Published: Monday, March 15, 2010 in The Whitworthian.

Once again, fellow students, it is my sad, tragic, doleful duty to inform you of something-happening-on-campus-that-you-won’t-like. Unless, of course, you’re a sick, depraved individual with no soul who hates squirrels.

Yes. As odd, horrific, and ridiculous as it sounds, Whitworth security has recently uncovered an underground squirrel fighting ring.

Let that sink in for a minute.

Ridiculous, you say? Preposterous, you say? Well, take a look at the front page of the March 10 USA Today: “Finches fight to death in blood sport.”

Yes, gentle readers. Blood sport. Finches. Fighting. Admittedly, finches are not squirrels. But both are smallish creatures that one would not normally expect to be mixed up in something so heinous.

USA Today’s story is an in-depth five or six paragraphs of frightening expose. But what’s more frightening still is the travesty recently uncovered by Whitworth security.

Apparently, a group of depraved students have formed squirrel-catching gangs. The poor creatures are grabbed by the tail, thrown into a bag and trained to kill.

Many squirrels are subjected to illegal modifications.

“There are a great many ways you can … enhance your ordinary squirrel,” said an official looking man in a lab coat. “Razors glued to the teeth, rodent ’roids, small firearms duct taped to their little paws … macabre, to be sure, but among aficionados it’s a way to express creativity and even affection.”

Campus correspondent and occasional photo editor Taylor Zajicek recently had the opportunity to join Whitworth security on one of their busts. According to Zajicek, the scene was “like a fiesta. A fiesta of terror.”

Seven students were led away in handcuffs. Zajicek was able to pull one aside for a quick chat.

“It’s not even that big of a deal,” the despicable villain said. “I missed the deadline for scholarship applications — a fella’s gotta pay for this place somehow!”

It’s true. Reports are popping up all over campus that the steadily rising cost of tuition is forcing students to take drastic measures to make financial ends meet.

There are even reports that the recently relaxed rules regarding keeping fish in dorm rooms has fueled a terrifying comeback in illegal fish fighting rings.

Signs of squirrel fighting were first discovered by campus maintenance staff when the discarded corpses were found to be the cause of several lawn mower jams.

“I thought they were pinecones at first,” said a member of the staff who asked to remain anonymous. “They crunched just like pinecones. Boney little critters.”

Staff have mixed feelings on the squirrel fighting incidents. While most agree that violence is bad and squirrel fighting is the problem, some admit to secret gratitude.
“Freaking squirrels were always eating my trail mix,” said one man. “How’s a fella supposed to do his job without trail mix?”

A chilling question.

After maintenance staff reported the appearance of excessive squirrel cadavers on campus, authorities followed money trails back to perpetrators’ lairs. Most of the violence appears to have occurred in the basement of Warren Hall, referred to by some as the Fungeon, by others as that “one ghetto place we have on campus.”

Sadly, it appears that the violence will not be over anytime soon. As they were dragged away to Whitworth’s prison in the Back 40, several of the guilty students were heard to say that they would “not cease our blood sporting until administrators promise to stop bleeding us dry, 5 percent increases at a time.”

From Whitworth University, I’m Jerod Jarvis, and this was fun to write.