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Speaker 1: This is me Eater podcast coming at you shirtless, severely

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Speaker 1: bug bitten in my case underwear listening Hunt podcast, you

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Speaker 1: can't predict anything presented by on X. Hunt creators are

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Speaker 1: the most comprehensive digital mapping system for hunters. Download the

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Speaker 1: Hunt app from the iTunes or Google play store. Nor

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Speaker 1: where you stand with on X. All right, Everyboddy, this

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Speaker 1: is the most special podcast episode we've ever had. That's

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Speaker 1: because we're joined by John lad Is your middle name right, correct?

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Speaker 1: John lads Kaprowski Kaprowski, you got it? Who has a

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Speaker 1: genuine PhD in squirrels? More specifically, what would you say?

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Speaker 1: I a wildlife conservation biologist, but I happened to work

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Speaker 1: on squirrels. I appreciate the finer aspects of life, the smaller,

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Speaker 1: less obvious things. Um. I gotta ask you this right

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Speaker 1: off the bat, though, before we get into Clay as uh,

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Speaker 1: Clay Newcom has a squirrel baculum pecker bone, which we'll

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Speaker 1: get into in a minute. But um uh why school? Like,

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Speaker 1: did you know when you were when you were a

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Speaker 1: little boy and people said when your friends like I'm

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Speaker 1: gonna be a fireman, You're like, I'm gonna be a

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Speaker 1: squirrel expert. First it was center fielder for the Cleveland Indians.

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Speaker 1: And while that seems outlandish, the Indians were so bad

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Speaker 1: when I was young, there was a recentable chance there.

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Speaker 1: But soon after that I knew I had to do

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Speaker 1: something with wildlife. And I grew up on the west

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Speaker 1: side of Cleveland, and you had pigeons, robins, you know,

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Speaker 1: Norway rats and squirrels and so it was like a

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Speaker 1: wildlife deprived area. Yep. And it was my connection and

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Speaker 1: my father. I grew up fishing. My father or love

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Speaker 1: to fish. I like to fish. We'd go out at

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Speaker 1: four in the morning. I'd fish untill about two. Then

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Speaker 1: Dad would drop me off on the uh drop me

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Speaker 1: off on the shore. I'd walk it looking for for squirrels,

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Speaker 1: for turtles, anything that I could and uh. So that

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Speaker 1: was my It was my connection when I came home

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Speaker 1: to be able to look out the window and see something.

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Speaker 1: So I sat out in the garage live trapping squirrels

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Speaker 1: from a young age and then painting their sides or something.

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Speaker 1: We got into that and we were little kids for

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Speaker 1: a while. We try to be like our own mark

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Speaker 1: and recapt Yeah, that's exactly what we do. Oh yeah,

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Speaker 1: if you if you went to my mom's house right

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Speaker 1: now and went into her garage and went where they

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Speaker 1: have a heart traps are sitting on a shelf, you

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Speaker 1: would see that they're slathered in red paint from us

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Speaker 1: trying to take a paint brush and uh do mark

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Speaker 1: and recapture projects on chipmunks our squirrels. Easy to have

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Speaker 1: tool to fool with the trap. Oh well, no, we

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Speaker 1: would just do chipmunks. We had the chipmunks aze have hearts,

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Speaker 1: and we didn't put too much effort into it. We

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Speaker 1: thought it'd be cool if you could paint it and

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Speaker 1: see him running around the yard and be like, oh,

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Speaker 1: that's the one. You know why had that same childhood experience.

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Speaker 1: We would catch them in have a Hearts and then

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Speaker 1: squirt whatever I could on him. And then the neighbors

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Speaker 1: started complaining about the green squirrel the red squirrel, and

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Speaker 1: so Mom and Dad weren't too thrilled about that part

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Speaker 1: of it. But then I went to went to university

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Speaker 1: Ohio State University, and I was like, oh, I can't

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Speaker 1: wait to work on mountain lions or you know, elk

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Speaker 1: or something something cool. And when I go forward and

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Speaker 1: I started my master's and got a call from a

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Speaker 1: professor said, hey, I got this great squirrel project. Like okay,

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Speaker 1: but my next degree, I'm working on polar bears or

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Speaker 1: wilds or something. And I worked on squirrels again University

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Speaker 1: of Kansas, and then now I'm working on bunch of

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Speaker 1: those other things. But they're just such a good way

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Speaker 1: for people to connect, you know, to conservation, to value. Uh,

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Speaker 1: you know, value the kinds of places we value. And

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Speaker 1: they tell us a lot about the quality of a forest,

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Speaker 1: you know, how severe a fire was, all those things. Yep,

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Speaker 1: they're just great indicators. I want to hit you up

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Speaker 1: with some a couple of squirrel myth questions. Go for it. Well, no,

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Speaker 1: not yet, except we went to talk about Clay's little

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Speaker 1: clays back and go ahead, Clay, show show him your deal. There.

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Speaker 1: I'm gonna narrate because actually his back all right. Ah.

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Speaker 1: I was actually unaware that that squirrels had a a

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Speaker 1: a vaculum, a bone penis. Uh. The other day I

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Speaker 1: pulled this one out and and they do, and most

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Speaker 1: a whole lot of placentals send to mammals have them.

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Speaker 1: And it's I just measured at Steve. It's exactly a

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Speaker 1: half inch. And this is a just a andered gray squirrel.

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Speaker 1: He appeared to me to be of average age and maturity.

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Speaker 1: So he's gotta he's got a he's a that that

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Speaker 1: squirrels what a pound and a half john two pounds okay,

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Speaker 1: so he's got a hat. So that's an inch per

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Speaker 1: every four pounds generously, which goodness. But but described to

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Speaker 1: people what you're like the because you know people at

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Speaker 1: home was the driving to work right now. I can't

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Speaker 1: tell what the hell you're holding, Uh, describe what you're holding.

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Speaker 1: You know, if you saw this bone on the ground,

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Speaker 1: let's say, you know, you found a just a bone

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Speaker 1: pile and it was a squirrel it was the bone

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Speaker 1: would be totally indiscernible in any recognizable shape. It just

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Speaker 1: it's kind of it's about as small as a a

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Speaker 1: pencil lead and a number two pencil. The thickness of that.

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Speaker 1: It's a half inch long. The tip of the baculum

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Speaker 1: flares out, which is pretty typical of all these vacula

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Speaker 1: of bears of coons that kind of flares out at

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Speaker 1: the end and towards the backside. It's kind of it

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Speaker 1: kind of is bulbous slightly, you know, kind of kind

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Speaker 1: of widen think at the back, almost like a baseball bat,

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Speaker 1: that it would be a good baseball bat. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: before he wanted to be a squirrel ball. Yeah. So anyway,

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Speaker 1: just a little indiscernible bone. Uh, how John are you?

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Speaker 1: Are you? How schooled are you on like physiology and whatnot?

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Speaker 1: I'm happy to go there. And I really loved Clay's

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Speaker 1: description there. I thought you were just gonna stop. It's

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Speaker 1: just this little bone, but all those those components that

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Speaker 1: you talked about are are are what make that that

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Speaker 1: bone function. Another name for it is the os penis,

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Speaker 1: the penis bone literally. Um, and so Clay, could you

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Speaker 1: take a look and does it look a little twisted?

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Speaker 1: Usually they're also a little kind of corkscrewy if you

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Speaker 1: if you look at there, reminds me a Limerick I

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Speaker 1: used to know. It's this one, uh just a bit,

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Speaker 1: I think for gray squirrels. This one still has a

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Speaker 1: little bit of This one's pretty fresh, so it's not

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Speaker 1: I don't have it clean totally. It appears to have

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Speaker 1: almost like a thread towards the end. It looks like

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Speaker 1: a yeah, kind of like a corkscrew. Yeah, I see

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Speaker 1: one kind of rib, you got it. That's uh. So

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Speaker 1: these are used as part of the squirrel reproductive mating system. Uh.

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Speaker 1: Males form copulatory plugs, so when they copulate with a female,

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Speaker 1: they they're the seaman hardens into a plug that tries

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Speaker 1: to guarantee them their paternity. And I don't understand that,

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Speaker 1: so that when uh once when you have a copulation

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Speaker 1: with the female, within just a few seconds, the semen

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Speaker 1: actually hardens into a waxy plug in the reproductive track

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Speaker 1: and blocks other males from uh from breeding. And so

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Speaker 1: the corkscrew shape that that kind of bulb his head

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Speaker 1: that you talked about, that actually helps remove the copulatory

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Speaker 1: plug of the previous mail. And so it's just kind

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Speaker 1: of amazing detail in that if you pick one bone

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Speaker 1: in a squirrel, the vaculum is probably the place to go, Clay.

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Speaker 1: You just you just see that whole mating system laid

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Speaker 1: out right there. Rodents do that or is that exclusive

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Speaker 1: to them? All rodents have some form of a vaculum,

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Speaker 1: but the plug part of the plug. Uh, it's not

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Speaker 1: some thing that everyone's looked at in all rodents, but

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Speaker 1: I think for all that where it's been studied, well,

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Speaker 1: most um where it's been studied. H they're they've been demonstrated.

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Speaker 1: Like red squirrels, there's not really good evidence that the

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Speaker 1: red squirrel you find around here, there's not really good

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Speaker 1: evidence that they form a copulatory plug. But like the

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Speaker 1: whole squirrel family, most of the rats and mice do

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Speaker 1: it as well. I hate the fact that a squirrel

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Speaker 1: has to be lumped in with a rat and a

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Speaker 1: mouse and you call it a a rodent. I always think

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Speaker 1: about that with beavers, man Like, it bums me out

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Speaker 1: that beavers are a rodent. Yeah, too cool to be

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Speaker 1: a rodent. Yeah, yeah, but that's a scientific term rodent. Yeah. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's a whole order. So it's everything with those kind

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Speaker 1: of you know, gnawing teeth. For the most part, rabbits

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Speaker 1: are a whole different order, but somewhat closely related. And

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Speaker 1: so rodents include beaver, muskrat, all the voles and field mice, rats,

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Speaker 1: all of those things. The cappy barra cappy bar or

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Speaker 1: you got it, chinchilla, chinchilla roding chinchilla are yes. I

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Speaker 1: was just gonna say, going back to the the semen

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Speaker 1: plug and then the corkscrew bacula. It's it seems counterproductive

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Speaker 1: because if the semen plug is designed to keep other

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Speaker 1: males from you know, actually breeding a female successfully, but

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Speaker 1: then you've got an anatomical feature that defeats the semen plug,

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Speaker 1: then it seems like you might as well, Like from

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Speaker 1: adaptive standpoint of a squirrel, it doesn't do any good

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Speaker 1: to have a semen plug or a corkscrew. Do you

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Speaker 1: see what I'm saying. It's an arms race man, and

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Speaker 1: that's it. Yeah, survival of the fittest. Yeah, they've got

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Speaker 1: this feature, but then they've got another feature that defeats

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Speaker 1: the first feature. Yeah, but what it pushes toward is

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Speaker 1: that you would develop a really like that your plug

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Speaker 1: is the best plug on the in the in the field,

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Speaker 1: and your extractor is like a phenomenal extractor. So you're like,

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Speaker 1: I don't care if you could he if he plugged it.

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Speaker 1: I'm gonna I got the best unplugger and then I'm

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Speaker 1: gonna throw something in there that no one will unplugged. Yeah. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I once I asked an ecologists like, is there such

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Speaker 1: thing as the evolution like to go backwards? And like,

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Speaker 1: well no, because if it goes backwards, it's for a reason.

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Speaker 1: It's just evolving more despite it like losing some trade

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Speaker 1: or something. That's still evolution. It's not the evolution by

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Speaker 1: going backwards, it's still going forwards. Yeah, I yeah, sure,

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Speaker 1: that's John Well. And so that's this is an incredible

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Speaker 1: opportunity where you can just kind of see this battle. Right,

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Speaker 1: so you say, all right, we need more squirrels. Uh,

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Speaker 1: you know, it doesn't really matter who is the one

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Speaker 1: that breeds, who's the most successful, but in this case,

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Speaker 1: you just see that battle played out. Right. You talked

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Speaker 1: about plug characteristics. You know how much sperm is in

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Speaker 1: the um, you know, is it is transfer transferred during

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Speaker 1: that copulation and then this removal tool that helps you

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Speaker 1: be successful. And the other thing is it's not just

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Speaker 1: the males where this is happening. There are multiple males

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Speaker 1: that mate with a female. You've probably seen one of

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Speaker 1: these squirrel mating bouts where um, usually the females only

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Speaker 1: in heat for a short time on a single day,

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Speaker 1: usually just like six or eight hours, so you'll get

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Speaker 1: really yep and you'll get eight or ten females. I've

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Speaker 1: seen as many as males chasing a female. I've seen

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Speaker 1: as many as forty five Eastern gray squirrels like the species. Uh,

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Speaker 1: Clay was just talking about males chasing one in heat

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Speaker 1: female for six hours yep. And for the female that's

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Speaker 1: the one time time she gets to mate. So typically

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Speaker 1: it's to her advantage to mate with a number of

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Speaker 1: males and rodents. And so after a copulation, the female

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Speaker 1: actually will remove the copulatory plug if it isn't um

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Speaker 1: embedded far enough in a reproductive track, and then she'll

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Speaker 1: mate with the next mail um you know that's able

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Speaker 1: to gain out? How does it? She just reaches down

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Speaker 1: and with her teeth pulls it out. So you know,

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Speaker 1: rodents have those two two big upper incisors, two big

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Speaker 1: lower incisors, like presumably she can feel that it's seeded

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Speaker 1: properly or like not where it needs to be. So

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Speaker 1: every time she mates, she'll actually groom herself and the

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Speaker 1: male will groom himself as well, and then uh, there's

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Speaker 1: there's a few minute period before she'll be receptive again,

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Speaker 1: and during that time males are all attacking each other

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Speaker 1: trying to gain access to the female. And then during

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Speaker 1: that grooming, if it's if there's any plug sticking out,

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Speaker 1: she'll she'll pull it out and throw it to the

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Speaker 1: ground sometimes even eat it. There's a lot of It's

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Speaker 1: a massive kind of waxy plug of protein. How do

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Speaker 1: how does a male win about? Like does a female

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Speaker 1: then select one? Or like what is what is the

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Speaker 1: winning process? Like? So there's varies a little bit between

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Speaker 1: different species um in, but it's typically based on size

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Speaker 1: and just the ability to continue to track the female. Uh.

