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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, the production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.

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Speaker 3: My name is Robert liamb and I am Joe McCormick.

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Speaker 3: And today we are coming at you with the return

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Speaker 3: of Squirrels to Stuff to Blow your Mind. If you

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Speaker 3: are newer to the show and your memory does not

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Speaker 3: go back this far, what year was it? Was it

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Speaker 3: in twenty eighteen that we did a pair of episodes

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Speaker 3: on squirrels that turned out to be real fan favorites,

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Speaker 3: and I'll say host favorites too. We think about squirrels

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Speaker 3: quite often, and I've never really thought about them the

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Speaker 3: same way ever since we did those shows.

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Speaker 2: That's right. They were quite popular talking about squirrels, their history,

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Speaker 2: human and squirrel interactions, and what exactly squirrels eat.

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Speaker 3: Yes, one of the big revelations from our research hall

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Speaker 3: for those episodes it was about well, I don't know.

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Speaker 3: I was going to say the darker side of squirrels,

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Speaker 3: but I don't know. It's not dark, it's just nature.

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Speaker 3: It's the more violent side of squirrels, the more carnivorous

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Speaker 3: side of squirrels. The thing most people don't think of

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Speaker 3: when they think of squirrels, which is scavenging meat from

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Speaker 3: dead animals, attacking baby birds in their nests, maybe even

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Speaker 3: preying on their own kind some kind, sometimes just squirrels

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Speaker 3: eating of the flesh.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I know a lot of this breaks down

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Speaker 2: just to the basic idea that squirrels are more complex

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Speaker 2: then a lot of people give them credit for. You know,

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Speaker 2: it's easy to look at a squirrel and think, oh,

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Speaker 2: that's cute, without of course realizing that this is a

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Speaker 2: wild animal. And yeah, they're not pure herbivores either, as

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Speaker 2: we discussed in those episodes. But the thing about those

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Speaker 2: episodes is that I think for many of us they

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Speaker 2: made squirrels a lot cooler because if you did kind

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Speaker 2: of dismiss squirrels as just, oh, well, they're the these

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Speaker 2: who we see them every day. They're mundane. You know,

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Speaker 2: they're out there trying to eat the bird seed. They're annoying,

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Speaker 2: but that's it. You know. It gave us maybe a

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Speaker 2: little more room to appreciate them. And a part of

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Speaker 2: our appreciation that grew out of that is we busted

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Speaker 2: out i think two different T shirt designs for our

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Speaker 2: T shirt store. We don't promote our T shirt store

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Speaker 2: as much as our T shirt store would like us to,

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Speaker 2: in part because we don't depend upon it. It's just

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Speaker 2: for fun. But if you go to our tea public

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Speaker 2: store you can find a link at stuff to Blow

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Speaker 2: your Mind dot com or check out the link tree

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Speaker 2: on our Instagram. At STBYM podcast you'll see I moved

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Speaker 2: them up to the top so you can see them

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Speaker 2: rather easily. We have one that is the squirrels are

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Speaker 2: Not what they seem and the other one is scug

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Speaker 2: King of Rats. These are both squirrel shirts. They're both

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Speaker 2: kind of metal looking. They're pretty good designs. I think

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Speaker 2: people had some fun with.

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Speaker 3: Them, agree. But there have been recent developments that caused

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Speaker 3: us to return to the issue of squirrel once again.

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Speaker 3: Multiple listeners over the past few weeks have excitedly gotten

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Speaker 3: in touch to share news reports about a scientific paper

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Speaker 3: out just this month in the Journal of Ethology, which

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Speaker 3: returns to the topic of squirrels eating meat, and not

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Speaker 3: just eating meat, but hunting and killing prey. So one

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Speaker 3: of these messages, for example, came from our listener Daniel.

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Speaker 3: He provided a link to the paper and said predatory

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Speaker 3: carnivorous squirrels observed for the first time love the show. Ps,

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Speaker 3: there's a Mountain Goats album called Beat the Champ and

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Speaker 3: it is entirely about lucha libre no synth though off

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Speaker 3: topic for today, but good to know. Nonetheless, Thank you,

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Speaker 3: Thank you, Daniel. So if you are Daniel or any

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Speaker 3: of the other listeners who sent this news our way,

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Speaker 3: thanks for letting us know. And yep, you got your

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Speaker 3: way here we are talking about it.

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Speaker 2: We may have heard from a few other listeners over

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Speaker 2: the years too, occasionally sending in some squirrel news I

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Speaker 2: have found in homing through the squirrel news since twenty

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Speaker 2: eighteen is that generally squirrels make headlines when there is

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Speaker 2: blood involved. Yeah, so we'll be touching on a few

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Speaker 2: different shades of this.

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Speaker 3: Yeah. Warning that today's episode will include some gory details.

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Speaker 3: But it's all nature, folks, and we got to face

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Speaker 3: nature at some point, that's right. So what was found

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Speaker 3: in this new predatory squirrel research. Well, let's go straight

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Speaker 3: to the paper and have a look. So this paper

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Speaker 3: has a long list of authors, but I'm going to

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Speaker 3: read their names today. So this is by Jennifer E. Smith,

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Speaker 3: Joey E. Ingbritson, Mackenzie m Minor, lc O Striker, Mari L. Podas,

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Speaker 3: Tia A. Rivara, Lupen, mL tell Us, Jada C. Wall,

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Speaker 3: Lucy M. Todd, and Sonya Wild And the paper is

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Speaker 3: called Vole Hunting Novel, Predatory and Carnivorous Behavior by California

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Speaker 3: Ground Squirrels, published in the Journal of Ethology twenty twenty four.

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Speaker 3: As I said, I think it was out just this month,

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Speaker 3: in December twenty twenty four. And so actually, I think

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Speaker 3: this paper is really interesting because it's not just a

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Speaker 3: documentation of a surprisingly violent behavior being carried out by squirrels.

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Speaker 3: I mean, that's kind of that would be an interesting

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Speaker 3: thing if that's all it were, But it actually places

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Speaker 3: it within some bigger theoretical framework about mammal behavior. So

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Speaker 3: the authors begin by talking about ways that animals adapt

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Speaker 3: to their behavior to respond to changes within their environment.

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Speaker 3: Sometimes we can have this misconception that humans are really

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Speaker 3: the only animals that can adapt substantially to changing pressures

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Speaker 3: in the world around them, and that all of the

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Speaker 3: other animals are well, you know, they're not as smart

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Speaker 3: as us, and their behavior is produced by a system

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Speaker 3: of fixed instincts that are fundamentally rigid, so they just

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Speaker 3: can't really change very much, even if it would benefit

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Speaker 3: them to do so. Now, I think it's true that

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Speaker 3: humans are especially adaptable. The flexibility of human behavior is

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Speaker 3: really one of the things that makes us special in

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Speaker 3: the animal kingdom and allows us to survive in basically

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Speaker 3: any climate or ecological situation. But I think sometimes the

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Speaker 3: knowledge of our specialness in this regard can lead us

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Speaker 3: to underestimate the fascinating behavioral flexibility of other animals, especially

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Speaker 3: other mammals, even superficially unassuming mammals like squirrels. So just

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Speaker 3: because we're really good at something doesn't mean other animals

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Speaker 3: can't do it at all. And as one kind of

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Speaker 3: illustration here, early in the introduction of the paper, the

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Speaker 3: authors bring up a really interesting animal behavior concept that

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Speaker 3: I don't believe I had ever heard of before. If

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Speaker 3: I had heard of it, I'd forgotten about it, and

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Speaker 3: by the time I read this. But the concept is

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Speaker 3: called the ecology of fear. And this is a bit

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Speaker 3: of a tangent from the main paper here, But I

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Speaker 3: thought this was so interesting I wanted to get into

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Speaker 3: it in some detail. So one of the references they

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Speaker 3: cite introducing this idea of the ecology of fear is

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Speaker 3: a paper from the Journal of Mammalogy published in nineteen

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Speaker 3: ninety nine by Brown, Landree, and Gurung called the Ecology

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Speaker 3: of Fear, Optimal Foraging, Game Theory, and Trophic Interactions. What

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Speaker 3: the authors of this paper point out is that it's

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Speaker 3: easy to have an oversimplified view of how the presence

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Speaker 3: of a predator can impact prey availability within an area.

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Speaker 3: So I'm going to make up an example, and this

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Speaker 3: scenario might not be perfectly valid in nature for the

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Speaker 3: specific animals I'm using, but this is just to illustrate

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Speaker 3: the principle. So imagine you've got a little park area

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Speaker 3: and a bunch of rabbits living spread out across it,

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Speaker 3: and they are being preyed on by a band of

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Speaker 3: local foxes, and you're studying the predator prey interaction between

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Speaker 3: the rabbits and the foxes. And then suddenly a new

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Speaker 3: predator is introduced into this local environment. It's a cougar,

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Speaker 3: and the cougar eats rabbits too. The foxes and the

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Speaker 3: cougar both compete for the rabbits, So how does the

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Speaker 3: cougar affect the availability of food for the foxes? A

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Speaker 3: simple way of thinking is that the cougar kills and

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Speaker 3: eats some of the rabbits. Thus some of the rabbits

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Speaker 3: are removed from the population. Thus the number of rabbits

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Speaker 3: available for the foxes to hunt is reduced. But the

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Speaker 3: authors here point out that reality is more complicated than that.

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Speaker 3: In the example I made up, the cougar might eat

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Speaker 3: some of the rabbits, but the actual number that it

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Speaker 3: kills and consumes compared to the total number of rabbits

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Speaker 3: is relatively small. And yet the presence of the cougar

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Speaker 3: could still greatly impact the availability of rabbit prey for

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Speaker 3: the foxes. Now how would that be. It would be because,

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Speaker 3: as the authors of this nineteen ninety nine paper say, quote,

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Speaker 3: mammalian predator prey systems are behaviorally sophisticated games of stealth

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Speaker 3: and fear. So what they're saying here is that prey

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Speaker 3: mammals are not inert resources that are consumed like cookies

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Speaker 3: from a jar. These are cookies that react. You know,

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Speaker 3: they react to the fact that they are being eaten,

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Speaker 3: and they are too very carrying degrees. Depending on the

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Speaker 3: species adaptable, they can change their behavior in response to

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Speaker 3: a threat. So the authors say that when studying predator

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Speaker 3: prey interactions. In nature, there's actually a spectrum of different

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Speaker 3: kinds of systems. So at one end of the spectrum

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Speaker 3: you would have what the authors call population driven systems,

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Speaker 3: and then at the other end of the spectrum you

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Speaker 3: have what the authors call fear driven systems. In population

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Speaker 3: driven systems, the main dynamic is predators killing prey, So

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Speaker 3: the main variables are going to be like the number

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Speaker 3: of predators and the number of prey, how many prey

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Speaker 3: animals the predators eat, Whereas in fear driven systems, the

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Speaker 3: presence of predators creates a condition of fear among prey,

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Speaker 3: which causes prey to become harder to catch. So to

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Speaker 3: go back to our example, if you have a cougar

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Speaker 3: suddenly show up in this park, it could cause the

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Speaker 3: rabbits to become significantly less available as prey, not just

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Speaker 3: because they're literally disappearing from the population by being eaten,

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Speaker 3: but because the rabbits are becoming more vigilant and more cautious.

