In 1997, the program decided that it wanted a website and I volunteered to do it. To learn, I started a personal website to practice my HTML skills, scary squirrel world. it's mission: to track the world-wide love-hate fascination with squirrels and present it in the most absurd way possible.
It also serves as an online archive of squirrel photos (even the canadian government snagged a few). I truthfully have no idea how many graphics and pages there are!

For some reason unbeknownst to me, ssw became popular around the world. it currently receives (based on averages, this year to date)...

7000 sessions per day
30,000 page views per day
100,000 hits per day
6gb transfer per day

based on past performance, traffic is seasonal and cyclical. e.g. traffic drops significantly during the summer months. the busiest times are december-march. there are significant spikes in traffic as well, sometime over 10gb transfer per day. so, i have to contract for way more transfer than i use on average to avoid getting slammed with overage charges when there's an unusual spike... :-(

i bear primary responsibility for site development and sole responsibility for maintenance. however, there are photographers who send material, a licensed wildlife rehabilitator "on-call", a graphic artist and two "content
developers" who help out in a pinch.

Here are the general responses/queries i receive from visitors

- you are (insert long, derogatory phrase here)

- squirrels are (insert long, derogatory phrase here)

- I want to kill you because I love animals and you don't

- Great job. btw: i speed up to run down helpless little animals

- How do I get rid of squirrels?

- I found a hurt squirrel. what do i do?

- I am a school teacher and want to say thank-you for a wonderful web site and excellent resource. may we use... (also received from government agencies, museums, commercial entities, publishers of educational materials, the Cherokee Nation of North Carolina, etc.)

- an unsolicited email from 75 year old Anne Kieth Lee a descendant of Confederate General Robert E. Lee responding to a feature on Lee's daughter's squirrel Custis Morgan: "I have known all about Custis Morgan since I was a child. The Lee family has quite a sense of humor and Robert was no exception. As a card carrying member of the family - I can only say that I was called a "little squirrel" as a child because I saved
everything - and I am still adding to my stack at 75.
~Regards, Anne Lee