When the wasps scurry through the sweet display of the bakery in summer, it is not nice for the customers, but the little beasts cannot be kept away completely, even with a lot of effort. But even larger uninvited guests can be surprisingly persistent, as a bakery in Scotland just found out.
Last Sunday, employees at a Greggs bakery chain spotted an uninvited visitor. “Greggs in Pitlochry is closed due to a red squirrel finding its way into the store,” a spokesman for the chain confirmed to the Daily Record. The company promised to capture the animal. “Once the store has been cleaned properly, it will be open again as normal.”
But that turned out to be more difficult than expected. Even days after the announcement, the little rodent was repeatedly able to elude its captors and was photographed by curious visitors through the shop window. “It seemed pretty stressed,” witness Shona Rollo told the BBC. “Once it came right up to the pane, it definitely wanted to try to escape.” The squirrel had probably nested somewhere in the roof, a spokesman told the TV station.
When “hunting” you still had to be careful. Even though Pitlochry is considered a squirrel hotspot, the small rodents are classified as endangered in Scotland and are protected accordingly. And of course it wouldn’t help the chain’s image to simply have such a cute visitor killed.
After four days, the company’s Twitter channel was finally able to report success. The squirrel was caught using a live trap. A video shows how the obviously frightened squirrel is abandoned in the forest and scurries out of sight in no time. “Now the store is closed for a deep clean. Then we can (hopefully) reopen squirrel-free,” the company posted of the happy ending to the saga, along with a GIF of a squirrel walking out of the store.
Sources: BBC, Daily Record, Twitter