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Speaker 3: They're venturing out of shelter less. They might change what

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Speaker 3: times of day they do things, they might change their

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Speaker 3: foraging strategies. They might hide more or move away from

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Speaker 3: any suspected predator earlier, earlier in possible detection. So in reality,

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Speaker 3: a predator can functionally deplete the supply of prey animals

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Speaker 3: in an area, not just by eating them, but by

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Speaker 3: frightening them.

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Speaker 2: Huh. I can't help but imagine a scenario where it's

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Speaker 2: Gotham City, right, yeah, and maybe you're the local police force,

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Speaker 2: and you have various stakeouts in place, you have various

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Speaker 2: pending cases and so forth, and then there's a batman,

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Speaker 2: essentially a new super predator preying on the criminal population

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Speaker 2: of this and yeah, this's going to potentially interfere with

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Speaker 2: everything that was going on. It's going to change the

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Speaker 2: local criminal ecology.

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Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, it'll change like police joker interactions. Not just

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Speaker 3: because all of your local jokers and riddlers have been

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Speaker 3: put in Arkham Asylum, but they might actually stop doing

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Speaker 3: crimes or something, or do them in a less easy

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Speaker 3: to detect way. Yeah, for another not quite perfect, but

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Speaker 3: I think interesting analogy. I was thinking just about supply

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Speaker 3: and demand in human economies. When you have a lot

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Speaker 3: of people who want to buy the same product and

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Speaker 3: that product is in limited supply, the buyers can end

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Speaker 3: up limiting access to that product, not just by literally

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Speaker 3: buying up and hoarding all of the products that exist,

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Speaker 3: but by the secondary effect of driving up the price.

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Speaker 3: Sellers realize demand is high, They're like, oh, a lot

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Speaker 3: of people want to buy this, So the sellers raise

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Speaker 3: their prices as much as they can, and this limits

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Speaker 3: access to the product, even though the product doesn't actually

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Speaker 3: vanish from the market, is just too expensive for a

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Speaker 3: lot of the people who want it. Similarly, I think

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Speaker 3: you could think of a predator as a predator by

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Speaker 3: its presence bidding up the price of prey. It's not

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Speaker 3: that the prey animals no longer exist. Some of them

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Speaker 3: don't exist anymore, but for most of them they're still there,

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Speaker 3: but they are increasingly expensive to acquire because they adjusted

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Speaker 3: their behavior in response to a predator. And so the

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Speaker 3: authors of this nineteen ninety nine paper summarize the effect

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Speaker 3: by saying behavior buffers the system. A reduction in predator

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Speaker 3: numbers should rapidly engender less vigilant and more catchable prey.

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Speaker 3: The ecology of fear explains why big, fierce carnivores should

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Speaker 3: be and can be rare in carnivore systems ignore the

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Speaker 3: behavioral game at one's peril. So how does this tie

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Speaker 3: into the study about squirrels where well, the authors of

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Speaker 3: this twenty twenty four paper cite the ecology of fear

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Speaker 3: as an example of how prey animals, including squirrels, are

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Speaker 3: not well modeled by thinking of them as rigid, inflexible

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Speaker 3: machines or as like a just an innert resource like

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Speaker 3: cookies in a jar. Instead, we should understand that, to

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Speaker 3: varying extents, squirrel species and other mammalian prey can change

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Speaker 3: their behavior patterns when different pressures appear in surprising or

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Speaker 3: perhaps even alarming ways. But mammals like squirrels don't only

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Speaker 3: change their behavior in response to the threat of a predator,

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Speaker 3: they also alter their behavior in response to changes in

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Speaker 3: the availability of food. So from here the authors go

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Speaker 3: into a big catalog of let's talk about all the

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Speaker 3: documented instances of squirrels, specifically, in their case, the California

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Speaker 3: ground squirrel eating meat. That's where they're going from here,

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Speaker 3: and so they end up citing a paper that we

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Speaker 3: talked about extensively in our older series on squirrels from

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Speaker 3: twenty eighteen. The paper is called Squirrels as Predators by J. R.

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Speaker 3: Callahan published in The Great Basin Naturalist nineteen ninety three.

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Speaker 3: You remember this one, Rob Oh, absolutely, yeah.

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Speaker 2: And of course if you're reading any subsequent papers about

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Speaker 2: squirrels as predators, they all cited this one.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, this seemed to be.

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Speaker 2: A major publication in the world of squirrel predator research.

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Speaker 3: Callahan really seemed to do the legworking cataloging all these

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Speaker 3: different examples not just of squirrels eating meat, but actually

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Speaker 3: functioning as predators. Now, there's an important distinction to make here,

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Speaker 3: which is the difference between what you might call it

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Speaker 3: just standard predation versus what is called facultative predation. An

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Speaker 3: animal is generally categorized as a predator if it needs

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Speaker 3: to be a predator, if it can be expected to

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Speaker 3: catch and kill prey as a regular part of its

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Speaker 3: behavior across its geographic range.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, especially in the case of obligate carnivores. You know,

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Speaker 2: where this creature has to hunt. Meat is what it eats.

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Speaker 3: But also, I think you can think of some omnivores

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Speaker 3: as just straight up predators if predation is a regular

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Speaker 3: part of their acquisition of food. Meanwhile, a facultative predator

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Speaker 3: is an animal that can sometimes optionally engage in predation

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Speaker 3: if the circumstances are right, and that's typically what we're

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Speaker 3: looking at with squirrels. I'm not aware of any squirrels

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Speaker 3: that are consistent obligate predators, but there are a bunch

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Speaker 3: of squirrels where the evidence is pretty good that while

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Speaker 3: they are primarily herbivores, they will be omnivores when they

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Speaker 3: need to be. And that's you know, the occasions might

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Speaker 3: be rare, but many of them will shift strategies to

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Speaker 3: eat foraged meat and sometimes even actively catch and kill

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Speaker 3: live prey on an as needed or as available basis.

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Speaker 3: Now this came up in our older episodes, but Callahan

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Speaker 3: lists a bunch of different squirrel prey animals for the literature,

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Speaker 3: just to gloss over them quickly. This includes birds, frogs, rats, lizards, rabbits, gophers, moles, snakes, fish, voles, ducks,

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Speaker 3: wild turkeys, turtles, crabs, and salamanders. And sometimes this would

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Speaker 3: this eating would involve the eating of the flesh, eating

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Speaker 3: the meat. Sometimes it seems to be focused more on

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Speaker 3: bones or joints, possibly for mineral supplementation in some squirrel species.

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Speaker 3: But if you look at all of the previous research

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Speaker 3: on squirrel predation. Taken together, it emphasized that the vast

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Speaker 3: majority of the hunting done by squirrels was targeted at

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Speaker 3: first of all insects or invertebrates, and then if you're

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Speaker 3: looking at vertebrate prey, it would be relatively helpless juvenile

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Speaker 3: prey such as actually eggs like bird eggs or bird

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Speaker 3: hatchlings in the nest.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, so memory serves this paper and also a paper

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Speaker 2: that I'll be referring to later, looked at the fact

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Speaker 2: that when you're studying all this, yeah, you do have

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Speaker 2: reports of squirrel predation and squirrels eating meat and and

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Speaker 2: and so forth. But then also you have a lot

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Speaker 2: of data that has arrived at via analyzing the stomach

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Speaker 2: contents of harvest squirrels. And of course that data doesn't

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Speaker 2: all provide a lot of context. Like you you can

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Speaker 2: look at it and say, well, they still mostly eat

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Speaker 2: seeds or plants or whatever, but there is a certain

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Speaker 2: amount of meat. As to how that meat was obtained,

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Speaker 2: you have to draw conclusions sometimes because yeah, there's there there.

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Speaker 2: Of course, you can scavenge, you can take out prey

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Speaker 2: that are just weak or helpless, juvenile and so forth.

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Speaker 2: But then there is that threshold, right that you cross

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Speaker 2: into potentially actively hunting prey, actively hunting something that is

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Speaker 2: that is not like wounded or dying, but is to

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Speaker 2: some degree like a like a valid, healthy prey creature.

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Speaker 3: That's right, And to some extent this ambiguity remained up

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Speaker 3: until the time of this new paper. So the authors

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Speaker 3: describe the landscape of squirrel meat eating research before their

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Speaker 3: paper as follows. They write, quote, despite the growing consensus

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Speaker 3: that many squirrel species opportunistically consume meat, much of the

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Speaker 3: early evidence for predation is based on stomach contents or

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Speaker 3: the killing of heterospecifics in captive settings eg. Zoos or traps.

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Speaker 3: This makes it challenging to distinguish between scavenging and direct predation.

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Speaker 3: So this is what you're saying, Rob, We're in this

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Speaker 3: situation where you can find squirrels and like cut open

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Speaker 3: their stomachs and say, oh, there's some meat in there,

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Speaker 3: but we can't tell did it actually kill something, or

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Speaker 3: did it just find something dead and eat part of it,

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Speaker 3: or in these other cases, you might have evidence that

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Speaker 3: the squirrel did kill and eat an animal, but it

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Speaker 3: was an animal that was caught in a trap or something.

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Speaker 2: Right, And I want to add an important caveat here

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Speaker 2: about predation. I don't want to make it sound like

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Speaker 2: true predation is a fair fight. We've covered enough examples

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Speaker 2: of predation in the past to know that there are

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Speaker 2: plenty of obligate carnivores, obligate predators who are still They're

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Speaker 2: obviously not going to go out and say, all right,

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Speaker 2: show me the strongest of the pack. No, the one

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Speaker 2: I shall fight today. No, no, no, They're still they're

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Speaker 2: still going after off you know, weekend, young, old, and

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Speaker 2: so forth, because they're inherent increased risks involved in going

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Speaker 2: after stronger prey.

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Speaker 3: Predators use their coupons, they are looking for the super

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Speaker 3: saver options. Yes, oh, but anyway, the authors here continue

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Speaker 3: quote the direct study of hunting behavior by squirrels remains rare,

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Speaker 3: and most reports in field settings are still limited to

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Speaker 3: a single depredation event. So one thing this does bring up.

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Speaker 3: I've seen a few people kind of comment that like, oh,

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Speaker 3: you know, this isn't new. We have examples from before

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Speaker 3: of squirrels eating meat, or squirrels, you know, report isolated

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Speaker 3: reports of squirrels killing and eating animals. That is true,

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Speaker 3: We do have these reports But what this new study

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Speaker 3: contributes is extensive direct documentation, including video footage, of a

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Speaker 3: specific species of squirrel, in this case, the California ground

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Speaker 3: squirrel or Odospermophilus beachyi, hunting, killing, and eating adult vertebrate

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Speaker 3: prey animals, specifically voles in the study. So how is

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Speaker 3: this different than what we had before. Well, it's just

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Speaker 3: a lot more observations of the predation behavior compared to

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Speaker 3: the previous reports that were usually fairly isolated, and we

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Speaker 3: have video evidence here. And they're not just going after

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Speaker 3: juveniles or something that's caught in a trap or whatever.