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Speaker 1: Males can figure out that a female is going to

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Speaker 1: be in heat about five days in advance, and so

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Speaker 1: they start during the breeding season, males are just roaming

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Speaker 1: around figuring out kind of the timing of when some

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Speaker 1: of their female neighbors are going to are going to

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Speaker 1: be receptive. And then before sunrise they're out there waiting

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Speaker 1: for the for the female outside outside her nest yep,

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Speaker 1: and you'll get dozens sometimes, you know, lined up and

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Speaker 1: they're fighting each other. Where where were you though? You

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Speaker 1: had forty five males? Like where were you? There's gray

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Speaker 1: squirrels in one like Steve and I are going to

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Speaker 1: go home there. I'm not telling you that's my secret

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Speaker 1: spot is a park or there's just no predators around. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: So this was in Lawrence, Kansas, where I was doing

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Speaker 1: my PhD, and so kind of open park land, pretty

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Speaker 1: high density of animals, and it was the other part

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Speaker 1: of this is during the breeding season, when mails start

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Speaker 1: picking up that faint scent of a female that's coming

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Speaker 1: close to being in heat, they really expand their range.

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Speaker 1: And so for those five days they're they're roaming farther

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Speaker 1: than they ever moved the rest of the year. The

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Speaker 1: rest the rest of the year, they're in just a

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Speaker 1: couple couple acres of their home range, but during this

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Speaker 1: time they'll expand it five to ten times. And so

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Speaker 1: they're trying to find mates and you know, be successful

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Speaker 1: in the survival of the Fittest battle that we were

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Speaker 1: just talking about by just finding as many females that

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Speaker 1: might be in in heat. So they come We've had

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Speaker 1: males move uh, three or four miles during to find

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Speaker 1: a receptive female. So they are coming in from everywhere.

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Speaker 1: So you get forty five coming in from you know,

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Speaker 1: say a square mile or two. You've seen where one

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Speaker 1: squirrel has moved how many miles three to five miles

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Speaker 1: from his home during a mating chase. I've seen a

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Speaker 1: move about about three miles. I've actually this is how

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Speaker 1: how lonely I am. Guys um during my PhD, I

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Speaker 1: would go out in the morning and follow male squirrels

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Speaker 1: and see how far they went. And well, you know

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Speaker 1: you weren't just spooking them along, so well at a

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Speaker 1: great distance, and do I look scary? I'm a good dude.

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Speaker 1: You're following him with some sort of tell him that

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Speaker 1: try or this was the old fashioned way. It was

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Speaker 1: an open park land, so I was just a little

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Speaker 1: bit well like big oak and hickory forest. But because

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Speaker 1: it was in in a small town Lawrence, Kansas, you know,

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Speaker 1: mode grass, you know, some some houses even in that

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Speaker 1: kind of thing. And then the whole campus, which is

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Speaker 1: so just take a pair of binoculars and keep an

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Speaker 1: eye on them. Ye stayed at a distance, followed them

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Speaker 1: around and and uh figured out how much time you puts.

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Speaker 1: It used to be much better shape back then, following

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Speaker 1: squirrels three miles. One of my questions was is there

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Speaker 1: such a thing as a rut tree? And I think

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Speaker 1: you've pretty much answered it. When we roll, when we

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Speaker 1: sometimes find like a tree where you like, you shoot

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Speaker 1: one and then alone and behold ten squirrels start, you know, jumping.

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Speaker 1: He talks about finding a rut tree. Yeah, but so

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Speaker 1: it's one female and nine males and they're just all

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Speaker 1: working that But it's just that they happened to be

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Speaker 1: in that tree, like that tree could move, not the

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Speaker 1: tree doesn't move, but I mean you just happened to

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Speaker 1: catch it where it's occurring in that tree. But it's

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Speaker 1: likely to drift to the next tree, to the next tree.

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Speaker 1: And so it's part of that uh spencer you were

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Speaker 1: asking about what makes him successful. The female doesn't. She's

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Speaker 1: moving around too. She's trying to feed that day and

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Speaker 1: and and so she's moving out there in the forest.

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Speaker 1: And if the males get they're all fighting, and that

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Speaker 1: level of aggression, they're really hyped up, and they'll attack

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Speaker 1: each other. Another male tries to mate with the female,

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Speaker 1: males will try to interrupt it, and so it's risky

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Speaker 1: for her. And you know the male that's the one

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Speaker 1: that's the one day they have to you know, they

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Speaker 1: have to be successful. The female has to raise that

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Speaker 1: litter now for the next few months, and so she'll

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Speaker 1: hold up in a cavity, you know, going one of

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Speaker 1: these what we call leafness or dres is kind of balls.

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Speaker 1: Was the word dre clay nuke. Have you ever heard

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Speaker 1: that word dre. I've seen it in the literature. I

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Speaker 1: would not have used that word, but I've seen it written. Dude,

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Speaker 1: I'm gonna start using that word big time. Man. How's

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Speaker 1: it spelled? Well, it depends if you're if you're British,

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Speaker 1: you spell it d R E y or d R

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Speaker 1: A y. Uh. And so yeah, if you if you

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Speaker 1: really want to speak that you know speaks PhD and

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Speaker 1: s stuff. And I'm gonna be Dr. Trey has to

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Speaker 1: be sweet, man. Do red squirrels participate in gray squirrel

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Speaker 1: bouts and vice versa? No, it's just a single species, uh,

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Speaker 1: and so there, but there is some confusion that can occur,

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Speaker 1: and so I did. I've worked in areas where fox

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Speaker 1: squirrels and gray squirrels both occurred, and you would in

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Speaker 1: that case where there are forty five Eastern gray squirrels,

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Speaker 1: there were a couple of fox squirrels that were attracted

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Speaker 1: by the noise, maybe like vaguely the scent, but they

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Speaker 1: never really participated. You know. There there's enough difference between

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Speaker 1: the species that you know, it doesn't seem to get there.

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Speaker 1: And red squirrels are even more kind of taxonomically distant

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Speaker 1: from fox squirrels and gray squirrels, so they're never seen

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Speaker 1: any overlap there. Do you, um, have you heard? I

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Speaker 1: think we might have asked you about this? Have you heard?

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Speaker 1: Are you familiar with the theory that or the idea

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Speaker 1: that people put out there that when males are competing

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Speaker 1: they'll actually try to harm, that they'll like bite the

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Speaker 1: testicles of another male. I like, are you familiar with

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Speaker 1: this being an idea that people throw out there? I

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Speaker 1: hear this all the time. And who from? Uh, well

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Speaker 1: from you from St. John is the person I interviewed

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Speaker 1: for the article. He was one of my tea. I

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Speaker 1: don't trust things coming through your coming to you before

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Speaker 1: we go here. I want to know can you handle

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Speaker 1: the truth? Steve? You know I can that. If you

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Speaker 1: notice my line of questioning, I haven't asked you does

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Speaker 1: it happen? I said, are you familiar? And and and

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Speaker 1: I want to then get into how far back in time?

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Speaker 1: Like have you heard this theory? And where do you

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Speaker 1: feel that it? Uh? Where do you feel that has

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Speaker 1: come from? I almost FELFI Felfier skilled interview technique of

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Speaker 1: sneaking into this. Yeah, I was very deliberate and my

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Speaker 1: question as well and I'm also I listened to the

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Speaker 1: podcast UM just last night where where you were discussing

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Speaker 1: this previously, and you two have a relationship that's kind

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Speaker 1: of tenuous, and this seemed like something that could really

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Speaker 1: separate you. So the whole other thing that we're in

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Speaker 1: a fight about that I don't even know about yet,

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Speaker 1: as there was something he did to my friend Doug

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Speaker 1: during Oh yeah, Well, so I know people who have

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Speaker 1: said they're great grandfathers told them that. And I'm fifty

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Speaker 1: nine years old, so we're talking like, you know, last century,

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Speaker 1: you know, people two centuries ago, late eighteen hundreds. I

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Speaker 1: know folks who have heard that story. And uh so

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Speaker 1: it is something that's been passed along from you know,

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Speaker 1: from generation to generation, which is zero zero evidence, zero evidence. Ye,

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Speaker 1: And I mentioned following males for three miles. You don't

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Speaker 1: do that and see lots of things going on between,

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Speaker 1: you know, between different squirrels, and have never seen that.

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Speaker 1: They do all the dirty trips. So they get in

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Speaker 1: fights they don't need to. They've got the you know,

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Speaker 1: the copulatory plug and the h the baculum that you

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Speaker 1: know that helps them in that battle. But what happens,

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Speaker 1: What does happen, and so you've hit on something that's

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Speaker 1: kind of unique about rodent biology. Uh, you can see

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Speaker 1: why someone thinks that they have an animal that doesn't

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Speaker 1: have any testicles, because it's just a seasonal cycle in

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Speaker 1: rodents and squirrels. During the breeding season, the testes descend

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Speaker 1: into the scrotum and you know, in large produced sperm,

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Speaker 1: and they're ready to get ready to mate day after

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Speaker 1: day for sometime times two or three months, so they're

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Speaker 1: they're really functional then. But then during the non breeding

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Speaker 1: season there they move back into the abdomen up a

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Speaker 1: canal and they're kind of held in the abdomen and

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Speaker 1: they get really really small, so you you would have

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Speaker 1: to if you're just gutting the squirrel, you're not even

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Speaker 1: gonna notice. You could have to really look and see it.

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Speaker 1: So just this natural natural pattern then and the screwed

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Speaker 1: um itself to sort of just struggles up and it

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Speaker 1: just becomes belly skin again. It looks like belly skin.

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Speaker 1: You'll see if if you've got an older male, you'll

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Speaker 1: see that there it takes on a darker pigment and

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Speaker 1: you'll kind of see where the scrotum was and if

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Speaker 1: you kind of spread the hairs a little bit. You'll

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Speaker 1: notice that, all right, you know that this is you

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Speaker 1: can tell us an adult male because of that, juvenile

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Speaker 1: males will not have a pigmented screwed them. And then

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Speaker 1: once they've gone through a breeding season or two, it

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Speaker 1: gets dark and you could tell, hey, this guy's bread before,

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Speaker 1: but it just it will. You wouldn't notice that this

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Speaker 1: was even a male if you were just watching them,

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Speaker 1: you know, from a distance with binoculars or something like that.

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Speaker 1: Do you do you believe in squirrel migrations? Is that true? Yep?

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Speaker 1: That historically massive squirrel migrations, and I think like like

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Speaker 1: concerted movements where they're like all the squirrels are moving

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Speaker 1: in a direction now now, so yeah, loosely using the

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Speaker 1: word migration, there there have been historical reports and even

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Speaker 1: relatively recently, I was getting reports two or three years

401
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Speaker 1: ago in the Eastern US of following mass failures. So

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Speaker 1: master you know, acorns, primarily hickory, some of those things,

403
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Speaker 1: and when you get a failure, it's often a regional failure.

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Speaker 1: And especially if you're looking at uh, you know, forests

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Speaker 1: that aren't super diverse and there just you know, a

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Speaker 1: long stand of just a couple of species. If it's

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Speaker 1: a bad year, then there there are reports of literally

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Speaker 1: tens of thousands of animals swimming across the Ohio River

409
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Speaker 1: to get into Kentucky, um swimming across the Great Lakes

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Speaker 1: um leaving some Some of the more recent reports of

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Speaker 1: these kind of large scale movements are uh in Lake

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Speaker 1: Michigan UM and I think Lake Superior, coming off of

413
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Speaker 1: islands where you've had a failure of mass and then

414
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Speaker 1: swim into the mainland. Yep, yeah, oh you know. Nothing

415
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Speaker 1: I want to ask you about back to reproduction is

416
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Speaker 1: what is the timing of the squirrel rut right now?

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Speaker 1: Perfect time? These uh so right now they're the squirrel

418
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Speaker 1: ruts starting. Uh it begins sometimes even late December. Kind

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Speaker 1: of depends what, uh where you are in our in

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Speaker 1: a country, but like the heartland of the country, going

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Speaker 1: back to Michigan or or Ohio where where we're from, Steve, Uh,

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Speaker 1: things are starting right about now. You'll be seeing these

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Speaker 1: mating chases that I was talking about. And for many things.

