SANTA CRUZ, Calif. – A runaway squirrel is back roaming the streets of Santa Cruz, California.
Emily the squirrel caught media attention last week, after she reportedly bit several people who got close to her tree and her babies.
The overprotective mom was later captured and taken to an animal rescue, along with her little ones.
But now Emily is on the loose again.
"Unfortunately, she had chewed a hole in the box that we did not think she was capable of getting out of and she got out," Amy Red Feather, of Native Animal Rescue, said.
In what became a big production, Santa Cruz fire, the county animal shelter and Native Animal Rescue all responded to reports on an aggressive squirrel on maple street last Friday.
But as soon as Emily was captured, rescuers say she began gnawing through the box she was being kept in.
There were several holes and she was able to squeeze through one and get away.
Volunteers at Native Animal Rescue tried everything to try and lure Emily back even using baby squirrel sounds.
"That's one of the tactics we used but when you're working with wildlife this stuff happens a lot," Red Feather said.
While Emily is nowhere to be found, her three two-and-a-half-week old babies -- two males and a female -- continue to recover.
"I feed them around the clock,” a veterinarian technician told KSBW. “I get up a couple of times a night and feed them and it's about three hours a day, during the day. There is actually powdered squirrel milk that we mix with water and it's especially formulated for baby squirrels."
Is it possible that Emily could be trying to make her way back to that tree on Maple Street in downtown Santa Cruz?
"I doubt it,” Red Feather said. “I think it's far enough away. We tend to get an animal far away from its home base, it doesn't go back"
Even if Emily isn't found, her babies will be nursed until they are ready to be released into the wild.