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Speaker 3: They're going after adult vertebrate prey animals. So a little sidebar,

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Speaker 3: who are these California round squirrels the Odospermophylis beachy I.

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Speaker 3: First of all, yes, they're cute. According to me, at

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Speaker 3: least that's that's my opinion, Rob. I don't know if

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Speaker 3: you share it, but yeah, they're cute little guys.

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Speaker 2: I mean, yeah, I guess, I don't know. I feel

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Speaker 2: like I'm you know, I'm not used to being around

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Speaker 2: these California squirrels, but the squirrels i'm around here in Georgia,

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Speaker 2: I think of them as I just know too much

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Speaker 2: about them, and I see them too often. I think

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Speaker 2: of them as like, it's hard for me to imagine

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Speaker 2: someone thinking they're straight up adorable, because like I hear

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Speaker 2: them on the fence, I see the effects of their

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Speaker 2: claws on the fence. They're like furry grappling hooks, you know,

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Speaker 2: like they're they're clearly tough creatures. I saw one fight

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Speaker 2: off a hawk once in my backyard. Oh yeah, it's

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Speaker 2: they're they're rough and tumble. So yes, cute, but with

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Speaker 2: a number of caveats as far as my opinion of

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Speaker 2: them goes.

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Speaker 3: Well, I think it's going to be all caveats from

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Speaker 3: here on out. So yes, they're cute. But I included

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Speaker 3: for you to look at here in our outline. I

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Speaker 3: found a picture hosted on the University of California Integrated

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Speaker 3: Pest Management Program website. It's a picture of an avocado

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Speaker 3: that has been gnawed on by a California ground squirrel.

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Speaker 3: And I thought this picture was I don't know, it

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Speaker 3: just struck me. It looks both beautiful the pattern that

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Speaker 3: emerges and the different colors of the avocado flesh as

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Speaker 3: it has been gouged and carved out by the rodent's teeth.

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Speaker 3: But also I think it's hauntingly sad.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I have a real visceral reaction to this. There

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Speaker 2: is something heartbreaking about it, potentially wasted avocado. I feel

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Speaker 2: this one, like this one is saveable. I think I

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Speaker 2: could get in there with a with a with a

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Speaker 2: with a knife, cut off the part that's been fouled

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Speaker 2: by the squirrel and you know, have plenty leftover for

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Speaker 2: sandwiches and whatnot.

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Speaker 3: You better do a good job because you don't know

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Speaker 3: what the squirrel has been eating before. The avocado.

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Speaker 2: Well, I think it's only going to seep in so far,

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Speaker 2: and I'm gonna cut that part off and spread the rest.

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Speaker 1: So.

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Speaker 3: These California ground squirrels, the adults typically grow to around

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Speaker 3: twenty two thirty centimeters long in the body, plus another

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Speaker 3: half body length or so again with the tail. They

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Speaker 3: have a modeled gray and brown fur on their backs

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Speaker 3: and on the flanks, with usually lighter colored fur on

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Speaker 3: the underside. They have a bushy tail. A couple of

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Speaker 3: the sources I looked at mentioned that the tail is

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Speaker 3: not as bushy as the common tree squirrels that you'll see,

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Speaker 3: but it is bushy nonetheless, I don't know, medium bushy.

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Speaker 3: Maybe there are natives to the western part of North America,

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Speaker 3: found today in US states of California, Oregon, Washington, and Nevada,

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Speaker 3: and extending south into Baja California. They generally inhabit grasslands

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Speaker 3: where they dig out burrows in the earth that are

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Speaker 3: sometimes shared by a bunch of different squirrels. They hide

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Speaker 3: out and brood their young in the burrows. They typically

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Speaker 3: forage during the day. They and they use these burrows

408
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Speaker 3: because in part they are a common prey species to snakes,

409
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Speaker 3: predatory birds, and larger carnivorous mammals. So to be super clear,

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Speaker 3: California ground squirrels mostly eat plants. The authors mention that

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Speaker 3: they forage most often for seeds that come from grasses

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Speaker 3: and oaks, and during the growing season they will eat

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Speaker 3: green vegetable matter, including quote leaves, flowers, buds, stems, shoots, roots, tubers, twigs,

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Speaker 3: and bark from a wide variety of different plants. The

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Speaker 3: authors mention over one hundred different species of plants that

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Speaker 3: they eat from. So as herbivores, they are also very

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Speaker 3: flexible foragers, as the avocado art we just talked about

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Speaker 3: would indicate. They are a common agricultural pest within their range.

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Speaker 3: If farmers have to deal with these things a lot,

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Speaker 3: especially if you're growing I think, like fruits or nuts.

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Speaker 3: But while those foraging strategies are the rule, we also

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Speaker 3: get the exceptions, and quite a number of exceptions have

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Speaker 3: been observed, maybe to the point where we should question

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Speaker 3: whether they become a rule of their own. These observations

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Speaker 3: include occasional carnivory, and while the reports are more isolated

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Speaker 3: and sporadic, the authors found published accounts of the ground

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Speaker 3: squirrels eating invertebrates. Of course, they're going to be eaten,

428
00:25:06,920 --> 00:25:11,240
Speaker 3: you know, insects and other invertebrates, and eggs and nestlings

429
00:25:11,240 --> 00:25:15,920
Speaker 3: of numerous birds, including kill deer, California quail, bob, white quail,

430
00:25:16,280 --> 00:25:21,600
Speaker 3: ring necked pheasant, mourning dove, dark eyed junco, and American robin.

431
00:25:22,280 --> 00:25:26,080
Speaker 3: Continuing the agricultural pest theme, they have been documented chomping

432
00:25:26,160 --> 00:25:30,440
Speaker 3: ride on into domestic chicken eggs. They have been documented

433
00:25:30,480 --> 00:25:33,800
Speaker 3: to eat fish. I think there's just one occasion of this,

434
00:25:33,960 --> 00:25:37,360
Speaker 3: but eating a small silvery fish called the California grunion.

435
00:25:38,440 --> 00:25:42,240
Speaker 3: And then finally the author's note quote Fitch, nineteen forty

436
00:25:42,280 --> 00:25:46,320
Speaker 3: eight observed the California ground squirrel consuming, but not directly killing,

437
00:25:46,760 --> 00:25:51,800
Speaker 3: young desert cottontails, adult pocket gophers, and kangaroo rats, so

438
00:25:51,880 --> 00:25:56,159
Speaker 3: eating several of its cousins here. But again to emphasize,

439
00:25:56,200 --> 00:25:58,719
Speaker 3: just because a squirrel is eating a rabbit, that doesn't

440
00:25:58,720 --> 00:26:01,000
Speaker 3: mean it caught and killed the rabbit. It might have

441
00:26:01,160 --> 00:26:05,480
Speaker 3: found a dead one free meal. And there have been,

442
00:26:05,520 --> 00:26:08,840
Speaker 3: as we alluded to earlier, observations of the California ground

443
00:26:08,880 --> 00:26:13,200
Speaker 3: squirrel eating meat in non natural conditions, for example, scavenging

444
00:26:13,359 --> 00:26:17,960
Speaker 3: on human trapped fish and rodents, songbirds, and on other

445
00:26:18,119 --> 00:26:22,480
Speaker 3: California ground squirrels. And there have also sometimes been observed

446
00:26:23,160 --> 00:26:27,240
Speaker 3: instances of these ground squirrels cannibalizing juveniles of their own species.

447
00:26:28,040 --> 00:26:31,560
Speaker 3: But again, what has long been elusive is much evidence,

448
00:26:32,560 --> 00:26:37,040
Speaker 3: extensive evidence of these animals actively hunting and killing adult

449
00:26:37,240 --> 00:26:41,320
Speaker 3: vertebrate prey. Well, this study found, oh yeah, under the

450
00:26:41,359 --> 00:26:45,840
Speaker 3: right conditions they will absolutely do plenty of that. The

451
00:26:45,880 --> 00:26:51,600
Speaker 3: specific prey here was the California vole or microtus Ce californicus.

452
00:26:51,600 --> 00:26:54,320
Speaker 3: And if you look up this paper, it provides links

453
00:26:54,320 --> 00:26:57,119
Speaker 3: to video that you can watch of these attacks of

454
00:26:57,160 --> 00:27:01,160
Speaker 3: the squirrel just ruthlessly snatching a vole behind the base

455
00:27:01,200 --> 00:27:04,959
Speaker 3: of its skull in its jaws, and I thought in

456
00:27:05,200 --> 00:27:08,960
Speaker 3: this one particular video I saw it was fascinating how

457
00:27:09,080 --> 00:27:13,560
Speaker 3: much it resembled traditional predator behavior, like what you would

458
00:27:13,600 --> 00:27:16,720
Speaker 3: see with a wolf or a dog grabbing a squirrel,

459
00:27:17,080 --> 00:27:19,000
Speaker 3: so like clamp the jaws at the back of the

460
00:27:19,080 --> 00:27:22,040
Speaker 3: neck and shake. But while this did show up in

461
00:27:22,440 --> 00:27:25,000
Speaker 3: the video I was looking at, the authors say that

462
00:27:25,040 --> 00:27:27,320
Speaker 3: this was not the most common type of attack with

463
00:27:27,720 --> 00:27:31,760
Speaker 3: the shaking like this. They characterized the squirrel on vole

464
00:27:31,800 --> 00:27:38,000
Speaker 3: attacks as follows. In three documented hunting attempts from this study,

465
00:27:38,320 --> 00:27:42,960
Speaker 3: squirrels engaged in typical predator stalking behavior, meaning that they

466
00:27:43,040 --> 00:27:45,680
Speaker 3: flattened out their bodies low to the ground, and then

467
00:27:45,800 --> 00:27:50,200
Speaker 3: attempted to minimize the sound produced as they approached prey

468
00:27:50,280 --> 00:27:53,159
Speaker 3: before leaping into a sudden attack. That was the minority

469
00:27:53,200 --> 00:27:57,960
Speaker 3: of cases. Nineteen of the documented hunting attempts involved chasing

470
00:27:58,240 --> 00:28:01,800
Speaker 3: just a squirrel flat out run chasing a single vole

471
00:28:01,920 --> 00:28:05,480
Speaker 3: across the ground. When the squirrel was able to come

472
00:28:05,520 --> 00:28:08,320
Speaker 3: within range, it would pounce on top of the vole

473
00:28:08,640 --> 00:28:11,480
Speaker 3: and then hold it down with its front paws and jaws.