424
00:26:09,160 --> 00:26:14,000
Speaker 1: Many species like eastern gray squirrels and the fox squirrels,

425
00:26:14,040 --> 00:26:19,280
Speaker 1: the two most common species around the country, those will

426
00:26:19,320 --> 00:26:23,439
Speaker 1: have a second reproductive season during the summer also, and

427
00:26:23,880 --> 00:26:28,000
Speaker 1: uh so there's kind of two peaks and that's when

428
00:26:28,080 --> 00:26:31,600
Speaker 1: during those times are when males have squirrel testes that

429
00:26:31,720 --> 00:26:35,520
Speaker 1: kind of real obvious case, you know that that it's

430
00:26:35,560 --> 00:26:38,000
Speaker 1: the breeding season. So then the most females kick off

431
00:26:38,000 --> 00:26:43,240
Speaker 1: two litters annually they can. Females in good condition will

432
00:26:43,400 --> 00:26:49,080
Speaker 1: pull off to two litters. Uh most often the average

433
00:26:49,119 --> 00:26:52,520
Speaker 1: female usually pulls off one during those times. And if

434
00:26:52,720 --> 00:26:55,040
Speaker 1: if you have a late spring frost, that knocks back,

435
00:26:55,520 --> 00:26:59,280
Speaker 1: so they're breeding now in places with deciduous forest that

436
00:26:59,760 --> 00:27:03,560
Speaker 1: the uh the food crop is still not really determined

437
00:27:04,000 --> 00:27:07,840
Speaker 1: and so you're just gonna start getting leaves starting to

438
00:27:07,880 --> 00:27:09,520
Speaker 1: pop out and that kind of thing. If you have

439
00:27:09,520 --> 00:27:11,800
Speaker 1: a late spring frost and all that gets knocked back,

440
00:27:12,600 --> 00:27:17,560
Speaker 1: often females will absorb their litter and not produce that

441
00:27:17,680 --> 00:27:21,200
Speaker 1: first breeding season, and then they'll they'll be in better

442
00:27:21,240 --> 00:27:25,199
Speaker 1: shape and uh reproduced during that second season. But some

443
00:27:25,320 --> 00:27:29,040
Speaker 1: really some older females and females and good condition, if

444
00:27:29,080 --> 00:27:31,679
Speaker 1: you had a good uh you know, mass crop the

445
00:27:31,680 --> 00:27:34,680
Speaker 1: previous year and they're they've fattened up over winter, they

446
00:27:34,680 --> 00:27:39,200
Speaker 1: are you know, ready to go, uh in in really

447
00:27:39,240 --> 00:27:42,600
Speaker 1: good breeding condition, you'll get a couple of litters, they'll

448
00:27:42,640 --> 00:27:44,840
Speaker 1: they'll be able to pull off. During a mass failure,

449
00:27:45,040 --> 00:27:48,679
Speaker 1: nobody will reproduce sometimes and you'll have no reproduction in

450
00:27:48,720 --> 00:27:51,000
Speaker 1: a given year. And what's the average litter and then

451
00:27:51,000 --> 00:27:54,880
Speaker 1: a great litter size? So usually about three So two

452
00:27:54,920 --> 00:27:56,840
Speaker 1: and a half to three and a half is average

453
00:27:56,880 --> 00:28:01,280
Speaker 1: for most most tree squirrels. And the records are kind

454
00:28:01,320 --> 00:28:04,800
Speaker 1: of eight or nine um, depending on which which sources

455
00:28:04,840 --> 00:28:09,359
Speaker 1: you believe, but they're published records of seven eight nine

456
00:28:09,960 --> 00:28:14,480
Speaker 1: uh nine squirrels. Ground squirrels have have larger litters typically,

457
00:28:15,240 --> 00:28:18,080
Speaker 1: but most of the tree squirrels are kind of in

458
00:28:18,160 --> 00:28:21,200
Speaker 1: that three animals two and a half to three animals

459
00:28:21,280 --> 00:28:25,000
Speaker 1: that half animals always difficult to difficult to count. Do you, uh,

460
00:28:25,160 --> 00:28:29,640
Speaker 1: what's been your relationship with um squirrel hunters and squirrel

461
00:28:29,720 --> 00:28:32,800
Speaker 1: hunting like, do you find that that's where most of

462
00:28:32,840 --> 00:28:37,120
Speaker 1: your of the sort of popular interest in your work

463
00:28:37,160 --> 00:28:38,840
Speaker 1: comes from or do you find it more more from

464
00:28:38,880 --> 00:28:43,040
Speaker 1: wildlife observers. That's the great thing about squirrels, I mean,

465
00:28:43,080 --> 00:28:44,960
Speaker 1: it's kind of across the board. It's one of the

466
00:28:45,000 --> 00:28:48,120
Speaker 1: things to me, you know that the reason I'm doing

467
00:28:48,160 --> 00:28:51,520
Speaker 1: what I do and wildlife conservation is to bring people

468
00:28:51,560 --> 00:28:55,320
Speaker 1: together to save these kinds of opportunities, you know, keep

469
00:28:55,320 --> 00:28:59,720
Speaker 1: our wild and working lands, um, you know, for future generations.

470
00:28:59,760 --> 00:29:02,560
Speaker 1: And squirrels are one of those species that you can,

471
00:29:02,640 --> 00:29:05,680
Speaker 1: you know, can bring everyone together. Sure there's an occasional

472
00:29:05,720 --> 00:29:09,920
Speaker 1: squirrel hater because they're bird feeders being attacked, but you know,

473
00:29:10,000 --> 00:29:12,840
Speaker 1: that's just the cost of having a bird feeder, uh it.

474
00:29:13,480 --> 00:29:17,000
Speaker 1: I have a number of folks who are very interested

475
00:29:17,080 --> 00:29:20,160
Speaker 1: because just like I mentioned when when I grew up,

476
00:29:20,200 --> 00:29:22,600
Speaker 1: it was the connection that someone has with the you know,

477
00:29:22,640 --> 00:29:26,440
Speaker 1: with the natural world. And then you know, squirrel hunters also,

478
00:29:26,480 --> 00:29:29,480
Speaker 1: it's a connection they have with the natural world. And

479
00:29:29,480 --> 00:29:32,080
Speaker 1: then you don't have any animosity to squirrel hunters. I

480
00:29:32,080 --> 00:29:36,040
Speaker 1: don't know. I've hunted squirrels, I've I've eaten squirrels. Every

481
00:29:36,040 --> 00:29:37,960
Speaker 1: time I go to my brother in law's house, he's

482
00:29:37,960 --> 00:29:41,320
Speaker 1: got a different squirrel recipe for me to try. You

483
00:29:41,320 --> 00:29:45,200
Speaker 1: never feel bad about it. There's this one moment perhaps,

484
00:29:45,360 --> 00:29:48,840
Speaker 1: but you know, but then if it's well cooked, of

485
00:29:48,880 --> 00:29:52,280
Speaker 1: course I don't feel bad about it. Um. Can you explain,

486
00:29:52,360 --> 00:29:57,280
Speaker 1: Can you talk a little bit about how the the

487
00:29:57,320 --> 00:30:01,719
Speaker 1: color phases work with at the eastern gray squirrel. I

488
00:30:01,760 --> 00:30:05,720
Speaker 1: find there is like endless confusion about it's a black squirrel,

489
00:30:05,760 --> 00:30:07,440
Speaker 1: it's a gray squirrel. There used to be a lot

490
00:30:07,480 --> 00:30:11,080
Speaker 1: of black squirrels. Now it's all gray squirrels, like, which

491
00:30:11,120 --> 00:30:15,560
Speaker 1: is true. Yeah, it's like shifts over time. Just watch

492
00:30:15,640 --> 00:30:18,680
Speaker 1: my mom's yard. You're like, most of gray squirrels are black.

493
00:30:18,720 --> 00:30:20,880
Speaker 1: Then it's like a while later, it's like, most of

494
00:30:20,880 --> 00:30:25,040
Speaker 1: gray squirrels are gray. What's going on? So they're all

495
00:30:25,080 --> 00:30:29,240
Speaker 1: gray squirrels, you know, to someone who's interested in kind

496
00:30:29,240 --> 00:30:32,440
Speaker 1: of the taxonomy classification, they're all gray squirrels. They were

497
00:30:32,480 --> 00:30:36,520
Speaker 1: that species. They can interbreed eastern eastern because the western

498
00:30:36,560 --> 00:30:39,120
Speaker 1: gray he doesn't have a black phase. Right, there's just

499
00:30:39,160 --> 00:30:42,520
Speaker 1: been a couple of cases of of uh, and in

500
00:30:42,560 --> 00:30:45,320
Speaker 1: the most species you you have this rare these rare

501
00:30:45,320 --> 00:30:48,560
Speaker 1: occurrences of melanic forms, the you know, the black forms,

502
00:30:48,600 --> 00:30:53,680
Speaker 1: and then also some Albanistic or just uh, you know

503
00:30:53,760 --> 00:30:56,920
Speaker 1: forms that are that where some of the pigments gone,

504
00:30:56,920 --> 00:31:00,600
Speaker 1: so they'll be some kind of something in between are

505
00:31:00,680 --> 00:31:03,720
Speaker 1: mostly white but not completely. But yeah, it's just a

506
00:31:04,520 --> 00:31:07,720
Speaker 1: you know, just like hair color, eye color in humans,

507
00:31:07,920 --> 00:31:11,480
Speaker 1: it's you know, it's all due to genetics and the

508
00:31:12,000 --> 00:31:16,560
Speaker 1: So I'm guessing your mom lives in in Michigan still. Ye.

509
00:31:16,840 --> 00:31:20,120
Speaker 1: So once you start getting north far enough, the black

510
00:31:20,160 --> 00:31:24,840
Speaker 1: forms become more common and that actually has a physiological advantage,

511
00:31:25,600 --> 00:31:29,720
Speaker 1: like with heat. Yep, that's exactly. It heat better, Yep,

512
00:31:29,840 --> 00:31:32,479
Speaker 1: that's it. So the advantage is during winter, during the summer,

513
00:31:32,840 --> 00:31:36,000
Speaker 1: people have done physiology on him. Doesn't make a difference.

514
00:31:36,160 --> 00:31:39,360
Speaker 1: They you know, they they're both color morphs, have this

515
00:31:39,680 --> 00:31:42,640
Speaker 1: you know, kind of same metabolic cost. But during the winter,

516
00:31:43,160 --> 00:31:46,280
Speaker 1: the ability to absorb and retain heat in that black color.

517
00:31:46,440 --> 00:31:49,320
Speaker 1: You know, we've all watched the sunshine and they come

518
00:31:49,320 --> 00:31:52,640
Speaker 1: out and splay out on that s that sun up exactly,

519
00:31:53,000 --> 00:31:54,760
Speaker 1: and that's usually in the winter. The first thing they

520
00:31:54,760 --> 00:31:56,280
Speaker 1: do in the morning, they come out of the nest

521
00:31:56,280 --> 00:31:59,240
Speaker 1: and just lay flat, warm up and and and then

522
00:31:59,320 --> 00:32:03,400
Speaker 1: start their day. While the black forms have an energetic advantage.

523
00:32:03,400 --> 00:32:05,800
Speaker 1: And when you're on that kind of razor's edge of

524
00:32:05,920 --> 00:32:08,800
Speaker 1: you know, do I have enough energy to survive to

525
00:32:09,080 --> 00:32:13,360
Speaker 1: produce offspring? You know, any little advantage um, you know,

526
00:32:13,440 --> 00:32:16,560
Speaker 1: it's something that could be capitalized on. So Toronto, you know,

527
00:32:16,680 --> 00:32:20,040
Speaker 1: southern Ontario, lots of black color morphs. But if you

528
00:32:20,080 --> 00:32:22,680
Speaker 1: go down to eastern gray squirrels get all the way

529
00:32:22,720 --> 00:32:25,440
Speaker 1: down to the floor to South Florida and close to

530
00:32:25,480 --> 00:32:30,040
Speaker 1: the Florida keys, black forms are are hardly ever seen

531
00:32:30,160 --> 00:32:34,000
Speaker 1: down there? Is there right now? Can one litter have

532
00:32:35,760 --> 00:32:41,160
Speaker 1: full on like full on gray and full on black ones? Yep,

533
00:32:41,640 --> 00:32:44,840
Speaker 1: that we just talked about. We started off talking about

534
00:32:44,840 --> 00:32:48,920
Speaker 1: the mating system, multiple fathers for a single litter, and

535
00:32:49,000 --> 00:32:53,000
Speaker 1: so you've got that possibility, and then just the heritability.

536
00:32:53,120 --> 00:32:56,760
Speaker 1: People are still working out how that black color morph

537
00:32:57,080 --> 00:33:00,280
Speaker 1: you know how dominant it is in that kind of thing.

538
00:33:00,320 --> 00:33:04,560
Speaker 1: But uh, typically that melanic form, we do know that

539
00:33:04,600 --> 00:33:09,600
Speaker 1: it is a dominant morph. So if it's if that

540
00:33:09,880 --> 00:33:12,680
Speaker 1: gene is present, then you're going to get the production

541
00:33:12,720 --> 00:33:16,120
Speaker 1: of lots of black pigment. God should be dark individuals.

542
00:33:16,680 --> 00:33:20,080
Speaker 1: So you can have you can have mixed litters of

543
00:33:20,280 --> 00:33:23,440
Speaker 1: mixed coloration, usually that kind of grizzled gray color that

544
00:33:23,480 --> 00:33:28,120
Speaker 1: you're familiar with, and then the black morph. Okay, guys,

545
00:33:28,120 --> 00:33:30,320
Speaker 1: I'll go I'll go on for three hours. Man, you

546
00:33:30,360 --> 00:33:32,000
Speaker 1: got do you want to throw one in there? So

547
00:33:32,240 --> 00:33:36,120
Speaker 1: I read from an aerospace engineer once that squirrels can

548
00:33:36,120 --> 00:33:40,040
Speaker 1: survive a fall from any reasonable distance, like any height

549
00:33:40,080 --> 00:33:43,320
Speaker 1: of any building. What's like the furthest You've seen one

550
00:33:43,360 --> 00:33:46,760
Speaker 1: fall and live. I've seen one fall seventy ft and

551
00:33:46,880 --> 00:33:49,400
Speaker 1: hit the ground and just get up and start running.

552
00:33:49,400 --> 00:33:51,840
Speaker 1: They're always a little dazed. They're always a little dazed

553
00:33:51,880 --> 00:33:57,160
Speaker 1: when they hit the ground. Um they so that's excusable, Yeah, okay,

554
00:33:57,360 --> 00:33:59,959
Speaker 1: And it's just like you if you fell, you know,

555
00:34:00,160 --> 00:34:02,160
Speaker 1: usually see them kind of shake their head, blink their

556
00:34:02,200 --> 00:34:06,640
Speaker 1: eyes a few times, and doesn't shatter every bone body.

557
00:34:06,720 --> 00:34:09,400
Speaker 1: I guess they're not like they got like enough air resistance.

558
00:34:09,840 --> 00:34:12,360
Speaker 1: And that's it. It's kind of a surface area to volume.

559
00:34:12,560 --> 00:34:15,239
Speaker 1: You know that people of people said, no one has

560
00:34:15,640 --> 00:34:18,560
Speaker 1: experimentally looked at this, but you know that a mouse

561
00:34:18,560 --> 00:34:21,720
Speaker 1: could fall off the Empire State building and and still

562
00:34:21,960 --> 00:34:25,840
Speaker 1: and survive that fall. Uh you know where a squirrel

563
00:34:26,200 --> 00:34:29,000
Speaker 1: with its size, when they've calculated it, they wouldn't be

564
00:34:29,000 --> 00:34:32,640
Speaker 1: able to survive fall that far. But during those mating

565
00:34:32,719 --> 00:34:36,640
Speaker 1: chases I mentioned all that, aggression males do not sit

566
00:34:36,719 --> 00:34:40,120
Speaker 1: there passively. When you've got you know, ten fifteen forty

567
00:34:40,200 --> 00:34:42,520
Speaker 1: five males, they'll knock each other out of the trees

568
00:34:42,560 --> 00:34:45,520
Speaker 1: all the time, and you know, it sets their competitor

569
00:34:45,560 --> 00:34:48,520
Speaker 1: back a little bit. But I've I've seen I've seen

570
00:34:48,560 --> 00:34:52,880
Speaker 1: them fall, you know, seventy feet and hit the ground.

