated in “Operation Walnut,” an effort to collect walnuts for squirrels so they wouldn’t risk crossing Third Street in front of the Biology Building, where club members often witnessed squirrels get hit by cars.
Club members collected walnuts in buckets from the ground around a big tree by the Biology Building. They brought the buckets to the other side of Third Street and poured them out. Over the following weeks, they noticed fewer squirrels risked crossing the street to collect walnuts, and they considered their operation a success.
But Lisa Barrett, a lecturer in animal behavior at IU, said while it’s hard to say whether feeding squirrels is ethical, doing so could result in them relying too much on humans as a source of food or bite humans if they don’t get food. This could keep them from getting the diet they need and hurt their ability to survive on their own in the wild.
“It's really special connection that people can have with nature and to be able to get up close with animals,” Barrett said. “However, it can lead to some problematic behaviors.”
Barrett said squirrels are able to learn very quickly. One type of learning is habituation, where they become more comfortable around humans.
“It could put them at greater risk of like, getting hit by cars, or getting trapped by humans who don't want them around,” Barrett said.
Smith took over the Instagram account after Jones graduated in 2018. Smith did research and talked to experts about squirrels. She learned how to differentiate a few squirrels by using all the photos she took of them. She could tell based on how they walk, the way their tail sits or if they have some mark or scar.
Even though Smith graduated last year, she has still been running the account, adding people to the GroupMe and posting photos of squirrels that people submit. She recently let a club member name a squirrel Elsa for her white tail.
“Now that I've graduated, it's kind of more of a side hobby for me,” Smith said. “I just love how it's just such an innocent thing that brings people together, like, just the joy of squirrels. So really that’s what it is for me. I'm just happy that people are so fired up about squirrels.”
Chatterton walks to another tree where a squirrel keeps watch from a branch 15 feet up in the air. She holds up a peanut to it, but it doesn’t move. It continues to watch her.
She sets the peanut on a branch a few feet away from it and steps back to see if it reacts. It takes a small step down the trunk of the tree toward the peanut.
“He seems antisocial,” she said.
Two minutes pass by without the squirrel moving. Chatterton gives up and starts to walk away. As she leaves, the squirrel turns its head to watch her go.
CLARIFICATION: A previous version of this story misspelled a name on one reference.