474
00:28:11,880 --> 00:28:14,480
Speaker 3: Then it would begin biting, most often at the neck,

475
00:28:14,560 --> 00:28:18,359
Speaker 3: but also at other body parts. A bite shaking was

476
00:28:18,400 --> 00:28:24,120
Speaker 3: observed in one attack, and squirrels occasionally but did not usually,

477
00:28:24,200 --> 00:28:30,320
Speaker 3: engage in sit and wait ambush strategies, hiding behind tall grass. Quote. Instead,

478
00:28:30,600 --> 00:28:34,760
Speaker 3: hunting attempts were best characterized by squirrels opportunistically chasing a

479
00:28:34,840 --> 00:28:38,520
Speaker 3: single vole over a short distance in open areas across

480
00:28:38,680 --> 00:28:42,880
Speaker 3: dirt substrate. And I thought that was interesting that, like,

481
00:28:44,080 --> 00:28:46,640
Speaker 3: perhaps I'm taking the wrong thing away from this, but

482
00:28:46,720 --> 00:28:49,240
Speaker 3: that just read to me as like, huh, you know,

483
00:28:49,320 --> 00:28:53,240
Speaker 3: they don't maybe they don't have a super refined strategy

484
00:28:53,440 --> 00:28:56,920
Speaker 3: like a lot of obligate predators would. They're just sort

485
00:28:56,960 --> 00:28:57,760
Speaker 3: of winging it.

486
00:28:59,600 --> 00:29:02,160
Speaker 2: On an level you could say, it's like they also

487
00:29:02,720 --> 00:29:04,320
Speaker 2: kind of know how to do it as well.

488
00:29:04,400 --> 00:29:07,200
Speaker 3: Yeh yeah, yeah, they do know. I mean they know

489
00:29:07,240 --> 00:29:09,840
Speaker 3: how to bite, to like bite and subdue the prey

490
00:29:09,840 --> 00:29:13,200
Speaker 3: with the four paws and the jaws. Where does that

491
00:29:13,280 --> 00:29:19,000
Speaker 3: knowledge come from? Interesting question? The authors summarized, saying, quote,

492
00:29:19,120 --> 00:29:22,920
Speaker 3: hunters successfully captured and killed a vole in seventeen of

493
00:29:22,960 --> 00:29:26,800
Speaker 3: the thirty one observed hunting attempts, which is fifty five percent.

494
00:29:27,560 --> 00:29:31,280
Speaker 3: So they observed thirty one cases of a squirrel trying

495
00:29:31,280 --> 00:29:34,120
Speaker 3: to kill a vole. Seventeen of the thirty one worked.

496
00:29:34,680 --> 00:29:38,400
Speaker 3: The other fourteen attempts failed. Prey either got away during pursuit,

497
00:29:38,720 --> 00:29:42,880
Speaker 3: or escaped after being initially captured by a squirrel. Close quote.

498
00:29:43,600 --> 00:29:47,280
Speaker 3: Another interesting thing is that in seventy percent of these

499
00:29:47,360 --> 00:29:51,680
Speaker 3: kills the squirrel would not eat the vole directly at

500
00:29:51,720 --> 00:29:54,640
Speaker 3: the kill site, but instead carry it away to a

501
00:29:54,680 --> 00:29:59,240
Speaker 3: second location, sometimes even into its burrow or out of view,

502
00:29:59,280 --> 00:30:01,760
Speaker 3: but other times just carrying it away to some different place.

503
00:30:02,320 --> 00:30:04,680
Speaker 3: And I don't know for sure the reason for this,

504
00:30:04,840 --> 00:30:08,200
Speaker 3: but I wonder if this is because the squirrel is

505
00:30:08,320 --> 00:30:11,800
Speaker 3: prey itself and it might not be comfortable being out

506
00:30:11,840 --> 00:30:14,960
Speaker 3: in the open. If this is, if this place is

507
00:30:15,080 --> 00:30:17,880
Speaker 3: the place where the vole was vulnerable to the squirrel,

508
00:30:18,440 --> 00:30:21,640
Speaker 3: that's also probably a place where the squirrel is vulnerable

509
00:30:21,680 --> 00:30:23,000
Speaker 3: to one of its predators.

510
00:30:23,320 --> 00:30:25,720
Speaker 2: Right, and now you're presenting a two for one deal,

511
00:30:26,280 --> 00:30:28,040
Speaker 2: So you got to get out of there.

512
00:30:28,360 --> 00:30:30,760
Speaker 3: Oh man, if you're like a hawk right here or something,

513
00:30:30,760 --> 00:30:33,240
Speaker 3: and you can get two animals out of a single catch.

514
00:30:34,000 --> 00:30:36,160
Speaker 3: Oh and one more detail from this part about the

515
00:30:36,200 --> 00:30:38,840
Speaker 3: attacks is apparently these ground squirrels, you know what, they

516
00:30:38,880 --> 00:30:42,240
Speaker 3: love to rip off the head quote In eleven of

517
00:30:42,280 --> 00:30:45,760
Speaker 3: the events for which consumption of an intact carcass was observed,

518
00:30:45,960 --> 00:30:50,320
Speaker 3: squirrels first removed the head of the vole, so that's

519
00:30:50,360 --> 00:30:55,160
Speaker 3: just procedure. Head remove head first. Next, they either directly

520
00:30:55,160 --> 00:30:57,920
Speaker 3: pulled meat out of the torso or first stripped fur

521
00:30:58,040 --> 00:31:00,480
Speaker 3: from each of these body parts before can assuming the

522
00:31:00,520 --> 00:31:06,000
Speaker 3: exposed meat, organs and cartilage. So an interesting thing about

523
00:31:06,000 --> 00:31:10,440
Speaker 3: these gory observations is the context that came in because

524
00:31:10,560 --> 00:31:14,360
Speaker 3: these observations were made within the context of a larger

525
00:31:14,480 --> 00:31:19,520
Speaker 3: project known as the Long Term Behavioral Ecology of California

526
00:31:19,560 --> 00:31:22,880
Speaker 3: Ground Squirrels Project, which had been going on for years.

527
00:31:23,560 --> 00:31:26,360
Speaker 3: This has been carried out at a place called I'm

528
00:31:26,400 --> 00:31:28,680
Speaker 3: not sure I'm pronouncing this correctly, but I think it's

529
00:31:28,960 --> 00:31:35,320
Speaker 3: Brionas Regional Park in California, Brio Nes Regional Park, sort

530
00:31:35,360 --> 00:31:40,480
Speaker 3: of northeast of Oakland and Berkeley. Interestingly, the project was

531
00:31:40,600 --> 00:31:44,920
Speaker 3: in its twelfth year before these instances of squirrels killing

532
00:31:44,960 --> 00:31:48,160
Speaker 3: and eating voles were first observed. And that doesn't mean

533
00:31:48,200 --> 00:31:53,120
Speaker 3: it never happened before, but these squirrels have been studied

534
00:31:53,160 --> 00:31:56,800
Speaker 3: intensely for twelve years in this region before anybody observed

535
00:31:56,840 --> 00:32:00,080
Speaker 3: them doing this, and then once it was observed, they

536
00:32:00,120 --> 00:32:02,920
Speaker 3: were observed doing it all the time, basically every day

537
00:32:03,040 --> 00:32:05,560
Speaker 3: after the first observation, for a period of a couple

538
00:32:05,600 --> 00:32:09,920
Speaker 3: of months. I was reading a press release about this

539
00:32:10,040 --> 00:32:13,560
Speaker 3: paper that was giving some narrative about how the scientists

540
00:32:13,560 --> 00:32:16,640
Speaker 3: came to these observations, and they interview the lead author,

541
00:32:16,720 --> 00:32:19,840
Speaker 3: Jennifer E. Smith, who is an associate professor of biology

542
00:32:19,880 --> 00:32:24,200
Speaker 3: at University of Wisconsin eau Claire, who ends up saying

543
00:32:24,200 --> 00:32:27,600
Speaker 3: in this press release quote, this was shocking. We had

544
00:32:27,640 --> 00:32:32,560
Speaker 3: never seen this behavior before, and emphasized she emphasizes how

545
00:32:32,600 --> 00:32:35,920
Speaker 3: strange it is that like squirrels are, they're just such

546
00:32:35,960 --> 00:32:38,160
Speaker 3: a familiar animal to people. People just see them in

547
00:32:38,200 --> 00:32:41,320
Speaker 3: their yards in the park all the time. And here suddenly,

548
00:32:41,760 --> 00:32:46,440
Speaker 3: after twelve years of intensive observation, we're seeing this predation

549
00:32:46,600 --> 00:32:49,720
Speaker 3: behavior happening all over the place within the range of

550
00:32:51,040 --> 00:32:55,520
Speaker 3: this particular study, and it's like what it's like out

551
00:32:55,560 --> 00:33:00,320
Speaker 3: of nowhere. Apparently there were some undergraduate researchers who had

552
00:33:00,320 --> 00:33:02,640
Speaker 3: been doing field work for the study, and they came

553
00:33:02,680 --> 00:33:04,920
Speaker 3: in one day and just you know, ask one of

554
00:33:04,960 --> 00:33:07,600
Speaker 3: the professors on the project about it. They're like, yeah,

555
00:33:07,600 --> 00:33:11,320
Speaker 3: we saw squirrels hunting and killing voles. And the professor

556
00:33:11,440 --> 00:33:14,560
Speaker 3: was like what no, no, no, no, But then saw the

557
00:33:14,560 --> 00:33:16,000
Speaker 3: footage and it's right there.

558
00:33:16,360 --> 00:33:19,320
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, you can't argue with this footage, some of

559
00:33:19,320 --> 00:33:20,480
Speaker 2: these grizzly photos.

560
00:33:20,960 --> 00:33:23,520
Speaker 3: And as I said, after the first instance, they began

561
00:33:23,600 --> 00:33:27,000
Speaker 3: to see this behavior basically every day, so they observed

562
00:33:27,040 --> 00:33:30,200
Speaker 3: it as a summer behavior throughout June and July twenty

563
00:33:30,240 --> 00:33:35,080
Speaker 3: twenty four. And the researchers did not during this period

564
00:33:35,120 --> 00:33:39,880
Speaker 3: observe the ground squirrels hunting and killing other animals, only voles.

565
00:33:39,960 --> 00:33:44,720
Speaker 3: That's kind of interesting. So it's previously unobserved behavior suddenly

566
00:33:44,960 --> 00:33:47,200
Speaker 3: seems to be happening all over the place at least

567
00:33:47,200 --> 00:33:51,240
Speaker 3: that they're noticing, and it's only targeting one prey species.

568
00:33:51,280 --> 00:33:56,120
Speaker 3: They don't generally become predators. Why would this be Well,

569
00:33:56,840 --> 00:33:59,960
Speaker 3: they ended up pairing this with a with an interesting observe,

570
00:34:00,880 --> 00:34:06,240
Speaker 3: which was a massive increase in a documentation of voles

571
00:34:06,560 --> 00:34:10,799
Speaker 3: logged by local citizen scientists in the area on an

572
00:34:10,840 --> 00:34:14,160
Speaker 3: app called eye Naturalist, which is sort of a biological

573
00:34:14,200 --> 00:34:17,399
Speaker 3: and wildlife social media platform kind of a place being

574
00:34:17,520 --> 00:34:21,759
Speaker 3: log Wildlife and the Citizen Science app. Yeah, yeah, and

575
00:34:21,880 --> 00:34:26,160
Speaker 3: so they noticed, h that's interesting. So we're seeing suddenly

576
00:34:26,239 --> 00:34:29,720
Speaker 3: ground squirrels showing this thing we've never noticed before where

577
00:34:29,480 --> 00:34:33,680
Speaker 3: they're hunting and killing voles. And also people are saying, whoa,

578
00:34:33,680 --> 00:34:35,839
Speaker 3: there's tons of voles out here. Where did all these

579
00:34:35,920 --> 00:34:40,000
Speaker 3: voles come from? And the authors compare the number of

580
00:34:40,080 --> 00:34:42,719
Speaker 3: vole sidings reported on this app to the ten year

581
00:34:42,760 --> 00:34:46,919
Speaker 3: average from before and found that the peak of vole

582
00:34:47,000 --> 00:34:49,759
Speaker 3: sidings in the summer of twenty twenty four there were

583
00:34:49,840 --> 00:34:54,359
Speaker 3: roughly seven times more vole observations than the previous ten

584
00:34:54,440 --> 00:34:58,200
Speaker 3: year average. So suddenly all these voles coming out of nowhere.