571
00:34:53,120 --> 00:34:56,120
Speaker 1: They shake around a little bit, you know, they're stunned

572
00:34:56,160 --> 00:34:58,319
Speaker 1: for a few minutes, and then they're they're back at

573
00:34:58,320 --> 00:35:00,560
Speaker 1: it during those mating chases. So we what was going

574
00:35:00,600 --> 00:35:04,000
Speaker 1: on at the seventy ft fall. So they were at

575
00:35:04,040 --> 00:35:08,280
Speaker 1: the top of a large tree. The male and female

576
00:35:08,440 --> 00:35:12,160
Speaker 1: were copulating, and another male came and knocked him both

577
00:35:12,160 --> 00:35:14,000
Speaker 1: out of the tree. The female was able to hold

578
00:35:14,000 --> 00:35:17,759
Speaker 1: onto the tree. The male fell seventy feet and you

579
00:35:17,800 --> 00:35:20,360
Speaker 1: know he went from you know, thinking that he was

580
00:35:20,400 --> 00:35:24,440
Speaker 1: going to be successful that day, trying to work his

581
00:35:24,520 --> 00:35:29,160
Speaker 1: way back. You know. So have you ever seen one

582
00:35:29,200 --> 00:35:32,759
Speaker 1: die from a fall? Then nope. But people have looked at,

583
00:35:33,440 --> 00:35:38,000
Speaker 1: uh looked at skeletons in museums to look for breakage

584
00:35:38,000 --> 00:35:42,040
Speaker 1: of longbones and that kind of thing, and not surprisingly, uh,

585
00:35:42,360 --> 00:35:44,640
Speaker 1: somewhere from five to ten percent of the animals have

586
00:35:44,760 --> 00:35:49,319
Speaker 1: broken longbones, so they may sustain some damage on those falls. Uh.

587
00:35:49,400 --> 00:35:51,439
Speaker 1: You know, those broken longbones could have come from lots

588
00:35:51,440 --> 00:35:55,480
Speaker 1: of things, but uh, you know, they there's some evidence

589
00:35:55,520 --> 00:35:59,120
Speaker 1: that maybe maybe you know they they do, you know,

590
00:35:59,200 --> 00:36:02,120
Speaker 1: take on some some real physical damage too. We've come

591
00:36:02,160 --> 00:36:06,440
Speaker 1: across dead squirrels laying like inexplicably on the forest floor.

592
00:36:06,520 --> 00:36:10,239
Speaker 1: It's exactly my question deduce with for no reason whatsoever,

593
00:36:10,360 --> 00:36:13,080
Speaker 1: that they must have fallen. Yeah, it might be an

594
00:36:13,080 --> 00:36:17,640
Speaker 1: impossible question to answer, but yeah, you're like, it's probably

595
00:36:17,640 --> 00:36:19,200
Speaker 1: been the same squirrel a couple of times. But I

596
00:36:19,200 --> 00:36:22,040
Speaker 1: know that just with my kids, I've been walking through

597
00:36:22,040 --> 00:36:25,240
Speaker 1: the woods squirrel hunting, and there is a perfectly fine

598
00:36:25,360 --> 00:36:29,040
Speaker 1: looking squirrel, not eaten, not eaten, no claw marks, no

599
00:36:29,160 --> 00:36:33,800
Speaker 1: talent marks, uh, no twenty two hole in it. Um,

600
00:36:33,920 --> 00:36:36,120
Speaker 1: I mean, looks fresh as as a daisy. Like you

601
00:36:36,120 --> 00:36:37,600
Speaker 1: do almost want to just put it in your game

602
00:36:37,640 --> 00:36:40,160
Speaker 1: pouch and take it home, but you don't because you

603
00:36:40,200 --> 00:36:43,840
Speaker 1: don't know what killed it. So a couple of things.

604
00:36:44,400 --> 00:36:48,279
Speaker 1: Often when you find those animals and you and you

605
00:36:48,320 --> 00:36:50,879
Speaker 1: actually if you skinned them out and looked, you'd see

606
00:36:50,920 --> 00:36:53,600
Speaker 1: that there was a talent that whacked him, and the

607
00:36:53,719 --> 00:36:57,879
Speaker 1: and you know, the hawk or uh, the owl ended

608
00:36:57,960 --> 00:37:00,719
Speaker 1: up you know, losing it. Sometimes they'll fight over each other.

609
00:37:01,040 --> 00:37:03,600
Speaker 1: So we've had a number of times where where I'll

610
00:37:03,600 --> 00:37:07,120
Speaker 1: get an animal, I'll say, oh, there's absolutely absolutely no

611
00:37:07,640 --> 00:37:10,160
Speaker 1: reason for this animal dieing. And when you skin it out,

612
00:37:10,440 --> 00:37:13,160
Speaker 1: you just see those you know that you can see

613
00:37:13,160 --> 00:37:15,879
Speaker 1: where the talent marks were. So it's possible that it's

614
00:37:15,920 --> 00:37:19,440
Speaker 1: that I hate to go back to squirrel mating systems again,

615
00:37:19,480 --> 00:37:23,560
Speaker 1: but we're going to go there. Uh So, where I

616
00:37:23,600 --> 00:37:27,720
Speaker 1: have seen animals fall dead was that during the breeding season,

617
00:37:28,160 --> 00:37:31,959
Speaker 1: those males are getting up early every morning, going out,

618
00:37:32,280 --> 00:37:35,000
Speaker 1: trying to mate with females during the day, then trying

619
00:37:35,000 --> 00:37:37,000
Speaker 1: to figure out when the next female is going to

620
00:37:37,040 --> 00:37:39,839
Speaker 1: be in heat, and you know, plan their next day

621
00:37:39,880 --> 00:37:44,520
Speaker 1: of activity. And when you do that for forty fifty

622
00:37:44,640 --> 00:37:48,799
Speaker 1: sixty days, males are often in horrific condition and they're

623
00:37:48,800 --> 00:37:52,440
Speaker 1: fighting each other. So we've had I've seen probably a

624
00:37:52,480 --> 00:37:55,920
Speaker 1: dozen animals that have They'll wake up in the morning

625
00:37:56,120 --> 00:37:59,040
Speaker 1: and fall dead to the ground and you'll and you

626
00:37:59,040 --> 00:38:01,640
Speaker 1: will just find them. They'll look like there's malnurished. Yep,

627
00:38:01,680 --> 00:38:04,320
Speaker 1: they're just malnurished. Skin them out and we do a

628
00:38:04,360 --> 00:38:09,560
Speaker 1: knee cropsy on them and you'll see often puncture marks

629
00:38:09,600 --> 00:38:12,680
Speaker 1: from other males the incisors where they beat each other up,

630
00:38:13,080 --> 00:38:15,080
Speaker 1: and then they've got no body fat on them, so

631
00:38:15,239 --> 00:38:17,359
Speaker 1: you know they're they're giving it. They're all you know,

632
00:38:17,480 --> 00:38:20,320
Speaker 1: and and you know, as far as survival to finish,

633
00:38:20,719 --> 00:38:23,040
Speaker 1: if they've made it with some females, you know that

634
00:38:23,600 --> 00:38:25,520
Speaker 1: they've done all they need to do for that year.

635
00:38:26,160 --> 00:38:31,080
Speaker 1: But so I have come across male squirrels like that

636
00:38:31,560 --> 00:38:34,319
Speaker 1: on the ground and they have and I've watched them

637
00:38:34,320 --> 00:38:36,319
Speaker 1: fall out of fall out of a you know, from

638
00:38:36,640 --> 00:38:39,719
Speaker 1: a den first thing in the morning or early in

639
00:38:39,719 --> 00:38:42,759
Speaker 1: the morning, just haven't been had enough energy to to

640
00:38:42,800 --> 00:38:46,359
Speaker 1: continue to move. I was at the Durren's house, he's

641
00:38:46,360 --> 00:38:51,120
Speaker 1: a buddy bars in Wisconsin deer hunting one time and

642
00:38:51,200 --> 00:38:56,960
Speaker 1: I heard uh noises like that most people wouldn't recognize,

643
00:38:56,960 --> 00:38:59,919
Speaker 1: but it was a mink. They have a very high pitch,

644
00:39:00,200 --> 00:39:04,439
Speaker 1: like like this high pitched squeal when they're agitated. There's

645
00:39:04,480 --> 00:39:09,959
Speaker 1: a mink trying to gain entrance into a squirrel hole,

646
00:39:10,640 --> 00:39:15,240
Speaker 1: and there is a squirrel fighting yep like the dickens

647
00:39:15,960 --> 00:39:18,319
Speaker 1: to keep him out of that hole. And eventually the

648
00:39:18,400 --> 00:39:21,000
Speaker 1: mink gains entrance into that hole. And I never heard

649
00:39:21,160 --> 00:39:24,480
Speaker 1: another peep and never saw that mink come out. Well,

650
00:39:24,520 --> 00:39:26,840
Speaker 1: it's got a lot of food for a while he

651
00:39:27,000 --> 00:39:30,200
Speaker 1: like went in there. I don't really know, but it's

652
00:39:30,239 --> 00:39:32,520
Speaker 1: like he went in there, killed the thing and then

653
00:39:32,560 --> 00:39:37,040
Speaker 1: just settled in. Well, I'm sure that's the case. They

654
00:39:37,760 --> 00:39:39,520
Speaker 1: there may have been more than one squirrel in their

655
00:39:39,600 --> 00:39:44,040
Speaker 1: Most squirrels, especially during the winter, you'll you'll get groups

656
00:39:44,440 --> 00:39:49,120
Speaker 1: of especially female squirrels. Eastern gray squirrels are actually really

657
00:39:49,200 --> 00:39:54,240
Speaker 1: highly social, so there'll be several generations living together of females.

658
00:39:54,320 --> 00:39:57,320
Speaker 1: During the day they're out, you won't see them in groups,

659
00:39:57,360 --> 00:39:59,520
Speaker 1: but at night they all come back and it's that

660
00:39:59,640 --> 00:40:02,399
Speaker 1: same Instead of a predator trying to get in, it's

661
00:40:02,440 --> 00:40:05,560
Speaker 1: another squirrel trying to get back into that nest. Uh.

662
00:40:05,640 --> 00:40:08,359
Speaker 1: You know, they use each other's body heat. That gives

663
00:40:08,400 --> 00:40:13,200
Speaker 1: them an advantage, and so you'll see multiple animals. I've

664
00:40:13,200 --> 00:40:16,080
Speaker 1: seen nesting groups I think I think the largest I've

665
00:40:16,080 --> 00:40:20,520
Speaker 1: seen is fourteen related females together in a nest, and

666
00:40:20,560 --> 00:40:24,120
Speaker 1: then males will get together and nest um uh. And

667
00:40:24,440 --> 00:40:28,439
Speaker 1: they're not based on relatedness, So you'll sometimes find eight

668
00:40:28,520 --> 00:40:31,880
Speaker 1: or ten males in the coldest nights nesting together, and

669
00:40:31,880 --> 00:40:34,279
Speaker 1: then first thing in the morning they take off. But

670
00:40:34,520 --> 00:40:37,120
Speaker 1: that's a finding a quality nest that they can defend

671
00:40:37,239 --> 00:40:40,279
Speaker 1: from inside is one of the biggest resources. You know.

672
00:40:40,280 --> 00:40:42,719
Speaker 1: We always think of food and that kind of thing,

673
00:40:42,800 --> 00:40:45,760
Speaker 1: but those quality dens that you get in big old

674
00:40:45,800 --> 00:40:50,200
Speaker 1: trees are huge for these these groups of related animals.

675
00:40:50,200 --> 00:40:53,440
Speaker 1: So when we think about managing forests, retaining some of

676
00:40:53,480 --> 00:40:57,120
Speaker 1: those big old trees, you know, becomes really important to

677
00:40:57,640 --> 00:41:00,320
Speaker 1: quality forest management. I'll tell you something. You got to

678
00:41:00,320 --> 00:41:05,120
Speaker 1: write a paper on two years ago. I was hunting

679
00:41:05,120 --> 00:41:07,239
Speaker 1: squirrels and Brodie Henderson was there. He can back me

680
00:41:07,320 --> 00:41:09,920
Speaker 1: up on this. We're hunting squirrels and we got a

681
00:41:09,920 --> 00:41:14,239
Speaker 1: bad hit on a fox squirrel. He goes into a

682
00:41:14,280 --> 00:41:19,640
Speaker 1: hole of a cottonwood tree. But then a fight ensues

683
00:41:20,400 --> 00:41:23,560
Speaker 1: and another fox squirrel kicks him out of the hole,

684
00:41:25,640 --> 00:41:28,960
Speaker 1: fought him back out, and then we want up getting him.

685
00:41:30,680 --> 00:41:32,640
Speaker 1: I would call that. I don't know what to call

686
00:41:32,719 --> 00:41:36,600
Speaker 1: that paper. How how how would you name a paper like that? Uh,

687
00:41:37,280 --> 00:41:43,319
Speaker 1: Steve is a poor shot and and elicits the assistance

688
00:41:43,560 --> 00:41:48,799
Speaker 1: of because we uh Hefflefinger. Heffle Finger who you know

689
00:41:49,640 --> 00:41:52,319
Speaker 1: recently sent a paper where a guy got a publication

690
00:41:52,480 --> 00:41:56,319
Speaker 1: off of the fact that, Uh, they got a publication

691
00:41:57,000 --> 00:41:59,520
Speaker 1: off of that they had a trail camp set up,

692
00:42:00,360 --> 00:42:04,920
Speaker 1: and a jaguar came and drank from the whole leaves

693
00:42:05,560 --> 00:42:09,400
Speaker 1: and auslot sons and drinks. The jaguar kills the aslot,

694
00:42:09,760 --> 00:42:12,160
Speaker 1: and this guy gets a scientific publication out of it.

