Squirrels tied together 'hopelessly' in Gordian Knot saved by wildlife rescuers

Wildlife rescuers have untangled five young squirrels whose tails were tied together in a Gordian Knot.

The team at the Wisconsin Humane Society who found the Gray squirrels siblings say the knot could have cost the animals their lives.

Describing the predicament, the team explained on Facebook how the siblings had "become hopelessly entangled with the long-stemmed grasses and strips of plastic their mother used as nest material."

After the animals were captured they were anesthetised as the team proceeded to carefully untangle the tails, which they said suffered "from varying degrees of tissue damage".

Describing the procedure, they wrote: "Bit by bit we snipped away at the grass-and-plastic knot with scissors, being very careful to make sure we weren't snipping anyone's tail in the process.

"It took about 20 minutes to free the young squirrels. And soon after they began to recover from anesthesia".

The squirrels are said to be recovering well while being monitored for "tail necrosis caused by impaired blood flow," the team wrote.