585
00:34:58,520 --> 00:35:00,719
Speaker 2: Yeah, and what are you going to do? Right, what

586
00:35:00,760 --> 00:35:02,680
Speaker 2: are you going to do when there's that many voles around?

587
00:35:02,920 --> 00:35:07,120
Speaker 3: Exactly. So, according to the authors, it is normal for

588
00:35:07,200 --> 00:35:09,839
Speaker 3: some vole populations to kind of boom and bust. They

589
00:35:09,880 --> 00:35:16,200
Speaker 3: cycle through these population density patterns, and they tend to

590
00:35:16,680 --> 00:35:19,120
Speaker 3: kind of peak every three to five years. But the

591
00:35:19,160 --> 00:35:21,879
Speaker 3: peak achieved in the summer of twenty twenty four, rob

592
00:35:21,920 --> 00:35:24,080
Speaker 3: you can see from a chart I've included, was like

593
00:35:24,239 --> 00:35:27,480
Speaker 3: way way more than the normal peaks, even the previous

594
00:35:27,520 --> 00:35:29,720
Speaker 3: peaks from like you can see in kind of twenty

595
00:35:29,800 --> 00:35:30,800
Speaker 3: twenty or so.

596
00:35:31,239 --> 00:35:33,760
Speaker 2: It's such a peak that it doesn't make you judge

597
00:35:33,760 --> 00:35:36,239
Speaker 2: the squirrel the squirrels at all. You're like, maybe we

598
00:35:36,280 --> 00:35:40,080
Speaker 2: should have been eating vowles as well. Clearly it's out

599
00:35:40,120 --> 00:35:41,160
Speaker 2: of control, right.

600
00:35:41,520 --> 00:35:44,080
Speaker 3: This brings us back to the idea from earlier about

601
00:35:44,160 --> 00:35:48,000
Speaker 3: behavioral flexibility in response to changes in the environment. So,

602
00:35:48,280 --> 00:35:51,120
Speaker 3: like the ecology of fear, there can also be an

603
00:35:51,120 --> 00:35:55,680
Speaker 3: ecology of food abundance. So these two patterns are observed

604
00:35:55,680 --> 00:35:58,120
Speaker 3: and they seem to line up in time. One of

605
00:35:58,160 --> 00:36:01,880
Speaker 3: them is suddenly a big surge in vole populations, and

606
00:36:01,920 --> 00:36:06,120
Speaker 3: the second one is squirrels shift their foraging strategy from

607
00:36:06,760 --> 00:36:09,680
Speaker 3: let's mostly focus on grains and other plant matter to

608
00:36:10,360 --> 00:36:12,359
Speaker 3: if you see a vole, chase it and kill it.

609
00:36:13,800 --> 00:36:16,239
Speaker 2: I mean it's in season exactly. Yeah.

610
00:36:16,520 --> 00:36:18,320
Speaker 3: So to come back to kind of the crude human

611
00:36:18,360 --> 00:36:21,279
Speaker 3: economics analogy I used earlier, you can think of this like,

612
00:36:21,440 --> 00:36:24,080
Speaker 3: you know, I don't normally buy vole meat at the store,

613
00:36:24,120 --> 00:36:26,120
Speaker 3: but you go to the store and vole meat is

614
00:36:26,320 --> 00:36:30,040
Speaker 3: so so cheap they're practically giving it away, so why not.

615
00:36:30,480 --> 00:36:31,400
Speaker 2: Yeah.

616
00:36:31,440 --> 00:36:33,840
Speaker 3: One of the authors of the paper. Sonia Wilde off

617
00:36:33,920 --> 00:36:38,719
Speaker 3: UC Davis gave a quote to that press release I mentioned, saying, quote,

618
00:36:38,920 --> 00:36:42,400
Speaker 3: the fact that California ground squirrels are behaviorally flexible and

619
00:36:42,560 --> 00:36:45,759
Speaker 3: can respond to changes in food availability might help them

620
00:36:45,800 --> 00:36:51,480
Speaker 3: persist in environments rapidly changing due to the presence of humans. Oh,

621
00:36:51,520 --> 00:36:53,440
Speaker 3: And I thought that was kind of interesting because on

622
00:36:53,440 --> 00:36:56,840
Speaker 3: one hand, you could just say, well, you know, these squirrels,

623
00:36:57,000 --> 00:37:00,640
Speaker 3: this squirrel species has a certain amount of behavioral flexibility.

624
00:37:00,719 --> 00:37:04,160
Speaker 3: That's part of its natural repertoire. You know, it can adapt,

625
00:37:04,200 --> 00:37:06,440
Speaker 3: and that's just part of what kind of animal it is.

626
00:37:06,920 --> 00:37:11,279
Speaker 3: And that's totally possible. But I also wonder if humans

627
00:37:11,440 --> 00:37:16,799
Speaker 3: could have, inadvertently, by our presence, helped create populations of

628
00:37:17,040 --> 00:37:20,959
Speaker 3: more behaviorally flexible squirrels. You know, if we're going around

629
00:37:21,000 --> 00:37:24,520
Speaker 3: wherever we go, changing the nature of the environment, We're

630
00:37:24,560 --> 00:37:28,160
Speaker 3: changing the you know, the very topography of the landscape,

631
00:37:28,200 --> 00:37:30,960
Speaker 3: we're changing what kind of food is available, We're changing

632
00:37:30,960 --> 00:37:34,239
Speaker 3: all sorts of things wherever we go, does that as

633
00:37:34,239 --> 00:37:37,160
Speaker 3: sort of in our wake cause the secondary effects where

634
00:37:37,200 --> 00:37:42,560
Speaker 3: we select for more behaviorally flexible populations of animals in

635
00:37:43,239 --> 00:37:45,719
Speaker 3: the areas with proximity to human civilization.

636
00:37:47,160 --> 00:37:51,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, absolutely, yeah, we even changes that we might

637
00:37:51,120 --> 00:37:54,120
Speaker 2: not think of being that drastic. They have these ripple

638
00:37:54,160 --> 00:37:57,279
Speaker 2: effects in the environment. And yeah, next thing, you know,

639
00:37:57,360 --> 00:37:59,319
Speaker 2: it's squirrels ripping heads off.

640
00:38:00,520 --> 00:38:04,160
Speaker 3: Now, plenty of unanswered questions remain, like how common? Is this?

641
00:38:04,280 --> 00:38:04,600
Speaker 2: Really?

642
00:38:05,080 --> 00:38:09,799
Speaker 3: Unclear? Fascinating question we don't fully have the answers to,

643
00:38:09,920 --> 00:38:14,239
Speaker 3: But how do the squirrels actually make this shift? Like

644
00:38:14,360 --> 00:38:17,600
Speaker 3: where does the hunting behavior come from? Is it a

645
00:38:17,800 --> 00:38:22,319
Speaker 3: learned behavior that's passed down from from parent offspring or

646
00:38:22,440 --> 00:38:25,799
Speaker 3: is it a kind of instinctual ingrained behavior, In which case,

647
00:38:25,920 --> 00:38:29,200
Speaker 3: what sort of instincts are harnessed from the normal foraging

648
00:38:29,280 --> 00:38:33,880
Speaker 3: strategies and repurposed for hunting If it is instinctual? Another

649
00:38:34,160 --> 00:38:36,279
Speaker 3: how like how does it get triggered? You know, how

650
00:38:36,280 --> 00:38:39,840
Speaker 3: does the squirrel know to shift? It's it's say like okay,

651
00:38:39,880 --> 00:38:43,120
Speaker 3: it is time to hunt now? And another interesting thing

652
00:38:43,120 --> 00:38:45,799
Speaker 3: are like what are the secondary dynamics that emerge? We

653
00:38:45,800 --> 00:38:48,840
Speaker 3: were talking earlier about secondary dynamics that you might not

654
00:38:48,880 --> 00:38:52,440
Speaker 3: always envision that come out of animals changing their behavior.

655
00:38:52,680 --> 00:38:55,200
Speaker 3: Does this change what the voles do? And does that

656
00:38:55,239 --> 00:38:56,480
Speaker 3: have secondary effects?

657
00:38:57,239 --> 00:39:00,279
Speaker 2: You know this I can't help but think about it's

658
00:39:00,280 --> 00:39:03,520
Speaker 2: hard to really set aside this idea that squirrels are

659
00:39:03,560 --> 00:39:07,400
Speaker 2: breaking bad here by eating meat, and like they have

660
00:39:07,480 --> 00:39:10,600
Speaker 2: this really dramatic moment where they say, now I embrace

661
00:39:10,680 --> 00:39:14,479
Speaker 2: death or something, you know, But I maybe the better

662
00:39:14,520 --> 00:39:17,280
Speaker 2: way to think of it is to remind ourselves, perhaps

663
00:39:17,280 --> 00:39:22,920
Speaker 2: that the squirrel doesn't see a difference between ultimately between

664
00:39:23,120 --> 00:39:27,280
Speaker 2: the food that is obtained from seed or a shoot

665
00:39:27,360 --> 00:39:30,120
Speaker 2: from a plant and from the body of a vowel.

666
00:39:30,520 --> 00:39:33,560
Speaker 2: You know. It's like these are all like distinctions of

667
00:39:33,680 --> 00:39:37,239
Speaker 2: vegetation and animal like. Yes, they're at present in the

668
00:39:38,040 --> 00:39:42,000
Speaker 2: strategy that is employed, the methodology of obtaining that food,

669
00:39:42,360 --> 00:39:46,040
Speaker 2: but in terms of like seeing this big divide between

670
00:39:46,640 --> 00:39:49,640
Speaker 2: plant world and animal world, between plant food and animal

671
00:39:49,680 --> 00:39:53,839
Speaker 2: food is maybe more of a human construct, and we

672
00:39:53,880 --> 00:39:56,480
Speaker 2: bring that baggage into examining these creatures.

673
00:39:56,600 --> 00:39:59,279
Speaker 3: What are these big furry nuts that run away from me?

674
00:39:59,400 --> 00:40:00,640
Speaker 3: They're sure are delicious?