695
00:42:13,160 --> 00:42:16,560
Speaker 1: It's just like an observation. And then you're like, huh,

696
00:42:17,280 --> 00:42:20,200
Speaker 1: so I do feel that you could publish this piece well,

697
00:42:20,400 --> 00:42:25,080
Speaker 1: but with that attitude, but you know, yeah, I'd be

698
00:42:25,120 --> 00:42:27,799
Speaker 1: game as long as we can put the steve as

699
00:42:27,840 --> 00:42:31,200
Speaker 1: a poor shot um like in the abstract. It could

700
00:42:31,200 --> 00:42:34,440
Speaker 1: be the first line of the abstract. But those kinds

701
00:42:34,440 --> 00:42:37,880
Speaker 1: of rare observations are really critical. And you know, I

702
00:42:37,920 --> 00:42:40,600
Speaker 1: know some some scientists get a little snobby about oh,

703
00:42:40,680 --> 00:42:43,319
Speaker 1: sample size and things like that, and for some things,

704
00:42:43,360 --> 00:42:45,480
Speaker 1: we obviously want to have enough sample size so we

705
00:42:45,880 --> 00:42:49,880
Speaker 1: you know, we can make rigorous management decisions and conserved species.

706
00:42:49,920 --> 00:42:53,000
Speaker 1: But you know, for these really rare events, to me,

707
00:42:53,080 --> 00:42:56,400
Speaker 1: it's really important to get that information out. And so

708
00:42:56,800 --> 00:42:59,120
Speaker 1: I am all four of those kinds of kinds of

709
00:42:59,120 --> 00:43:02,600
Speaker 1: publications my health. I mean, I sent that jaguar awesol

710
00:43:02,600 --> 00:43:07,560
Speaker 1: Lot thing to my brother who's an ecologist. Um, he

711
00:43:07,600 --> 00:43:10,839
Speaker 1: thought it was interesting, but he felt that in that

712
00:43:11,080 --> 00:43:15,760
Speaker 1: article that talking about the that this was possibly something

713
00:43:15,760 --> 00:43:17,680
Speaker 1: to do with climate change. He felt that was a

714
00:43:17,680 --> 00:43:20,240
Speaker 1: little ting too far. He thought that was a little

715
00:43:20,320 --> 00:43:37,799
Speaker 1: so it's important, but understanding the significance more talent. John,

716
00:43:37,840 --> 00:43:41,520
Speaker 1: I've got to I've got a question for you about

717
00:43:41,520 --> 00:43:44,080
Speaker 1: something that I read. And it was a research project

718
00:43:44,080 --> 00:43:46,759
Speaker 1: and it was actually done in between nineteen thirty nine

719
00:43:46,800 --> 00:43:50,640
Speaker 1: and nineteen forty three, and this guy was studying squirrel

720
00:43:50,640 --> 00:43:55,120
Speaker 1: populations in Illinois the height of World War Two. Yeah,

721
00:43:55,160 --> 00:44:00,000
Speaker 1: in the height of Americans that's what he's thinking about, Yeah,

722
00:44:00,040 --> 00:44:03,200
Speaker 1: right of American squirrel hunting. To um. He said that

723
00:44:04,320 --> 00:44:06,960
Speaker 1: the earliest they saw a female squirrel coming to estrus

724
00:44:07,040 --> 00:44:09,440
Speaker 1: was December eleven, and the latest that they saw a

725
00:44:09,480 --> 00:44:13,560
Speaker 1: female squirrel come in was January, you know, for the

726
00:44:13,600 --> 00:44:16,200
Speaker 1: winter rut. And he was real clear that there were

727
00:44:16,200 --> 00:44:21,439
Speaker 1: two breeding cycles, especially with older females, and he get

728
00:44:21,520 --> 00:44:26,759
Speaker 1: He said that that from northern Illinois to southern Illinois

729
00:44:26,880 --> 00:44:32,640
Speaker 1: there was a ten to fourteen day delay, Like the

730
00:44:32,680 --> 00:44:37,040
Speaker 1: southern Illinois squirrels came into breeding cycles earlier than Northern Illinois.

731
00:44:37,040 --> 00:44:39,200
Speaker 1: And I just saw that parallel. I guess with a

732
00:44:39,239 --> 00:44:42,239
Speaker 1: lot of mammals that are the breeding cycles of the

733
00:44:42,280 --> 00:44:47,000
Speaker 1: North are gonna be later, so that the the offspring

734
00:44:47,040 --> 00:44:50,240
Speaker 1: survival is better because it happens later in the spring.

735
00:44:50,239 --> 00:44:52,759
Speaker 1: But I was just gonna say, like here in Arkansas,

736
00:44:53,000 --> 00:44:54,839
Speaker 1: if you were to ask just the squirrel hunter down

737
00:44:54,880 --> 00:44:57,640
Speaker 1: the road, when's the squirrel rut, they'd say early December.

738
00:44:58,440 --> 00:45:00,799
Speaker 1: You know, that's that's kind of what they would say.

739
00:45:01,200 --> 00:45:04,920
Speaker 1: But like I heard you talking about Michigan being is

740
00:45:05,000 --> 00:45:09,239
Speaker 1: it later John up there? Yeah? Correct, it's a little

741
00:45:09,280 --> 00:45:13,040
Speaker 1: bit later up there. And it actually varies between species

742
00:45:13,080 --> 00:45:16,480
Speaker 1: a little bit. If you have both gray and fox squirrels.

743
00:45:16,520 --> 00:45:19,320
Speaker 1: Fox squirrels usually are a week to ten days earlier.

744
00:45:19,480 --> 00:45:21,719
Speaker 1: I'm not really sure why that is, but that's kind

745
00:45:21,719 --> 00:45:25,040
Speaker 1: of a widespread pattern, and they'll start a little bit

746
00:45:25,040 --> 00:45:29,280
Speaker 1: earlier in December. And you hit on it, Clay that

747
00:45:29,280 --> 00:45:32,680
Speaker 1: that the farther you go north, they're usually a little

748
00:45:32,680 --> 00:45:35,840
Speaker 1: bit delayed, And that all makes sense, right. Reproduction is

749
00:45:35,880 --> 00:45:39,120
Speaker 1: all about producing young. Those young You want them to

750
00:45:39,200 --> 00:45:42,200
Speaker 1: emerge when all those buds are coming out on the spring,

751
00:45:42,520 --> 00:45:45,120
Speaker 1: on the spring trees, so that the female is going

752
00:45:45,200 --> 00:45:48,840
Speaker 1: to be in in good condition while she's producing milk.

753
00:45:48,880 --> 00:45:54,280
Speaker 1: Because the most energetically costly event for a female mammal

754
00:45:54,440 --> 00:45:59,400
Speaker 1: is lactation, not pregnancy. Pregnancy is costly, but trying to

755
00:45:59,760 --> 00:46:02,880
Speaker 1: nurse those young and produce all that protein and you know,

756
00:46:03,000 --> 00:46:08,240
Speaker 1: fat rich milk that takes energy. And so the timing

757
00:46:08,320 --> 00:46:10,799
Speaker 1: of these things are really critical. And so as you

758
00:46:10,840 --> 00:46:13,439
Speaker 1: go a little further north, springs coming a little bit later,

759
00:46:13,920 --> 00:46:17,239
Speaker 1: and you're going to see that that that change in

760
00:46:17,280 --> 00:46:20,439
Speaker 1: the timing. You're right on the money, Clay. I asked

761
00:46:20,480 --> 00:46:24,040
Speaker 1: a veteran guy, veteran squirrel hunter here in Arkansas the

762
00:46:24,040 --> 00:46:26,399
Speaker 1: other day. I said, what's the toughest time of year

763
00:46:26,719 --> 00:46:30,080
Speaker 1: to squirrel hunt? And he said late January because the

764
00:46:30,160 --> 00:46:33,640
Speaker 1: females are dinning and not leaving their nest munths much.

765
00:46:33,680 --> 00:46:36,960
Speaker 1: Can you is there any research on the movement of

766
00:46:37,480 --> 00:46:39,560
Speaker 1: males and females during that time of year, because it

767
00:46:39,680 --> 00:46:43,080
Speaker 1: is really tough right now and it it uh And

768
00:46:43,120 --> 00:46:46,000
Speaker 1: he said, it's because they're dinning up, they're close to

769
00:46:46,040 --> 00:46:50,200
Speaker 1: their nest, their their dentries. Is that is that about right? Well,

770
00:46:50,239 --> 00:46:55,520
Speaker 1: if we eliminate poor squirrel hunting from this, then uh,

771
00:46:55,680 --> 00:47:02,160
Speaker 1: what you're exactly dogs not great dogs, So you're exactly right. Yeah,

772
00:47:03,120 --> 00:47:06,919
Speaker 1: So the females have gone through and reproduced already. Now

773
00:47:06,960 --> 00:47:10,040
Speaker 1: they're you know, they're pregnant, and so they hold up.

774
00:47:10,160 --> 00:47:12,640
Speaker 1: They don't they're not using much energy. They usually go

775
00:47:12,680 --> 00:47:16,040
Speaker 1: out for literally just an hour or two a day, feed,

776
00:47:16,280 --> 00:47:18,279
Speaker 1: you know, eat whatever nuts they can, and then go

777
00:47:18,360 --> 00:47:21,200
Speaker 1: back in the males though it's it's usually still the

778
00:47:21,320 --> 00:47:24,120
Speaker 1: end of the breeding season and they're still roaming around

779
00:47:24,160 --> 00:47:26,960
Speaker 1: and they start ranging even more widely trying to find,

780
00:47:27,160 --> 00:47:29,319
Speaker 1: you know, one of the last females that might still

781
00:47:29,360 --> 00:47:33,239
Speaker 1: be available. So you're you're you're basically trying to hunt

782
00:47:33,239 --> 00:47:36,840
Speaker 1: half the you know, half the population now because females

783
00:47:36,880 --> 00:47:39,719
Speaker 1: are hold up and unless you know where Dan is

784
00:47:40,080 --> 00:47:42,720
Speaker 1: you know where the female might be coming out, Um,

785
00:47:42,840 --> 00:47:44,839
Speaker 1: you're you're not even going to see them very much

786
00:47:44,920 --> 00:47:48,719
Speaker 1: during during that time. So you nailed it. Yeah, that's

787
00:47:48,719 --> 00:47:52,880
Speaker 1: the interesting thing you brought about. The lactation takes so

788
00:47:53,040 --> 00:47:58,000
Speaker 1: much energy because and people that hunt, um, people the

789
00:47:58,040 --> 00:48:01,400
Speaker 1: hunt a lot of wild pigs. We'll say, the best

790
00:48:02,040 --> 00:48:06,360
Speaker 1: wild pig, the best condition is a pregnant sou And

791
00:48:06,400 --> 00:48:09,319
Speaker 1: always thought that like that they'll be fatty, And I thought, like,

792
00:48:09,320 --> 00:48:12,000
Speaker 1: how could that be? Because how's it not so taxing

793
00:48:13,280 --> 00:48:15,960
Speaker 1: to produce it, and they're saying, the worst pig is

794
00:48:15,960 --> 00:48:20,239
Speaker 1: a nursing sou Yeah, that just get like sucked dry. Well,

795
00:48:20,239 --> 00:48:23,799
Speaker 1: that's that's exactly it. You know, milk is really expensive

796
00:48:23,840 --> 00:48:28,120
Speaker 1: to produce, and so typically they're putting everything into just

797
00:48:28,280 --> 00:48:31,440
Speaker 1: producing as quality and offspring as possible, giving them the

798
00:48:31,480 --> 00:48:35,800
Speaker 1: best start in life. And so with with female squirrels,

799
00:48:36,200 --> 00:48:40,239
Speaker 1: they won't even the second most energetically expensive part of

800
00:48:40,239 --> 00:48:43,719
Speaker 1: their life is changing their pellage, you know, molting their

801
00:48:43,760 --> 00:48:46,120
Speaker 1: fur and grow a new fur. It's all protein, right,

802
00:48:46,360 --> 00:48:49,359
Speaker 1: a bunch of its protein. That's costly. They don't do

803
00:48:49,440 --> 00:48:52,600
Speaker 1: that until after they've finished nursing their young, so you'll

804
00:48:52,640 --> 00:48:57,160
Speaker 1: see these really raggedy looking females late in the spring.

805
00:48:57,600 --> 00:49:00,239
Speaker 1: I get calls where someone's like, oh, there's some kind

806
00:49:00,239 --> 00:49:03,400
Speaker 1: of you know, horrific disease going through the squirrels. You know,

807
00:49:03,440 --> 00:49:06,680
Speaker 1: look all mangy and manges that you know can be

808
00:49:07,160 --> 00:49:11,120
Speaker 1: a problem, but it's just they're just females who are

809
00:49:11,360 --> 00:49:14,160
Speaker 1: given everything they can to their offspring, and so they're

810
00:49:14,160 --> 00:49:16,719
Speaker 1: producing and producing that milk. And if you look at

811
00:49:16,760 --> 00:49:19,600
Speaker 1: fat stores of females at the end of nursing, there's

812
00:49:19,640 --> 00:49:22,319
Speaker 1: no fat store, just just like males are invested in

813
00:49:22,360 --> 00:49:24,960
Speaker 1: everything in those breeding seasons, and I mentioned some of

814
00:49:25,000 --> 00:49:27,959
Speaker 1: them dying because they you know, don't have any they're

815
00:49:28,000 --> 00:49:31,000
Speaker 1: just so malnourished. That's exactly what you can see with

816
00:49:31,160 --> 00:49:34,399
Speaker 1: females at that kind of end of nursing. You're exactly right.

817
00:49:34,920 --> 00:49:39,440
Speaker 1: I got a double question for you. Rattle off, like

818
00:49:39,480 --> 00:49:44,880
Speaker 1: what normally kills squirrels like from predator from a predatory standpoint,

819
00:49:45,520 --> 00:49:48,080
Speaker 1: and then what are some of the freakish things you've seen?

