....and it begins.

[bettertomorrowamy]

The plot of "The Happening" is becoming reality:

Up and down the East Coast, residents and naturalists alike have been scratching their heads this autumn over a simple question: Where are all the acorns?


Some scientists fear a mysterious shortage of acorns this fall in the eastern U.S. will affect squirrels.

Oak trees have shed their leaves, but the usual carpet of acorns is not crunching underfoot.

In far-flung pockets of northern Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and other states, scientists have found no acorns whatsoever.

"I can't think of any other year like this," said Alonso Abugattas, director of the Long Branch Nature Center in Arlington, Virginia.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/science/12/12/acorn.shortage/index.html

[Trumpysgirl]

Poor squirrels, they will have to resort to begging for food from humans....oh, wait.

[bettertomorrowamy]

I saw a squirrel today just stop in its tracks and start running backwards into the street.

[Trumpysgirl]

Psycho squirrel

[Minnesota]

Yes but where are the bees?

[RoninFox]

Swarming over Nicholas Cage?

[Steve-O]

Eh... Just another media-manufactured crisis.

Like most natural phenomena, acorn production is cyclical.  Some years you get massive crops, some years you get hardly any acorns at all.  Scientists hypothesize that oaks have evolved this behavior as a means of controlling squirrel population, though they're not quite sure how it all works just yet.

http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2004/11/30/acorn_cycle_tough_to_crack/ (same crisis, different year)
http://www.garyjones.org/mt/archives/000589.html
http://usclancaster.sc.edu/faculty/scarlett/acrnsmry.htm

A simple Google search could have turned that information up, but I guess that's beyond the abilities of "residents and naturalists."  And of course, facts don't bring in viewers like panicky speculation.

[bettertomorrowamy]

Actually, that information is in the article.

[Steve-O]

Actually, that information is in the article.

Yeah, it's there. In two tiny paragraphs, completely buried under hysterical quotes from random clueless residents and loaded terms calling this natural occurrence a "mystery" that has scientists "baffled."  And they basically invalidate those two paragraphs anyway by immediately following them up with, "But even he is surprised at the complete absence of nuts in parts of Virginia."  (That is a great sentence if you take it out of context, though.)

They do get some props for actually squeezing those two paragraphs into the story, though.  I've seen several other stories on this subject that don't even do that much.

I also enjoy the way they manage to imply a non-existent connection to Colony Collapse Disorder by quoting some woman whose scientific credentials consist of living in Virginia.

I guess freaking people out every couple of years by reporting on shark attack outbreaks has lost its luster.

[bettertomorrowamy]

Dude!  The whole story is only like 4 paragraphs.   

[RoninFox]

I counted 26 on the main article.  Granted most of them are only a couple lines.

[bettertomorrowamy]

I counted 26 on the main article.  Granted most of them are only a couple lines.

Yeah, thanks for counting.