675
00:40:00,840 --> 00:40:13,719
Speaker 2: Yeah, all right, So I was looking around as well

676
00:40:13,800 --> 00:40:18,080
Speaker 2: for some articles from the past several years on squirrels

677
00:40:18,120 --> 00:40:22,240
Speaker 2: in general, but also squirrels eating meat. And yeah, another

678
00:40:22,280 --> 00:40:25,360
Speaker 2: one that came to light since we last recorded the

679
00:40:25,360 --> 00:40:28,840
Speaker 2: blood dripping mos of squirrels. This is one that was

680
00:40:28,840 --> 00:40:31,000
Speaker 2: published in twenty twenty two. It was published in the

681
00:40:31,080 --> 00:40:35,280
Speaker 2: journal Acta Ethologica and it's titled first Evidence for active

682
00:40:35,480 --> 00:40:40,839
Speaker 2: carnivorous predation in the European ground squirrel by Kachamakova. At all, So,

683
00:40:41,719 --> 00:40:46,719
Speaker 2: the European ground squirrel is Spermophilus setellus. Now did we

684
00:40:46,760 --> 00:40:50,520
Speaker 2: already mentioned the genus Spermophulus close?

685
00:40:50,840 --> 00:40:54,120
Speaker 3: The California ground squirrels are in the genus otto Spermophilus.

686
00:40:54,480 --> 00:40:59,719
Speaker 2: Okay, so some similarities here in the naming. Anyway, some

687
00:40:59,760 --> 00:41:02,000
Speaker 2: of you might be wondering what why are they thought

688
00:41:02,040 --> 00:41:04,919
Speaker 2: of as spermophiles? Well, the translation to fixate on here

689
00:41:05,000 --> 00:41:09,279
Speaker 2: is seed love. So they are seed lovers as in

690
00:41:09,560 --> 00:41:13,920
Speaker 2: European ground squirrels sure do love to eat plant seeds. Yeah. So,

691
00:41:13,960 --> 00:41:16,840
Speaker 2: the endangered squirrel species in question here is native to

692
00:41:17,040 --> 00:41:20,239
Speaker 2: Eastern and Central Europe, and indeed a huge part of

693
00:41:20,280 --> 00:41:25,600
Speaker 2: its diet consists of seeds, plant shoots, also roots and

694
00:41:26,000 --> 00:41:30,200
Speaker 2: flightless invertebrates or in the mix as well. But this

695
00:41:30,280 --> 00:41:34,000
Speaker 2: paper presented evidence for active predation by the European ground squirrel,

696
00:41:34,040 --> 00:41:38,360
Speaker 2: in particular the hunting, killing, and eating of active animals,

697
00:41:38,400 --> 00:41:40,959
Speaker 2: so not merely the weaken, the dead and the so forth,

698
00:41:41,000 --> 00:41:46,600
Speaker 2: as we've been discussing, but actually going after I don't know,

699
00:41:46,680 --> 00:41:48,560
Speaker 2: more formidable prey. You might say, I don't know with

700
00:41:48,600 --> 00:41:51,480
Speaker 2: all the caveats of predation that we mentioned earlier. Now,

701
00:41:51,520 --> 00:41:55,200
Speaker 2: to be sure, European ground squirrels are still mostly eating seeds,

702
00:41:55,760 --> 00:41:58,480
Speaker 2: but in the spring they supplement their diet with bugs

703
00:42:00,080 --> 00:42:04,680
Speaker 2: consisting of quote considerable amount of animal components, and researchers

704
00:42:04,680 --> 00:42:07,000
Speaker 2: have also known for a while that they'll eat voles,

705
00:42:07,320 --> 00:42:10,520
Speaker 2: they'll eat green lizards. These have been found in their

706
00:42:10,560 --> 00:42:14,320
Speaker 2: stomach contents, which is a lot of the previous findings

707
00:42:14,360 --> 00:42:18,080
Speaker 2: that we've had to go on. Ground nesting birds are

708
00:42:18,160 --> 00:42:22,279
Speaker 2: also seem to be on the menu, and like many

709
00:42:22,400 --> 00:42:26,239
Speaker 2: other animals, European ground squirrels are also opportunistic cannibals. If

710
00:42:26,280 --> 00:42:30,480
Speaker 2: there is an opportunity to munch on a dead number

711
00:42:30,640 --> 00:42:33,800
Speaker 2: of your own species, or perhaps there's there also scenarios

712
00:42:33,800 --> 00:42:36,279
Speaker 2: where one might feast upon the young. That sort of

713
00:42:36,320 --> 00:42:38,120
Speaker 2: thing is totally on the table, you know, it comes

714
00:42:38,120 --> 00:42:41,040
Speaker 2: down to basic economy of energy.

715
00:42:41,280 --> 00:42:43,840
Speaker 3: Yeah, and as we said, California ground squirrel does the

716
00:42:43,840 --> 00:42:47,120
Speaker 3: same thing occasionally if the opportunity presents itself, they'll eat

717
00:42:47,160 --> 00:42:48,040
Speaker 3: their own kind.

718
00:42:48,280 --> 00:42:52,160
Speaker 2: Right, So, as has been the case with these other studies,

719
00:42:52,520 --> 00:42:54,360
Speaker 2: a lot of the past evidence was based on stomach

720
00:42:54,400 --> 00:42:59,240
Speaker 2: contents and observations of squirrels feeding on carcasses, but questions

721
00:42:59,239 --> 00:43:03,319
Speaker 2: remain actively pursue live prey, hunting and killing them, or

722
00:43:03,320 --> 00:43:09,320
Speaker 2: where they mirror you know, basically scavengers and at times

723
00:43:09,400 --> 00:43:13,560
Speaker 2: very opportunistic carnivores. Well, the authors point out that there

724
00:43:13,640 --> 00:43:18,480
Speaker 2: was no previous evidence of European ground squirrel's killing prey,

725
00:43:18,600 --> 00:43:21,719
Speaker 2: hunting and killing prey until now and that was the

726
00:43:21,920 --> 00:43:25,759
Speaker 2: that's the big finding of this paper. And getting into

727
00:43:25,760 --> 00:43:29,000
Speaker 2: the observation portion of the study, they share the following

728
00:43:29,520 --> 00:43:33,839
Speaker 2: on two six, twenty twenty at nineteen twenty seven, that's

729
00:43:34,040 --> 00:43:37,400
Speaker 2: the time in the area of the town of Schumann,

730
00:43:37,440 --> 00:43:42,600
Speaker 2: and they include of very detailed information about exactly where

731
00:43:42,600 --> 00:43:46,800
Speaker 2: this occurs. A young learning to fly Eurasian tree sparrow

732
00:43:47,239 --> 00:43:51,080
Speaker 2: Passer montanas was caught by an adult European ground squirrel.

733
00:43:51,440 --> 00:43:55,000
Speaker 2: The ground squirrel ripped out the sparrow's abdominal cavity and

734
00:43:55,080 --> 00:43:58,640
Speaker 2: started to feed on the bird's internal organs while still alive.

735
00:43:58,880 --> 00:44:00,000
Speaker 2: And waving its wings.

736
00:44:00,320 --> 00:44:03,360
Speaker 3: Oh, and they got a photo.

737
00:44:03,920 --> 00:44:07,080
Speaker 2: Yes, this is the photographic evidence of what they refer

738
00:44:07,160 --> 00:44:10,759
Speaker 2: to as the predation event. And yeah, you can see

739
00:44:10,760 --> 00:44:15,600
Speaker 2: this little guy again very arguably cute creature. And you

740
00:44:15,600 --> 00:44:18,080
Speaker 2: can also see that it is munching on the body

741
00:44:18,200 --> 00:44:22,200
Speaker 2: of a bird and there is blood flowing from the

742
00:44:22,239 --> 00:44:24,240
Speaker 2: mouth or look, I'm getting the sense of blood flowing

743
00:44:24,239 --> 00:44:25,360
Speaker 2: from the mouth of the squirrel.

744
00:44:25,640 --> 00:44:27,799
Speaker 3: I have to share you included in the outline here

745
00:44:27,840 --> 00:44:31,000
Speaker 3: at the painting by Goya of Saturn devouring his son,

746
00:44:31,080 --> 00:44:37,040
Speaker 3: and the resemblance is striking. Yes, this is absolutely a

747
00:44:37,040 --> 00:44:38,520
Speaker 3: prelude to the witch's sabbath.

748
00:44:40,719 --> 00:44:44,640
Speaker 2: Now as to why this particular European ground squirrel turned

749
00:44:44,760 --> 00:44:48,799
Speaker 2: to the meat of the living, they suspect that it

750
00:44:48,920 --> 00:44:51,680
Speaker 2: is a quote seasonal increase in the energetic needs of

751
00:44:52,040 --> 00:44:55,480
Speaker 2: the European ground squirrel. So again, this photo was taken

752
00:44:55,520 --> 00:44:58,720
Speaker 2: on June second. Interesting that our previous example was also

753
00:44:59,080 --> 00:45:03,520
Speaker 2: more or less than the same window with the voles. Yeah, July,

754
00:45:04,239 --> 00:45:06,560
Speaker 2: so the June second and the author's site that this

755
00:45:06,680 --> 00:45:10,000
Speaker 2: is a crucial and delicate time for the European ground squirrel.

756
00:45:10,360 --> 00:45:12,919
Speaker 2: So what's been happening in the European ground squirrel world

757
00:45:13,000 --> 00:45:15,920
Speaker 2: at this point is the males have just finished fiercely

758
00:45:15,960 --> 00:45:18,759
Speaker 2: competing with each other for mates, and so many of

759
00:45:18,760 --> 00:45:22,360
Speaker 2: them are weakened or even injured from those ensuing battles,

760
00:45:22,360 --> 00:45:27,320
Speaker 2: and just also just the energy expenditure of the whole endeavor. Meanwhile,

761
00:45:27,360 --> 00:45:30,480
Speaker 2: the females have already given birth and they are nursing

762
00:45:30,520 --> 00:45:33,400
Speaker 2: their young all right, which of course also requires a

763
00:45:33,400 --> 00:45:36,640
Speaker 2: lot of energy. On top of all of this, highly

764
00:45:36,719 --> 00:45:40,719
Speaker 2: nutritious seeds are not yet numerous in the environment, and

765
00:45:40,800 --> 00:45:46,200
Speaker 2: what is available is ravaged by overgrazing. Meanwhile, in the

766
00:45:46,200 --> 00:45:51,239
Speaker 2: bird world, juvenile birds have left their nests, so they're vulnerable.

767
00:45:51,360 --> 00:45:54,080
Speaker 2: They're not ready for this cruel world. And so these

768
00:45:54,080 --> 00:45:58,000
Speaker 2: seed loving rodents turn their ravenous attention to these available

769
00:45:58,080 --> 00:46:01,759
Speaker 2: riches of the flesh. The way they're analyzing it and

770
00:46:01,800 --> 00:46:03,600
Speaker 2: writing about it in the paper we have. Part of

771
00:46:03,600 --> 00:46:07,480
Speaker 2: it is the fact that there is suddenly this in

772
00:46:07,520 --> 00:46:11,279
Speaker 2: this case, a feathered fruit or nut that is available,

773
00:46:11,360 --> 00:46:14,040
Speaker 2: that is presenting itself, is on the menu. But also

774
00:46:14,120 --> 00:46:16,520
Speaker 2: on top of that, some of the seeds they really

775
00:46:16,520 --> 00:46:20,560
Speaker 2: depend upon are not yet available, and they're you know,

776
00:46:20,600 --> 00:46:25,000
Speaker 2: they're worn out and have increased nutritional needs, and so

777
00:46:25,239 --> 00:46:28,000
Speaker 2: it just leads right to the blood feast.