820
00:49:49,560 --> 00:49:53,760
Speaker 1: So usually avian predators, hawks and owls are the number

821
00:49:53,760 --> 00:49:58,160
Speaker 1: one predator. Then you start getting into things like you know,

822
00:49:58,360 --> 00:50:03,279
Speaker 1: foxes and bobcats also take a large number of them,

823
00:50:03,440 --> 00:50:05,279
Speaker 1: catching them off the ground. Catching them off the ground

824
00:50:05,680 --> 00:50:09,200
Speaker 1: much harder, obviously, you know, they squirrels can get into

825
00:50:09,239 --> 00:50:12,960
Speaker 1: the trees pretty quickly, but raptors nail them. Raptors and

826
00:50:13,080 --> 00:50:16,319
Speaker 1: some of the studies we've done raptors account of the

827
00:50:16,360 --> 00:50:23,160
Speaker 1: mortality of red squirrels. And then the remaining of predation

828
00:50:23,239 --> 00:50:27,319
Speaker 1: events are from foxes, bobcats, that kind of thing. But

829
00:50:27,800 --> 00:50:31,560
Speaker 1: when they're in those I mentioned the necessity of those

830
00:50:31,640 --> 00:50:34,279
Speaker 1: quality den cavities and that being part of you know,

831
00:50:34,360 --> 00:50:37,440
Speaker 1: kind of good forest management. If you don't have a

832
00:50:37,520 --> 00:50:40,279
Speaker 1: quality den cavity, lots of things can get in. Raccoons

833
00:50:40,280 --> 00:50:43,239
Speaker 1: will will come in and you know, eat a whole

834
00:50:43,320 --> 00:50:46,880
Speaker 1: litter ant or a group of these nesting adults that

835
00:50:46,920 --> 00:50:49,000
Speaker 1: are in there. You mentioned the mink, you know, being

836
00:50:49,040 --> 00:50:53,319
Speaker 1: able to get in. Uh, we'll see crows. Crows will

837
00:50:53,360 --> 00:50:56,400
Speaker 1: go into those nests. Crows actually the leaf nest the

838
00:50:56,440 --> 00:50:58,920
Speaker 1: dreys that we were talking about, those piles kind of

839
00:50:58,920 --> 00:51:02,560
Speaker 1: a basketball side eyes ball of leaves up in the trees.

840
00:51:02,880 --> 00:51:05,959
Speaker 1: Crows will fly from tree to tree, from from tree

841
00:51:05,960 --> 00:51:08,759
Speaker 1: to tree, looking at those nests and trying to pull

842
00:51:08,760 --> 00:51:13,200
Speaker 1: out squirrels from within. Some raptors will do that as well,

843
00:51:14,280 --> 00:51:19,759
Speaker 1: but uh, gopher snakes, bull snakes will there. There's a

844
00:51:19,800 --> 00:51:24,040
Speaker 1: really cool study that showed they actually will climb trees

845
00:51:25,080 --> 00:51:27,799
Speaker 1: that have those leaf nests in them more than they'll

846
00:51:27,840 --> 00:51:31,640
Speaker 1: climb trees without them. Yeah, yep, and they go in.

847
00:51:32,880 --> 00:51:34,719
Speaker 1: It just smells the activity at the base of the

848
00:51:34,760 --> 00:51:38,360
Speaker 1: tree could be um Usually, though, squirrels they come in

849
00:51:38,400 --> 00:51:40,680
Speaker 1: from they don't come from the bottom up into their

850
00:51:40,680 --> 00:51:43,000
Speaker 1: nest tree. They're usually coming in from the canopy. And

851
00:51:43,000 --> 00:51:45,239
Speaker 1: that's something we should talk about is some of the

852
00:51:45,280 --> 00:51:49,279
Speaker 1: kind of subtle scent communication that goes on between squirrels.

853
00:51:49,280 --> 00:51:54,359
Speaker 1: But that so snakes are are great nest predators as well.

854
00:51:54,880 --> 00:51:59,520
Speaker 1: But there's some incredible records documented a lot like the

855
00:51:59,600 --> 00:52:02,720
Speaker 1: jag are an awesome lot that you were talking about. Um,

856
00:52:02,760 --> 00:52:07,040
Speaker 1: they've been reported in the stomachs of bullfrogs. Uh that's

857
00:52:07,560 --> 00:52:09,680
Speaker 1: that's a big bull frog in a small squirrel. But

858
00:52:10,800 --> 00:52:14,720
Speaker 1: h and they've been uh large mouth bass had plucked

859
00:52:14,760 --> 00:52:17,680
Speaker 1: them off of tree branches. Uh. So there are a

860
00:52:17,680 --> 00:52:20,279
Speaker 1: couple of reports of you know, seeing a bass come

861
00:52:20,320 --> 00:52:23,480
Speaker 1: out with a squirrel, you know, eating some berries, you know,

862
00:52:23,560 --> 00:52:26,040
Speaker 1: in this idyllic setting. You know, you can imagine the

863
00:52:26,320 --> 00:52:28,680
Speaker 1: you know, the Bambi music in the background, and then

864
00:52:30,480 --> 00:52:33,759
Speaker 1: out leaps this uh, this large mouth bass. So you

865
00:52:33,800 --> 00:52:36,640
Speaker 1: know there anything that you know, they're a nice chunk

866
00:52:36,680 --> 00:52:39,719
Speaker 1: of meat. So anything that can anything that can get

867
00:52:39,760 --> 00:52:42,840
Speaker 1: them is going to go for it. I had read

868
00:52:42,880 --> 00:52:45,879
Speaker 1: that squirrels, like all road into their teeth never stopped growing,

869
00:52:45,880 --> 00:52:48,120
Speaker 1: so they have to grind them down and if they don't,

870
00:52:48,680 --> 00:52:51,680
Speaker 1: they'll grow into their skull and kill them. Is that

871
00:52:51,800 --> 00:52:55,600
Speaker 1: something you've ever like witnessed or seen. Yeah, So you're

872
00:52:55,760 --> 00:52:59,600
Speaker 1: so you're partially right. The cheek teeth don't the mohlers

873
00:53:00,160 --> 00:53:03,600
Speaker 1: don't grow, they're not everlasting. You actually can age squirrels

874
00:53:03,640 --> 00:53:05,680
Speaker 1: by looking at their cheek teeth. So if you're out

875
00:53:05,719 --> 00:53:08,200
Speaker 1: there hunting and you know you can't you get a

876
00:53:08,239 --> 00:53:11,160
Speaker 1: young of the year, it'll look like a kid's molars,

877
00:53:11,280 --> 00:53:14,080
Speaker 1: you know, human child's molars where you can see every

878
00:53:14,080 --> 00:53:16,920
Speaker 1: little nook and cranny. But they get worn down, you know,

879
00:53:16,960 --> 00:53:19,959
Speaker 1: as they get older. So really old animals, you'll see

880
00:53:20,000 --> 00:53:22,200
Speaker 1: those teeth worn down to the gum line, you know,

881
00:53:22,280 --> 00:53:26,240
Speaker 1: just like Heffelfinger was in here. I'm sure probably talking

882
00:53:26,239 --> 00:53:30,160
Speaker 1: about deer aging numerous times, but uh, you can do

883
00:53:30,239 --> 00:53:34,200
Speaker 1: the same thing with squirrels. And but the incisors are

884
00:53:34,200 --> 00:53:36,840
Speaker 1: ever growing, and that's really the you know, the business

885
00:53:37,000 --> 00:53:39,320
Speaker 1: end of the squirrel. If they can't gnaw into things,

886
00:53:39,880 --> 00:53:42,360
Speaker 1: then you know they're not going to be able to survive.

887
00:53:42,440 --> 00:53:45,880
Speaker 1: So those are ever growing. And you know, if you

888
00:53:45,920 --> 00:53:47,960
Speaker 1: take a look at them, they've got that kind of

889
00:53:48,000 --> 00:53:51,680
Speaker 1: orange or yellow part that you'll see looking head on

890
00:53:51,760 --> 00:53:56,760
Speaker 1: at a squirrel that is harder than the white portion

891
00:53:56,840 --> 00:53:59,640
Speaker 1: that's behind. And that's so they sharpened to a wonderful

892
00:53:59,680 --> 00:54:03,680
Speaker 1: point that you know then and they're able to you know,

893
00:54:03,840 --> 00:54:09,359
Speaker 1: open a hickory or or a walnut. And so occasionally

894
00:54:09,360 --> 00:54:12,480
Speaker 1: those will get offline. They rub up against each other

895
00:54:12,680 --> 00:54:14,560
Speaker 1: and they kind of, you know, just like you would

896
00:54:14,560 --> 00:54:17,600
Speaker 1: sharpen your knife. That's essentially what's going on with each

897
00:54:18,040 --> 00:54:22,000
Speaker 1: each bite that the squirrels taking. But if they're injured,

898
00:54:22,400 --> 00:54:25,000
Speaker 1: you know, in a fall, in a battle, whatever you know,

899
00:54:25,360 --> 00:54:28,200
Speaker 1: causes some injury and they get offline, that's where you

900
00:54:28,200 --> 00:54:31,279
Speaker 1: see these things grow back and they you've got that

901
00:54:31,360 --> 00:54:35,120
Speaker 1: kind of wonderful circular shape that helps with the self sharpening.

902
00:54:35,520 --> 00:54:38,640
Speaker 1: But if they're offline, that means it circles right back

903
00:54:38,680 --> 00:54:41,839
Speaker 1: and usually hits the eye or something like that. So

904
00:54:42,000 --> 00:54:44,480
Speaker 1: now they're not able to gnaw into things. You know,

905
00:54:44,520 --> 00:54:46,759
Speaker 1: they're going to be weakened condition and so you don't

906
00:54:46,800 --> 00:54:51,400
Speaker 1: see it very often, but you do occasionally get an

907
00:54:51,400 --> 00:54:54,399
Speaker 1: animal that survives long enough and still you know, still

908
00:54:54,440 --> 00:54:57,319
Speaker 1: able to get enough food to be able to uh

909
00:54:57,480 --> 00:55:00,280
Speaker 1: to see that you know, a death. That's there's aldo

910
00:55:00,400 --> 00:55:05,560
Speaker 1: that malleclusion. Do they use those teeth to like kill

911
00:55:06,200 --> 00:55:10,640
Speaker 1: little animals since they're omnivores, that's right, excellent point. They

912
00:55:10,680 --> 00:55:15,239
Speaker 1: are they're they're omnivorous. They will eat lots of insects.

913
00:55:15,719 --> 00:55:19,120
Speaker 1: They'll eat you know, other they'll eat small mammals. But

914
00:55:19,400 --> 00:55:23,560
Speaker 1: there are also are cannibalistic at times, and they'll uh

915
00:55:24,040 --> 00:55:26,440
Speaker 1: we've there are a number of cases in some ground squirrels,

916
00:55:26,480 --> 00:55:31,000
Speaker 1: like prairie dogs, they're actually infanticidal. They'll they'll kill uh

917
00:55:31,360 --> 00:55:34,760
Speaker 1: other young they'll go into the borough of their sister

918
00:55:35,120 --> 00:55:39,600
Speaker 1: and kill her young, um to give uh the advantage

919
00:55:39,680 --> 00:55:45,279
Speaker 1: to that individual's own young. In tree squirrels, uh, we've

920
00:55:45,360 --> 00:55:50,919
Speaker 1: seen them kill birds. Uh, they'll they'll frequently kill birds.

921
00:55:50,960 --> 00:55:54,120
Speaker 1: They're known red squirrels are kind of really nasty egg

922
00:55:54,280 --> 00:55:59,200
Speaker 1: predators and nestling birds. Uh. Most most ornithologists that there's

923
00:55:59,239 --> 00:56:02,440
Speaker 1: a group that will well hate squirrels, perhaps because of

924
00:56:02,520 --> 00:56:07,560
Speaker 1: they they the nest predation that they have. But I've

925
00:56:07,600 --> 00:56:12,200
Speaker 1: even seen cases where where they won't they haven't killed

926
00:56:12,239 --> 00:56:16,720
Speaker 1: the individual. Uh. Three or four times in my career,

927
00:56:16,960 --> 00:56:20,680
Speaker 1: I've seen a young animal who's just learning to kind

928
00:56:20,719 --> 00:56:23,879
Speaker 1: of walk and hold onto a tree fall to its death.

929
00:56:24,000 --> 00:56:27,560
Speaker 1: And so we talked about adult animals surviving falls. Juveniles

930
00:56:27,600 --> 00:56:30,240
Speaker 1: that don't have the muscles too and probably the balance,

931
00:56:30,320 --> 00:56:33,560
Speaker 1: yet they'll followed their death. I've watched the mother go

932
00:56:33,760 --> 00:56:37,160
Speaker 1: down check the individual bumpet a few times, realize that

933
00:56:37,239 --> 00:56:39,480
Speaker 1: it's dead, and then literally picked the animal up and

934
00:56:39,520 --> 00:56:42,000
Speaker 1: they start eating the brain, and then they move on

935
00:56:42,160 --> 00:56:45,600
Speaker 1: to other tasty bits of their own offspring that you know,

936
00:56:45,640 --> 00:56:48,120
Speaker 1: they were just nursing up in the tree maybe that morning,

937
00:56:48,680 --> 00:56:52,839
Speaker 1: and um, you know now they're they're uh, they're going

938
00:56:53,239 --> 00:56:55,680
Speaker 1: for they've switched at carnivory. That that's called being like

939
00:56:55,960 --> 00:57:00,760
Speaker 1: a pragmatist man. That's that's really something like they invested

940
00:57:00,760 --> 00:57:07,040
Speaker 1: a lot in that offspring. Hey, when I was in

941
00:57:07,320 --> 00:57:12,359
Speaker 1: h middle school, I had a friend that was at

942
00:57:12,440 --> 00:57:15,799
Speaker 1: like the city park and he saw a squirrel get

943
00:57:16,000 --> 00:57:19,280
Speaker 1: hit on the road, and for whatever reason, he went

944
00:57:19,360 --> 00:57:22,520
Speaker 1: out and picks up the squirrel. And the thing, you know,

945
00:57:22,560 --> 00:57:24,680
Speaker 1: we're talking about squirrel teeth and now sharp they are,

946
00:57:24,800 --> 00:57:29,000
Speaker 1: and the squirrel bites him right in the webbing between

947
00:57:29,040 --> 00:57:32,760
Speaker 1: the thumb and his pointer finger just nails him deep

948
00:57:32,840 --> 00:57:35,680
Speaker 1: into the meat right there. And he like shakes the

949
00:57:35,800 --> 00:57:39,720
Speaker 1: squirrel off his hand, and he cut his tendons in

950
00:57:39,840 --> 00:57:43,120
Speaker 1: his hand and he had to have major reconstructive surgery

951
00:57:43,240 --> 00:57:50,200
Speaker 1: in his hand. Yeah, yeah, I think about that when

952
00:57:50,240 --> 00:57:53,120
Speaker 1: we hunt picking one up that's half a live I've

953
00:57:53,160 --> 00:57:56,160
Speaker 1: had him bite through my thumbnail before, so yeah, they

954
00:57:56,280 --> 00:57:59,880
Speaker 1: and cut all the way the bone instantly. H that's

955
00:58:00,000 --> 00:58:04,280
Speaker 1: story that you just mentioned, Clay. I was my first

956
00:58:04,360 --> 00:58:08,240
Speaker 1: time ever in Arizona. Was driving along and I wanted

957
00:58:08,280 --> 00:58:10,680
Speaker 1: to see an abert squirrel, a tassel eared squirrel if

958
00:58:10,720 --> 00:58:14,080
Speaker 1: you guys have seen a pretty amazing, super interested in

959
00:58:15,040 --> 00:58:18,320
Speaker 1: and uh, we were driving along. I hadn't seen one yet,

960
00:58:18,600 --> 00:58:21,480
Speaker 1: just north of Flagstaff and I just turned to my

961
00:58:21,560 --> 00:58:24,040
Speaker 1: wife and said, I can't believe, you know, squirrel biologist

962
00:58:24,080 --> 00:58:26,080
Speaker 1: hasn't been able to see one of these. And I'm

963
00:58:26,200 --> 00:58:31,680
Speaker 1: driving along and literally right uh one runs out from

964
00:58:31,720 --> 00:58:35,400
Speaker 1: the Ponderosa Pine forest and I hit it and um,

965
00:58:35,600 --> 00:58:38,600
Speaker 1: and so I'm like, crap, you know, what what do

966
00:58:38,680 --> 00:58:41,040
Speaker 1: you do? You know? And one I wanted to see

967
00:58:41,080 --> 00:58:43,360
Speaker 1: it and too, I'm like, well, you know it's now

968
00:58:43,520 --> 00:58:46,040
Speaker 1: donated its body to science, and I had a collecting

969
00:58:46,160 --> 00:58:48,520
Speaker 1: permit so I could legally go back and pick it up.

