IT is not often that astronomers get sucked into bio-politics. But the 1980s saw the start of a bitter feud that still rumbles around today — at least among some of America’s conspiracy theorists. At its heart was a diminutive hero, a 200-g Mount Graham Red Squirrel Tamiasciurus hudsonicus grahamensis unique to the tree-covered Pinaleño Mountains, a small isolated mountain range in southern Arizona, of which Mt Graham is the highest peak. Thought to be extinct in the 1950s, this little survivor reappeared in small numbers on the 3 200 m mountain during the 1970s, and, in 1987, with a population of a couple of hundred, it was formally listed as endangered (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service 1992; 2011).