778
00:46:28,320 --> 00:46:31,400
Speaker 3: So the situation is, we just finished some strenuous activity,

779
00:46:31,440 --> 00:46:35,200
Speaker 3: We're ravenously hungry. All the restaurants are closed. What what

780
00:46:35,640 --> 00:46:38,719
Speaker 3: are we going to do? Here's something, here's something with

781
00:46:38,760 --> 00:46:41,920
Speaker 3: feathers on it. It keeps flapping its wings. I'm just just

782
00:46:41,960 --> 00:46:45,239
Speaker 3: trying to eat the seeds. Yeah, yeah, the seeds out

783
00:46:45,280 --> 00:46:48,319
Speaker 3: of its belly. So another example here. And then you

784
00:46:48,320 --> 00:46:50,680
Speaker 3: know there's the added importance that they discussed in the

785
00:46:50,680 --> 00:46:53,000
Speaker 3: paper too, that this is an endangered species, and so

786
00:46:53,800 --> 00:46:56,319
Speaker 3: you know there's there's even added there's added incentive to

787
00:46:56,440 --> 00:46:59,560
Speaker 3: understand it and help us figure out, you know, how

788
00:46:59,560 --> 00:47:03,720
Speaker 3: to protect now. In looking I was looking through various

789
00:47:03,719 --> 00:47:07,919
Speaker 3: squirrel related news items from the past several years. Inevitably,

790
00:47:08,320 --> 00:47:11,360
Speaker 3: there have been a number of news stories dealing with squirrels,

791
00:47:11,719 --> 00:47:15,840
Speaker 3: generally in urban environments, behaving aggressively or even attacking human beings.

792
00:47:16,200 --> 00:47:18,200
Speaker 3: I may be remembering this wrong, but I sort of

793
00:47:18,200 --> 00:47:20,600
Speaker 3: think like they were the kind of reports that were like,

794
00:47:20,640 --> 00:47:23,279
Speaker 3: you couldn't totally discount them, but you also weren't sure

795
00:47:23,320 --> 00:47:24,319
Speaker 3: you should believe them either.

796
00:47:25,280 --> 00:47:27,560
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, a lot of these are, you know, anecdotal,

797
00:47:27,760 --> 00:47:30,239
Speaker 2: and I don't know. It's one of those things where

798
00:47:30,280 --> 00:47:33,360
Speaker 2: when squirrels are going about their normal business, nobody is

799
00:47:33,400 --> 00:47:36,600
Speaker 2: writing about it in the local newspaper, but there's one

800
00:47:36,640 --> 00:47:40,520
Speaker 2: attack and it gets written up. So I don't want

801
00:47:40,560 --> 00:47:44,520
Speaker 2: to present the idea that these attacks are common, but

802
00:47:44,560 --> 00:47:50,000
Speaker 2: they apparently did occur. So just a brief example of

803
00:47:50,080 --> 00:47:53,120
Speaker 2: some of the headlines I ran across. Here's one from

804
00:47:53,120 --> 00:47:57,880
Speaker 2: the Guardian from January twenty twenty one. It was angry

805
00:47:58,000 --> 00:48:01,680
Speaker 2: vicious spate of squirrel attacks leaves New York City neighborhood

806
00:48:01,719 --> 00:48:04,239
Speaker 2: in fear. At least three people in Rego Park and

807
00:48:04,320 --> 00:48:06,960
Speaker 2: Queens have been jumped upon and bitten by a possibly

808
00:48:07,160 --> 00:48:08,440
Speaker 2: deranged squirrel.

809
00:48:08,760 --> 00:48:12,040
Speaker 3: Okay, I apologize for laughing. Squirrel attacks are in one

810
00:48:12,080 --> 00:48:14,480
Speaker 3: sense inherently funny, but now I'm thinking about it like

811
00:48:14,520 --> 00:48:16,759
Speaker 3: if a squirrel did jump on you and start biting you,

812
00:48:16,800 --> 00:48:17,560
Speaker 3: that would be scary.

813
00:48:17,560 --> 00:48:18,320
Speaker 2: It would be terrifying.

814
00:48:18,440 --> 00:48:20,959
Speaker 3: Okay, sorry, sorry, sorry for laughing.

815
00:48:20,880 --> 00:48:22,879
Speaker 2: But still it just drives home the fact that we

816
00:48:22,960 --> 00:48:25,840
Speaker 2: often just totally disregard them or think they're cute and amusing,

817
00:48:26,160 --> 00:48:28,560
Speaker 2: and then when we encounter the savage side of the squirrel.

818
00:48:29,080 --> 00:48:31,960
Speaker 2: It is shocking and terrifying. Here's another one. This one's

819
00:48:31,960 --> 00:48:37,480
Speaker 2: from BBC News December twenty twenty one. Squirrel injures eighteen

820
00:48:37,520 --> 00:48:40,000
Speaker 2: people in two days of attacks in Buckley. A gray

821
00:48:40,000 --> 00:48:42,719
Speaker 2: squirrel which attacked and injured eighteen people has been captured

822
00:48:42,760 --> 00:48:43,399
Speaker 2: and put down.

823
00:48:43,680 --> 00:48:46,200
Speaker 3: I'm gonna flag that one for later and go see

824
00:48:46,680 --> 00:48:49,200
Speaker 3: how the eighteen people were chained together. Here.

825
00:48:49,520 --> 00:48:54,680
Speaker 2: Yeah, apologies, but I'm not going to respond to individual articles.

826
00:48:54,680 --> 00:48:55,840
Speaker 2: You were going to do more generally.

827
00:48:56,400 --> 00:48:58,800
Speaker 3: I'm not taking questions on these squirrel attacks.

828
00:48:59,120 --> 00:49:02,600
Speaker 2: Yeah, and here's another one. This was from NBC fifteen

829
00:49:02,640 --> 00:49:05,919
Speaker 2: News September eighteenth, twenty twenty four. Squirrels on a train.

830
00:49:06,000 --> 00:49:10,600
Speaker 2: Train ride canceled due to attacking squirrels Gomshal Suri. So

831
00:49:10,719 --> 00:49:12,160
Speaker 2: these are just a taste of some of the headlines

832
00:49:12,160 --> 00:49:15,280
Speaker 2: I ran across many more squirrel attack stories regarding isolated

833
00:49:15,280 --> 00:49:18,120
Speaker 2: incidents which seemed to regularly get picked up by the

834
00:49:18,120 --> 00:49:31,279
Speaker 2: media and sort of passed up the media chain. Now,

835
00:49:31,360 --> 00:49:34,359
Speaker 2: these incidents don't necessarily represent anything new. I don't want

836
00:49:34,400 --> 00:49:38,960
Speaker 2: to suggest that. That Guardian article, for example, by Oliver Millman,

837
00:49:39,120 --> 00:49:42,080
Speaker 2: points out that the two most likely causes for this

838
00:49:42,160 --> 00:49:46,319
Speaker 2: sort of behavior are, unsurprisingly disease on one hand, and

839
00:49:46,400 --> 00:49:49,520
Speaker 2: on the other hand, becoming overly accustomed to feeding by humans.

840
00:49:49,719 --> 00:49:53,440
Speaker 2: Ah yes, yeah, So on the disease front, of course,

841
00:49:53,600 --> 00:49:56,520
Speaker 2: Raby's which we've talked about on the show before. It's

842
00:49:56,520 --> 00:49:59,480
Speaker 2: apparently rare in squirrels, but it does happen according to

843
00:49:59,760 --> 00:50:04,520
Speaker 2: DC Sea Health, and that source, which is undated on

844
00:50:04,520 --> 00:50:07,680
Speaker 2: the DC Health website, claims that no person in the

845
00:50:07,760 --> 00:50:10,640
Speaker 2: US has ever contracted rabies from a squirrel, but it

846
00:50:10,719 --> 00:50:14,360
Speaker 2: is obviously possible for someone to contract rabies from a squirrel,

847
00:50:14,400 --> 00:50:19,640
Speaker 2: as they can carry rabies. Rabies concern, they point out,

848
00:50:20,040 --> 00:50:23,480
Speaker 2: is warranted, especially if the squirrel is behaving abnormally when

849
00:50:23,560 --> 00:50:26,920
Speaker 2: it bites you. And I did look up some of

850
00:50:26,920 --> 00:50:30,000
Speaker 2: this on the CDC website. Centers of Disease Control Prevention

851
00:50:30,080 --> 00:50:33,040
Speaker 2: says it's extremely rare for squirrels to have rabies or

852
00:50:33,080 --> 00:50:36,719
Speaker 2: to pass rabies to pets or humans in the United States. Now,

853
00:50:36,800 --> 00:50:39,359
Speaker 2: on the other end of the spectrum, the idea that

854
00:50:39,400 --> 00:50:42,880
Speaker 2: people are feeding squirrels that are getting close to squirrels,

855
00:50:43,360 --> 00:50:47,880
Speaker 2: and in doing so they are eroding the healthy fear

856
00:50:47,920 --> 00:50:52,840
Speaker 2: of humans that squirrels have. That is obviously a major issue. Squirrels,

857
00:50:53,400 --> 00:50:56,200
Speaker 2: no matter how cute they are in your eyes, they

858
00:50:56,239 --> 00:51:00,080
Speaker 2: should remain afraid of human beings and practices like feeding

859
00:51:00,120 --> 00:51:03,480
Speaker 2: them by hand is certainly just asking for a bite.

860
00:51:03,960 --> 00:51:05,879
Speaker 2: And also if they feel threatened it all, they will

861
00:51:05,880 --> 00:51:08,960
Speaker 2: also attack you, which it comes into the scenario as

862
00:51:09,000 --> 00:51:12,080
Speaker 2: well if you have already either you or other people

863
00:51:12,320 --> 00:51:16,200
Speaker 2: have done something to erode that distance between you and

864
00:51:16,239 --> 00:51:17,120
Speaker 2: the wild squirrel.

865
00:51:17,719 --> 00:51:21,399
Speaker 3: This is the sinister inverse of the ecology of fear.

866
00:51:21,640 --> 00:51:23,560
Speaker 3: This is the ecology of brazen This.

867
00:51:24,080 --> 00:51:28,760
Speaker 2: Yeah, I probably shared this story in the last Squirrel episode.

868
00:51:28,760 --> 00:51:31,000
Speaker 2: I'm gonna tell it again anyway. I only have so

869
00:51:31,000 --> 00:51:33,640
Speaker 2: many stories, folks. But years ago, my wife and I

870
00:51:33,719 --> 00:51:37,240
Speaker 2: encountered a very aggressive rock squirrel in Grand Canyon National Park.