970
00:58:48,880 --> 00:58:53,120
Speaker 1: So I turned around, pull over and it's just kind

971
00:58:53,160 --> 00:58:55,360
Speaker 1: of a narrow two lane road with forest right there,

972
00:58:55,400 --> 00:58:57,280
Speaker 1: so I had to pull over probably a couple hundred

973
00:58:57,360 --> 00:59:01,040
Speaker 1: yards away. I'm walking walking along long and almost up

974
00:59:01,080 --> 00:59:05,400
Speaker 1: on it, and this Winnebago drives over and as it

975
00:59:05,640 --> 00:59:07,800
Speaker 1: that suction is that goes over, you see the tail

976
00:59:07,880 --> 00:59:09,720
Speaker 1: flip up. But I kind of thought the body also

977
00:59:10,400 --> 00:59:13,720
Speaker 1: popped up a little bit. And uh so I go

978
00:59:13,920 --> 00:59:15,880
Speaker 1: running up, not wanting it to, you know, to be

979
00:59:16,360 --> 00:59:19,000
Speaker 1: hit by another car, so i'd have a good carcass.

980
00:59:19,680 --> 00:59:22,400
Speaker 1: And I go to grab it and it jumps up,

981
00:59:22,680 --> 00:59:26,560
Speaker 1: runs off the road and does that just like the

982
00:59:26,640 --> 00:59:29,439
Speaker 1: falling squirrel that we talked about before, climbs up a tree,

983
00:59:29,520 --> 00:59:31,880
Speaker 1: sits there and just keeps trying to shake it off.

984
00:59:32,520 --> 00:59:34,280
Speaker 1: And U so I got a really good look at

985
00:59:34,320 --> 00:59:36,840
Speaker 1: the at the squirrel. But it turns out that that's

986
00:59:37,200 --> 00:59:40,320
Speaker 1: that's actually really common what squirrels do when they're when

987
00:59:40,360 --> 00:59:44,800
Speaker 1: they're going to be attacked. Right, if you're getting attacked

988
00:59:44,840 --> 00:59:47,720
Speaker 1: by a hawk, you jump first and then then you

989
00:59:47,880 --> 00:59:51,080
Speaker 1: hit the ground and start running. And that works really

990
00:59:51,120 --> 00:59:53,520
Speaker 1: well if there's a hawk coming in or a fox,

991
00:59:53,720 --> 00:59:56,480
Speaker 1: but it doesn't work well if there's a you know,

992
00:59:56,960 --> 01:00:00,439
Speaker 1: Chevy minivan, you know that's that's driving over. You jump

993
01:00:00,560 --> 01:00:03,280
Speaker 1: right up. And so they often just knocked themselves out

994
01:00:03,800 --> 01:00:06,880
Speaker 1: undercarriage and then and then get hit you know, by

995
01:00:06,960 --> 01:00:10,240
Speaker 1: the next car that comes by. Uh but yeah, I've

996
01:00:10,600 --> 01:00:13,919
Speaker 1: so I almost had that same experience myself. Okay yan,

997
01:00:14,000 --> 01:00:15,800
Speaker 1: he's got his app you with some questions, he's got

998
01:00:15,840 --> 01:00:18,800
Speaker 1: some doozies. Uh, well, real quick before we get off.

999
01:00:18,840 --> 01:00:24,960
Speaker 1: What kills him? What's just average lifespan, average light span? Uh?

1000
01:00:25,400 --> 01:00:28,240
Speaker 1: If they if you start from when they're born, you're

1001
01:00:28,280 --> 01:00:31,440
Speaker 1: just talking a little over a year. Very few animals

1002
01:00:31,520 --> 01:00:34,360
Speaker 1: make it to adulthood. Once they reach that first year,

1003
01:00:34,440 --> 01:00:37,720
Speaker 1: which is when they can start reproducing, typically sometimes a

1004
01:00:37,800 --> 01:00:40,560
Speaker 1: little bit earlier. You're you're looking at two and a

1005
01:00:40,600 --> 01:00:42,880
Speaker 1: half to three years. It's kind of a good lifetime.

1006
01:00:43,400 --> 01:00:47,600
Speaker 1: If you're looking at pet animals, Uh, they've read squirrels,

1007
01:00:47,680 --> 01:00:50,200
Speaker 1: fox squirrels, gray squirrels have all been people have had

1008
01:00:50,280 --> 01:00:52,720
Speaker 1: them for about twenty years. Uh. So they can even

1009
01:00:52,800 --> 01:00:56,360
Speaker 1: live that long. And in some of our studies where

1010
01:00:56,440 --> 01:01:00,600
Speaker 1: we've monitored, you know, animals and known age for decade

1011
01:01:01,040 --> 01:01:03,640
Speaker 1: or more, we've had animals get to about ten years

1012
01:01:03,720 --> 01:01:06,600
Speaker 1: in the wild, um and maybe a little bit more

1013
01:01:07,120 --> 01:01:09,600
Speaker 1: in some species, a little bit less, but for a small,

1014
01:01:09,840 --> 01:01:13,360
Speaker 1: small mammal you think, you know, isn't gonna isn't gonna

1015
01:01:13,400 --> 01:01:16,200
Speaker 1: live very long. They actually, once they figure it out,

1016
01:01:16,520 --> 01:01:19,400
Speaker 1: once they have that den, once they you know, have

1017
01:01:19,720 --> 01:01:22,479
Speaker 1: know where their food is, they actually and they're weary

1018
01:01:22,560 --> 01:01:26,880
Speaker 1: enough of predators, they actually can survive pretty long. Mhm.

1019
01:01:27,440 --> 01:01:29,160
Speaker 1: Did you like the ones I had highlighted? Are the

1020
01:01:29,200 --> 01:01:31,720
Speaker 1: ones that I had under my name there under your name,

1021
01:01:31,760 --> 01:01:33,480
Speaker 1: And I added a couple of doozies in there, but

1022
01:01:34,320 --> 01:01:38,600
Speaker 1: stumbled across the across that section under Yanni's I stumbled

1023
01:01:38,600 --> 01:01:41,760
Speaker 1: across that section under Yanni's name and my document, Um,

1024
01:01:43,120 --> 01:01:46,800
Speaker 1: let's let's talk about how they stash stuff and like

1025
01:01:46,960 --> 01:01:50,280
Speaker 1: that whole process. And Spencer's gotta follow up there too

1026
01:01:50,360 --> 01:01:54,760
Speaker 1: about about stashes. But were you were you involved in

1027
01:01:54,800 --> 01:01:57,120
Speaker 1: that study everybody got all excited about about whether they

1028
01:01:57,160 --> 01:01:59,680
Speaker 1: could remember where they put their nuts or not. Well,

1029
01:02:00,000 --> 01:02:04,360
Speaker 1: then part of a couple of those studies. Well, so

1030
01:02:04,880 --> 01:02:07,600
Speaker 1: a couple of different strategies that that you're looking at.

1031
01:02:07,760 --> 01:02:11,480
Speaker 1: If you're talking about red squirrels or Douglas squirrels out

1032
01:02:11,560 --> 01:02:14,600
Speaker 1: here in the in the West, mostly they're what we

1033
01:02:14,680 --> 01:02:18,040
Speaker 1: call larder hoarders. So you've come across I'm sure around

1034
01:02:18,120 --> 01:02:22,000
Speaker 1: here around Bozeman you've come across there what we call middens,

1035
01:02:22,080 --> 01:02:25,040
Speaker 1: these big piles of cone scales that they actually bury

1036
01:02:25,120 --> 01:02:30,320
Speaker 1: more cones in. Those are those middens. Those cone scale

1037
01:02:30,400 --> 01:02:34,720
Speaker 1: piles are effectively a refrigerator for the squirrel. They keep

1038
01:02:34,800 --> 01:02:39,160
Speaker 1: their they bury cones from subsequent years in there, and

1039
01:02:39,360 --> 01:02:42,920
Speaker 1: we've actually studied put little temperature transmitters in and studied

1040
01:02:43,480 --> 01:02:47,160
Speaker 1: that that they functioned just like a refrigerator does. The

1041
01:02:47,240 --> 01:02:51,040
Speaker 1: cones don't open. If the cone scales open, seeds fall out,

1042
01:02:51,160 --> 01:02:54,080
Speaker 1: anything can eat them. If they stay closed, mostly just

1043
01:02:54,160 --> 01:02:57,440
Speaker 1: squirrels can can eat them. So by keeping them in

1044
01:02:57,480 --> 01:03:00,640
Speaker 1: the refrigerator, you know, you know, food isn't spoil. So

1045
01:03:00,760 --> 01:03:03,960
Speaker 1: that strategy works really well with pine cones and and

1046
01:03:04,440 --> 01:03:06,840
Speaker 1: um in places where there are lots of coniferous trees.

1047
01:03:07,120 --> 01:03:09,160
Speaker 1: But it's those men's are also just a result of

1048
01:03:09,280 --> 01:03:11,080
Speaker 1: them just sitting in the same tree, on the same

1049
01:03:11,160 --> 01:03:13,760
Speaker 1: branch and just chewne on pine cones, right, and so

1050
01:03:13,960 --> 01:03:17,040
Speaker 1: that's often how these things start. You'll you'll have, you know,

1051
01:03:17,160 --> 01:03:20,120
Speaker 1: you'll have a tree that's got lots of lots of

1052
01:03:20,680 --> 01:03:23,760
Speaker 1: cones that in a good year the animals just start

1053
01:03:24,400 --> 01:03:26,480
Speaker 1: feeding there, and you get a little bit of a pile,

1054
01:03:26,880 --> 01:03:29,400
Speaker 1: and then a juvenile squirrel that's trying to find a

1055
01:03:29,480 --> 01:03:33,000
Speaker 1: place to live often starts with that place, buries a

1056
01:03:33,000 --> 01:03:35,440
Speaker 1: few cones there, tucks a few in the log, and

1057
01:03:35,520 --> 01:03:38,720
Speaker 1: then keeps eating and building these piles. Sometimes they get

1058
01:03:38,800 --> 01:03:41,760
Speaker 1: three or four ft high, kind of the size of

1059
01:03:41,800 --> 01:03:47,520
Speaker 1: a baseball pitchers mound. Uh And they're they're typically a

1060
01:03:47,680 --> 01:03:50,800
Speaker 1: huge resource. You can imagine, you know, a refrigerator that's

1061
01:03:51,200 --> 01:03:55,520
Speaker 1: you know, already proven itself in previous years. That becomes

1062
01:03:56,120 --> 01:03:59,120
Speaker 1: a huge resource, and so they're passed on from generation

1063
01:03:59,200 --> 01:04:02,760
Speaker 1: to generation. We've followed middens that have been occupied by

1064
01:04:02,880 --> 01:04:07,240
Speaker 1: squirrels continuously for thirty years, forty years, not the same squirrel,

1065
01:04:07,400 --> 01:04:10,280
Speaker 1: you know, just as soon as one one dies, another

1066
01:04:10,320 --> 01:04:13,000
Speaker 1: one moves in. As soon as sometimes when we're doing

1067
01:04:13,080 --> 01:04:16,000
Speaker 1: some of our live capture studies and market them, even

1068
01:04:16,040 --> 01:04:18,600
Speaker 1: when the animal gets in the trap, the neighbor realizes, hey,

1069
01:04:18,680 --> 01:04:20,640
Speaker 1: I can go steal a few cones. So we have

1070
01:04:20,800 --> 01:04:23,400
Speaker 1: to check these live traps and let animals go quickly

1071
01:04:23,520 --> 01:04:26,840
Speaker 1: because the neighbor comes over and starts stealing cones right away.

