Canada in legal fight to deport US flying squirrel

[Champ]

TORONTO (Reuters) - A flying squirrel named Sabrina is at the centre of a fight between Canada, which wants to deport the rodent, and its owner who says the creature is harmless and has bonded to him.



Ottawa wants to send the animal back to the United States, citing a 2003 ban on importing rodents into the country after a monkeypox outbreak south of the border last year.


Naturalist Steve Patterson, who brought the squirrel across the border last June after filling out the necessary papers, said the government is simply being stubborn.


"The good the squirrel can do far outweighs the bad," he said on Wednesday. "If we could apply for refugee status, I would certainly put an application in for her, but I don't think the laws cover small, baby squirrels."

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=856&ncid=856&e=1&u=/nm/20041006/od_uk_nm/oukoe_life_canada_squirrel

[Speck Tater]

1. They tried to do the same thing

to Rocky the Flying Squirrel. RCMP officer Dudley Do Right chased him all the way back to Frostbite Falls MN, as I recall.