871
00:51:37,760 --> 00:51:39,920
Speaker 2: Luckily no one was bitten or injured. But we were

872
00:51:39,920 --> 00:51:43,279
Speaker 2: out on a rocky hike along this like outcropping and

873
00:51:43,320 --> 00:51:45,200
Speaker 2: we'd paused for a moment. My wife had pulled out

874
00:51:45,239 --> 00:51:47,920
Speaker 2: a snack bar, and that's when a rock squirrel appeared

875
00:51:48,160 --> 00:51:51,040
Speaker 2: and began to move in very close, ultimately jumping on

876
00:51:51,080 --> 00:51:54,239
Speaker 2: her leg. Luckily, I believe she was wearing jeans at

877
00:51:54,239 --> 00:51:56,759
Speaker 2: the time and then we drove the squirrel away with

878
00:51:56,800 --> 00:52:00,080
Speaker 2: a hat. Luckily, again no one was hurt, but it

879
00:52:00,120 --> 00:52:02,840
Speaker 2: is always struck stuck with us as a great example

880
00:52:02,880 --> 00:52:06,120
Speaker 2: of why you don't feed wild animals, because again, you

881
00:52:06,120 --> 00:52:09,839
Speaker 2: you erode that that healthy gap between you and the

882
00:52:09,840 --> 00:52:12,759
Speaker 2: wild and then that animal thinks you are a source

883
00:52:12,800 --> 00:52:14,880
Speaker 2: of food and it can come in closer, and you know,

884
00:52:14,920 --> 00:52:17,800
Speaker 2: obviously it gets even worse when you're dealing with larger animals,

885
00:52:17,960 --> 00:52:21,960
Speaker 2: more destructive animals, and potentially deadly animals. And you know,

886
00:52:22,719 --> 00:52:25,640
Speaker 2: mainly thinking of bears here, but even with something like

887
00:52:25,719 --> 00:52:29,640
Speaker 2: the squirrel, you're you are doing that squirrel a great

888
00:52:29,640 --> 00:52:33,319
Speaker 2: disservice and potentially doing a great disservice to anyone that's

889
00:52:33,360 --> 00:52:34,880
Speaker 2: going to be in contact with that animal.

890
00:52:35,200 --> 00:52:37,840
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, this is why they emphasize like the bearproof

891
00:52:37,880 --> 00:52:40,479
Speaker 3: garbage cans in relevant areas and things like that.

892
00:52:40,800 --> 00:52:43,839
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, yeah, you know, And that's that's another big

893
00:52:43,880 --> 00:52:46,399
Speaker 2: thing too, Like you go through areas like Yosemite, and

894
00:52:46,719 --> 00:52:49,160
Speaker 2: you know, you frequently pass signs to show, well, a

895
00:52:49,160 --> 00:52:51,560
Speaker 2: bear died here because it was hit by a car, which,

896
00:52:51,600 --> 00:52:53,920
Speaker 2: on one hand, you know, cut down on speeding obviously,

897
00:52:54,320 --> 00:52:56,680
Speaker 2: but one thing that the Grand Canyon National Park points

898
00:52:56,719 --> 00:52:58,840
Speaker 2: out about squirrels in particular, but also the supplies to

899
00:52:58,880 --> 00:53:01,759
Speaker 2: other animals is if you're feeding them from vehicles, this

900
00:53:02,000 --> 00:53:06,839
Speaker 2: too causes animals to congregate near roads and vehicles, So

901
00:53:07,640 --> 00:53:10,239
Speaker 2: Grand Canyon National Park sometimes goes as far as to

902
00:53:10,280 --> 00:53:12,680
Speaker 2: say the rock squirrel is the most dangerous animal in

903
00:53:12,719 --> 00:53:15,600
Speaker 2: the park. If you're not familiar with the environment of

904
00:53:15,640 --> 00:53:17,920
Speaker 2: the Grand Canyon National Park, you should know that. Of

905
00:53:17,960 --> 00:53:21,239
Speaker 2: course they're much larger creatures, and some of those too.

906
00:53:21,920 --> 00:53:24,560
Speaker 2: You can make a strong argument that their natural aversion

907
00:53:24,600 --> 00:53:29,239
Speaker 2: to humans has been somewhat eroded. But squirrel incidents with

908
00:53:29,360 --> 00:53:33,239
Speaker 2: rock squirrels do occur due to humans feeding them. They

909
00:53:33,280 --> 00:53:37,880
Speaker 2: end up congregating near the places humans gather, including outside

910
00:53:37,880 --> 00:53:42,360
Speaker 2: gift shops and snack bars, and as Joshua Bowling reported

911
00:53:42,360 --> 00:53:45,839
Speaker 2: in an asy Central article from twenty eighteen, they've also

912
00:53:45,880 --> 00:53:48,719
Speaker 2: been reported to bite people just for pointing at them.

913
00:53:48,840 --> 00:53:50,840
Speaker 2: So again, this is not something that is going to

914
00:53:50,920 --> 00:53:53,840
Speaker 2: get you bitten by a squirrel in the wild that

915
00:53:54,000 --> 00:53:58,399
Speaker 2: is like naturally removed from your vicinity. But once you've

916
00:53:58,480 --> 00:54:02,640
Speaker 2: eroded that healthy day distance, things like this apparently become possible.

917
00:54:03,680 --> 00:54:05,720
Speaker 2: It feels threatened, it bites and so forth.

918
00:54:06,160 --> 00:54:08,399
Speaker 3: Yeah, So when parks and other places say don't feed

919
00:54:08,400 --> 00:54:11,320
Speaker 3: the animals, they mean it. They're not messing around. There's

920
00:54:11,320 --> 00:54:11,960
Speaker 3: a good reason.

921
00:54:12,239 --> 00:54:14,720
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, there's the old saying a fed animal

922
00:54:14,760 --> 00:54:19,120
Speaker 2: is a dead animal for many reasons. Roads, cars, contact

923
00:54:19,120 --> 00:54:23,520
Speaker 2: with humans, threats to humans, and so forth. Grand Cash

924
00:54:23,560 --> 00:54:26,080
Speaker 2: and the Canyon National Park advises you keep a distance

925
00:54:26,080 --> 00:54:30,360
Speaker 2: from wildlife, including their squirrels, don't approach the wildlife, including

926
00:54:30,360 --> 00:54:36,080
Speaker 2: the squirrels, and if the wildlife approaches you, you report it. So, yeah,

927
00:54:36,600 --> 00:54:40,760
Speaker 2: I tattle on those squirrels. Yeah, yeah, squirrels are wild animals.

928
00:54:40,800 --> 00:54:42,719
Speaker 2: I just want to. I'm not going to. There are

929
00:54:42,760 --> 00:54:45,600
Speaker 2: other recent news items one could get into, and I'm

930
00:54:45,600 --> 00:54:48,920
Speaker 2: not going to. But squirrels are wild animals and they

931
00:54:48,920 --> 00:54:51,839
Speaker 2: should remain wild, and we should do whatever we can

932
00:54:51,880 --> 00:54:54,239
Speaker 2: to keep them that way. It's our responsibility to the

933
00:54:54,320 --> 00:54:57,640
Speaker 2: environment that we have shifted and changed, and not just

934
00:54:57,680 --> 00:55:00,480
Speaker 2: because they might bite us. But let's that be the

935
00:55:00,520 --> 00:55:02,840
Speaker 2: added a stick to the carrot.

936
00:55:03,239 --> 00:55:04,600
Speaker 3: Well what do you think, Rob? Does that do it

937
00:55:04,600 --> 00:55:05,120
Speaker 3: for today?

938
00:55:05,680 --> 00:55:08,560
Speaker 2: I think so? We'll see what another five years. This

939
00:55:08,640 --> 00:55:11,560
Speaker 2: full update the State of the Squirrel Kingdom.

940
00:55:11,440 --> 00:55:14,680
Speaker 3: To another squirrel sequel, yeah, or.

941
00:55:14,680 --> 00:55:18,080
Speaker 2: Sooner if they eat more interesting things, you never never know,

942
00:55:18,680 --> 00:55:19,880
Speaker 2: never know what's going to come up.

943
00:55:20,200 --> 00:55:21,799
Speaker 3: How do they level up from this? I guess they

944
00:55:21,880 --> 00:55:24,120
Speaker 3: got to start eating things bigger than them and then

945
00:55:24,360 --> 00:55:26,160
Speaker 3: they'd really get our attention once more.

946
00:55:26,480 --> 00:55:29,560
Speaker 2: Absolutely all right, we're going to go and close it out,

947
00:55:29,600 --> 00:55:31,640
Speaker 2: but we'd love to hear from everyone out there. Do

948
00:55:31,719 --> 00:55:37,080
Speaker 2: you have thoughts on squirrels, your encounters, your observations, how

949
00:55:37,160 --> 00:55:40,960
Speaker 2: this information that we've discussed here or this podcast itself

950
00:55:41,000 --> 00:55:44,880
Speaker 2: has changed your view of squirrels, Or maybe you're like

951
00:55:45,160 --> 00:55:47,120
Speaker 2: just nodding your head and saying, yeah, this is squirrels

952
00:55:47,160 --> 00:55:48,480
Speaker 2: to a t. This is what they do, this is

953
00:55:48,520 --> 00:55:48,960
Speaker 2: who they are.

954
00:55:49,480 --> 00:55:50,640
Speaker 3: Whatever your thoughts off.

955
00:55:50,719 --> 00:55:54,200
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, either way, write in let us know we'd

956
00:55:54,200 --> 00:55:56,680
Speaker 2: love to hear from you. Just a reminder that Stuff

957
00:55:56,680 --> 00:55:59,120
Speaker 2: to Blow Your Mind is primarily a science and culture podcast,

958
00:55:59,120 --> 00:56:01,920
Speaker 2: with core episodes in Twouesdays and Thursdays, short form episodes

959
00:56:01,920 --> 00:56:05,160
Speaker 2: on Wednesdays. Let's see, we have a weird house cinema

960
00:56:05,200 --> 00:56:07,680
Speaker 2: on Fridays. That's our time to set aside most serious

961
00:56:07,719 --> 00:56:11,239
Speaker 2: concerns to just talk about weird films. And then the

962
00:56:11,320 --> 00:56:14,480
Speaker 2: rest of the days we fill in with some classic

963
00:56:14,520 --> 00:56:16,480
Speaker 2: content vault episodes and so forth.

964
00:56:16,800 --> 00:56:20,640
Speaker 3: Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Possway.

965
00:56:21,000 --> 00:56:22,400
Speaker 3: If you would like to get in touch with us

966
00:56:22,480 --> 00:56:24,800
Speaker 3: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest

967
00:56:24,800 --> 00:56:26,919
Speaker 3: a topic for the future, or just to say hello,

968
00:56:27,040 --> 00:56:29,680
Speaker 3: you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow

969
00:56:29,680 --> 00:56:38,240
Speaker 3: your Mind dot com.

970
00:56:38,360 --> 00:56:41,279
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For

971
00:56:41,360 --> 00:56:44,160
Speaker 1: more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,

972
00:56:44,320 --> 00:57:02,279
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you're listening to your favorite shows

973
00:57:02,280 --> 00:57:03,880
Speaker 1: had noted the pocop