A wanted vandal at a community college in Iowa could have stumped even the most seasoned detectives. But it turned out police should have been looking for a four-legged animal with a very furry tail.
Police in Estherville, Iowa, were alerted to the vandalism after bike owner Matt Strom found two tires, a bicycle seat, headlight and taillight had all been chewed through in incidents Wednesday and Thursday. But the culprit — a squirrel — was spotted not long after police left the scene of the crime, The Sioux City Journal reported.
“There was no damage done to any metal,” Strom, a math professor at Iowa Lakes Community College, told The Sioux City Journal. “It was all soft materials like plastic and rubber.”
Aviation instructor Ron Duer eyed the rodent chewing on Strom’s bike seat and snapped a photo. Upon learning who — or what — perpetrated the crime, the victim called the animal “the meanest squirrel you have ever seen.”
Duer’s photo provided much-needed answers to stumped police officers who wondered how anyone could repeatedly vandalize a bike that sat in front of the entrance that was quite busy.
“If somebody is walking by doing this, how is nobody seeing them doing it?” Iowa Lakes spokeswoman Tricia Morfitt said.
But Estherville squirrels seem to be awfully hungry. Sioux City Animal Control owner Cindy Rarrat told The Sioux City Journal she’s received reports of the rodents eating shingles, wood and wiring, but never a bicycle.
“I have never seen anything like that before, but I have seen where squirrels have done a tremendous amount of damage to houses,” she said.
Though the culprit remains free, Strom and a biology professor are trying to figure out just how to trap the squirrel.
“We talked about using the rest of the bicycle seat as bait, because that’s what the squirrel seems to like,” he said.
Until then, though, justice has yet to be served.
