Critter that scurried by podium at Obama Rose Garden event touches off gnawing debate
By Mark S. Smith, APFriday, May 21, 2010
Rat or vole? White House vs. experts
WASHINGTON — So here’s the skinny on the plump, furry rodent that’s suddenly seized the presidential limelight: Scientists have positively IDed it as a vole, but the White House insists on seeing something more sinister.
“Where I’m from, that’s a rat” Press Secretary Robert Gibbs declared Friday, a day after whatever-it-is scurried from one set of bushes to another in the Rose Garden right in front of the President Barack Obama’s podium as he spoke to reporters.
Gibbs reports Obama never saw the critter, but is enjoying the fuss it has created as pictures and stories about the dash-past spread across the Internet, multiplying like — well, like rodents.
At the time, Obama was holding forth about Senate passage of his financial overhaul package.
It wasn’t the first time a rodent had been seen in the Rose Garden. But it was the first time photographers captured it and Obama in the same frame.
And those photos led experts to declare absolutely this was no rat, of any variety.
“The rodent is definitely a vole,” said Paul Curtis, a wildlife biologist at Cornell University. “It has small ears hidden in fur, small eyes and a short tail. Given that the length of the tail is longer than the hind foot, I’m 99 percent certain it is a meadow vole.”
Curtis reports voles are common in home gardens, where they scurry along tunnels and often nest in piles of mulch.
They also busily do what nature commands. “These animals have an extremely high reproductive rate — six to eight young per litter, and four or more litters annually,” Curtis said.
Picture that the next time you see a Rose Garden ceremony.
In fact, there’s evidence the multiplication is already under way. At least one participant in Friday’s signing on new gas mileage standards reported seeing a rodent peek out from under a bush shortly before it started. Meantime, along the mansion’s North driveway near the briefing room, other reporters had similar sightings.
Meantime, in his daily briefing, Gibbs was peppered by questions.
Is the National Park Service investigating?
Should the rodent be captured?
Should we call it ROTUS? (that’s Rodent of the United States, just as POTUS is White House lingo for President of the United States)
And what does the president want done?
“That he did not get into,” Gibbs said.
Told of the expert opinion that the animal’s a kind of vole, Gibbs gamely held his ground.
“Judging the size of the animal, based on the diameter of the seal (on the presidential podium), I’ve got to tell you that’s a rat,” he said.
On the other hand, Obama’s personal assistant, Reggie Love, told Gibbs he was certain it’s a mouse. “My sense is that Reggie has lived in some houses with field mice,” Gibbs deadpanned.
Either way, disputing the experts was a tough stance for an administration that prizes its deference to science.
And ultimately, Gibbs appeared to concede the point.
He used his Twitter account to send out the link to Wikipedia’s entry on voles, with the note, “Discuss amongst yourselves.”