1072
01:04:27,480 --> 01:04:29,960
Speaker 1: Uh So that that's a strategy that works really well

1073
01:04:30,040 --> 01:04:33,720
Speaker 1: with with pine cones out here, and you know it's

1074
01:04:34,400 --> 01:04:38,320
Speaker 1: and the the red squirrels that we have around here

1075
01:04:38,360 --> 01:04:42,400
Speaker 1: in bows men are territorial, so that's their whole life is,

1076
01:04:42,760 --> 01:04:45,360
Speaker 1: you know, packed into one of these middens. Everything that's

1077
01:04:45,360 --> 01:04:47,880
Speaker 1: going to enable them to survive this winter is found

1078
01:04:47,880 --> 01:04:51,240
Speaker 1: there because these guys don't hibernate and uh, you know,

1079
01:04:51,360 --> 01:04:55,600
Speaker 1: they're they're relying on stored fat and then whatever pine

1080
01:04:55,680 --> 01:04:59,000
Speaker 1: cones that they've that they've saved. So being territorial and

1081
01:04:59,080 --> 01:05:01,240
Speaker 1: piling them in one pla it works here. The other

1082
01:05:01,440 --> 01:05:07,000
Speaker 1: other strategy that you see in more indeciduous forest, typically

1083
01:05:07,400 --> 01:05:11,120
Speaker 1: with fox squirrels and Eastern gray squirrels predominantly here in

1084
01:05:11,160 --> 01:05:15,360
Speaker 1: the US, they they they're scatter hoarders, so rather than

1085
01:05:15,680 --> 01:05:18,240
Speaker 1: pile them all in one place where they can defend

1086
01:05:18,320 --> 01:05:22,840
Speaker 1: them and it's just there's uh and they last for

1087
01:05:22,920 --> 01:05:26,760
Speaker 1: a long time because your refrigerators working uh with things

1088
01:05:26,840 --> 01:05:30,360
Speaker 1: like acorns, they spoil relatively quickly and tons of things

1089
01:05:30,440 --> 01:05:33,000
Speaker 1: can eat acorns, right, you know, those decisious force In

1090
01:05:33,040 --> 01:05:36,560
Speaker 1: those good years, you've got turkey, deer, every small mammal,

1091
01:05:36,720 --> 01:05:39,840
Speaker 1: some other crows and some other kind of you know,

1092
01:05:39,960 --> 01:05:43,440
Speaker 1: good sized birds uh will will eat them beside squirrels.

1093
01:05:43,640 --> 01:05:46,840
Speaker 1: So they take a different strategy and they scatter them out.

1094
01:05:46,920 --> 01:05:49,600
Speaker 1: So they actually go under a tree that has a

1095
01:05:50,560 --> 01:05:54,160
Speaker 1: concentration of them and they spread them out. Um and

1096
01:05:55,320 --> 01:05:59,840
Speaker 1: uh so that reduces the risk of other things eating them.

1097
01:06:00,120 --> 01:06:02,560
Speaker 1: But the problem is, you know, how do you find

1098
01:06:02,600 --> 01:06:06,080
Speaker 1: them again? And so it turns out that part of

1099
01:06:06,160 --> 01:06:09,720
Speaker 1: its memory, part of it is a strategy that they

1100
01:06:10,680 --> 01:06:14,160
Speaker 1: uh you know, this is their general area. Um. So

1101
01:06:14,400 --> 01:06:18,000
Speaker 1: there's there's not it's not territorial where it's just exclusive

1102
01:06:18,120 --> 01:06:22,040
Speaker 1: use they will, but they tend to bury them in

1103
01:06:22,080 --> 01:06:27,840
Speaker 1: the same general area. So a squirrel goes back to

1104
01:06:27,960 --> 01:06:31,680
Speaker 1: that area uses its memory to say, hey, over here,

1105
01:06:31,960 --> 01:06:35,040
Speaker 1: you know, I know I buried buried some nuts. Um

1106
01:06:35,320 --> 01:06:38,280
Speaker 1: you know if you're thinking like this from a from

1107
01:06:38,320 --> 01:06:42,320
Speaker 1: a person. But they actually find them, typically not solely

1108
01:06:42,360 --> 01:06:45,439
Speaker 1: by memory. It's the smell. They've got an incredible sense

1109
01:06:45,480 --> 01:06:49,400
Speaker 1: of smell. Their eyesights just okay, but their sense of smell.

1110
01:06:49,720 --> 01:06:53,040
Speaker 1: They've they've been shown to be able to find a

1111
01:06:53,200 --> 01:06:57,840
Speaker 1: nut three or four ft under the snow by s

1112
01:06:59,680 --> 01:07:01,880
Speaker 1: So it gets there, you know, it says, okay, this

1113
01:07:02,040 --> 01:07:04,320
Speaker 1: general spot, I know I buried them, and that makes

1114
01:07:04,320 --> 01:07:06,200
Speaker 1: sense if you know it looks a lot different with

1115
01:07:06,280 --> 01:07:09,080
Speaker 1: three ft of snow. We've all, you know, been hiking

1116
01:07:09,120 --> 01:07:11,800
Speaker 1: in a forest and said, you know, and no notice

1117
01:07:11,840 --> 01:07:14,800
Speaker 1: how different it looks in the winter. So memory alone,

1118
01:07:15,200 --> 01:07:17,240
Speaker 1: you know that log now is covered up, and you

1119
01:07:17,320 --> 01:07:20,760
Speaker 1: know the uh even parts of that tree are covered up.

1120
01:07:20,840 --> 01:07:24,560
Speaker 1: So they go in and they they smell through three

1121
01:07:24,680 --> 01:07:27,080
Speaker 1: or four ft of snow, they'll they'll pick up that set.

1122
01:07:28,000 --> 01:07:30,480
Speaker 1: I got two related questions here. One is do they

1123
01:07:30,520 --> 01:07:33,200
Speaker 1: ever stash meat? And then the other one is can

1124
01:07:33,280 --> 01:07:36,360
Speaker 1: you explain deceptive cashing and have you ever witnessed it?

1125
01:07:36,720 --> 01:07:42,680
Speaker 1: I'll take the first one. Yes, you are correct, Steve. Uh.

1126
01:07:43,600 --> 01:07:46,640
Speaker 1: You know you know the problem that you're I think

1127
01:07:46,720 --> 01:07:51,920
Speaker 1: your field has created. I don't say red squirrel. I'm

1128
01:07:51,960 --> 01:07:55,600
Speaker 1: all about solutions. So I'd like to problem get expunge

1129
01:07:55,680 --> 01:08:00,720
Speaker 1: red squirrel from your vocabulary. Pine squirrel, pine squirrel, unless

1130
01:08:00,720 --> 01:08:03,320
Speaker 1: there's a problem there, because I find like I got

1131
01:08:03,440 --> 01:08:07,360
Speaker 1: a buddy from Missouri who now lives in Michigan, and

1132
01:08:07,480 --> 01:08:11,360
Speaker 1: he calls fox squirrels red squirrels, like it's not a

1133
01:08:11,400 --> 01:08:16,880
Speaker 1: red squirrel I'm like, okay, I said, just to clean up,

1134
01:08:16,880 --> 01:08:20,920
Speaker 1: I said, listen with him. I'm like pine squirrels, which

1135
01:08:20,960 --> 01:08:22,479
Speaker 1: he is not accustomed to because he didn't grow up

1136
01:08:22,479 --> 01:08:24,680
Speaker 1: with them. I'm like, you got pine squirrels once you

1137
01:08:24,800 --> 01:08:27,360
Speaker 1: live in a place with pine squirrels. Don't say red

1138
01:08:27,439 --> 01:08:31,320
Speaker 1: squirrels because everybody gets mixed up. I feel that, like nationally,

1139
01:08:31,800 --> 01:08:34,680
Speaker 1: like Biden's is signing all these executive orders, I think

1140
01:08:34,720 --> 01:08:38,519
Speaker 1: you should add that in and clean that up. And

1141
01:08:38,600 --> 01:08:41,479
Speaker 1: in terms of Spencer's question, I read a paper one

1142
01:08:41,520 --> 01:08:45,400
Speaker 1: time where they're doing a study immortality study and Alberta

1143
01:08:46,520 --> 01:08:54,320
Speaker 1: on Leverett's so baby snowshoe hairs, and they would find

1144
01:08:54,439 --> 01:08:57,439
Speaker 1: the bulk of the dead ones in pine squirrel middens.

1145
01:08:58,600 --> 01:09:01,799
Speaker 1: And I'll add quickly that I have seen were grizzly

1146
01:09:01,840 --> 01:09:07,880
Speaker 1: bears dig up and raid middens. I'm back out now, Okay.

1147
01:09:07,920 --> 01:09:10,640
Speaker 1: So first I'm gonna go with your pine squirrel suggestion.

1148
01:09:10,840 --> 01:09:14,880
Speaker 1: While I am incredibly appreciative of your suggestion there and

1149
01:09:15,280 --> 01:09:21,520
Speaker 1: will take it into consideration. Everybody loves clarity. So red squirrels,

1150
01:09:22,040 --> 01:09:25,479
Speaker 1: and I said, red squirrels U in the Eastern US.

1151
01:09:25,560 --> 01:09:27,559
Speaker 1: You find him in deciduous force, so there aren't even

1152
01:09:27,600 --> 01:09:35,160
Speaker 1: pines around. You can find red squirrels. Well, ee, it's

1153
01:09:35,160 --> 01:09:40,240
Speaker 1: still it's still a red squirrel too, So I don't

1154
01:09:40,439 --> 01:09:43,280
Speaker 1: haven't grown up in the Midwest. Lots of people call

1155
01:09:43,479 --> 01:09:45,920
Speaker 1: fox squirrels red square you know, the red ones ye

1156
01:09:46,400 --> 01:09:50,439
Speaker 1: like in their orange right. Yeah, So let's go with

1157
01:09:50,520 --> 01:09:54,240
Speaker 1: orange squirrels. We'll talk to Joe Biden and see if

1158
01:09:54,280 --> 01:09:58,320
Speaker 1: he goes. I can't get in the executive more orange

1159
01:09:58,479 --> 01:10:03,439
Speaker 1: orange squirrel orange squirrels. Um. So those the middens that

1160
01:10:03,520 --> 01:10:07,200
Speaker 1: you talked about, uh, and that we've kind of discussed

1161
01:10:07,240 --> 01:10:12,280
Speaker 1: as a refrigerator, the refrigerator for more than just just cones.

1162
01:10:12,400 --> 01:10:16,920
Speaker 1: They'll squirrels will put mushrooms in there, and they will

1163
01:10:17,000 --> 01:10:23,240
Speaker 1: store meat. So I found chipmunks and uh Leverett's uh,

1164
01:10:24,120 --> 01:10:28,120
Speaker 1: we found them buried in cash within the those cone

1165
01:10:28,120 --> 01:10:30,680
Speaker 1: scale piles. It's kind of risky though, because lots of

1166
01:10:30,760 --> 01:10:33,960
Speaker 1: things eat meat. So what more frequently what they do

1167
01:10:34,920 --> 01:10:38,000
Speaker 1: is they hang them up in the trees. They hang

1168
01:10:38,160 --> 01:10:45,000
Speaker 1: mushrooms up in the trees, but they hang it's stuff

1169
01:10:45,040 --> 01:10:50,120
Speaker 1: man like muskrats, sorry, mushrooms in trees like someone put

1170
01:10:50,200 --> 01:10:53,320
Speaker 1: it there, No kidding. So they're they're putting them up there,

1171
01:10:53,760 --> 01:10:56,800
Speaker 1: and they actually manage them. So you guys have seen

1172
01:10:56,960 --> 01:11:00,240
Speaker 1: red squirrels, you know, they just they're constantly run and

1173
01:11:00,320 --> 01:11:05,160
Speaker 1: back and forth protecting this pile in the midden, and

1174
01:11:05,720 --> 01:11:09,840
Speaker 1: they're they're also is you know, anal about managing their

1175
01:11:10,400 --> 01:11:14,560
Speaker 1: uh there mushrooms. They will just pick them up and

1176
01:11:14,600 --> 01:11:17,280
Speaker 1: move them around the sun, you know, the sunny side

1177
01:11:17,280 --> 01:11:19,160
Speaker 1: of the tree. They'll put them there to dry out

1178
01:11:19,200 --> 01:11:21,720
Speaker 1: a little bit, and they'll move them back. But they

1179
01:11:21,800 --> 01:11:25,040
Speaker 1: do the same thing with little rabbits as well. So

1180
01:11:25,760 --> 01:11:31,240
Speaker 1: we've we've seen them a few times kill uh kill rabbits.

1181
01:11:31,720 --> 01:11:35,679
Speaker 1: But the first time that we came across this probably

1182
01:11:35,760 --> 01:11:38,760
Speaker 1: twenty years ago, when I first moved to Arizona, I'm

1183
01:11:39,040 --> 01:11:41,080
Speaker 1: looking up and I think that there's a squirrel in

1184
01:11:41,160 --> 01:11:44,040
Speaker 1: this tree above me, because there's a big dark blob,

1185
01:11:44,240 --> 01:11:47,240
Speaker 1: you know, kind of backlit, and and it's kind of

1186
01:11:47,280 --> 01:11:48,960
Speaker 1: blowing in the wind a little bit. So I thought

1187
01:11:49,000 --> 01:11:52,120
Speaker 1: it was its tail, and you know, it was a

1188
01:11:52,200 --> 01:11:55,960
Speaker 1: small rabbit that had been hung up there, probably to dry.

1189
01:11:56,400 --> 01:11:57,960
Speaker 1: You know, you've got to make good jerky if you're

1190
01:11:57,960 --> 01:12:04,160
Speaker 1: gonna use this man all winter along, so amazing. The

1191
01:12:04,479 --> 01:12:07,200
Speaker 1: next question was about deceptive cashing. Can you explain it

1192
01:12:07,400 --> 01:12:11,000
Speaker 1: and have you witnessed it? Yea. So this goes at

1193
01:12:11,040 --> 01:12:14,800
Speaker 1: that you're scatter hoarding. You're not these nuts around, right,

1194
01:12:14,880 --> 01:12:18,080
Speaker 1: You're trying to spread out a resource that's concentrated under

1195
01:12:18,160 --> 01:12:20,360
Speaker 1: one tree, and you want to end up with as

1196
01:12:20,439 --> 01:12:23,600
Speaker 1: much of that as possible. So there have been a

1197
01:12:23,720 --> 01:12:26,240
Speaker 1: few cases that I've seen, and it's been reported a

1198
01:12:26,280 --> 01:12:30,080
Speaker 1: little bit in the literature that squirrels will you know,

1199
01:12:30,240 --> 01:12:32,600
Speaker 1: do the head fake and uh, you know, go in

1200
01:12:33,000 --> 01:12:37,920
Speaker 1: and and fake cashing things. I've seen them pick up

1201
01:12:38,400 --> 01:12:41,679
Speaker 1: like a rock, put it, dig a little hole, drop

1202
01:12:41,760 --> 01:12:45,640
Speaker 1: it in, move a move a leaf over it, and

1203
01:12:46,400 --> 01:12:49,479
Speaker 1: then you know, go back and you know, grab an

1204
01:12:49,520 --> 01:12:53,080
Speaker 1: acorn and bury it somewhere else. And so there there's

1205
01:12:53,160 --> 01:12:56,240
Speaker 1: this thought that and it makes sense that this is

1206
01:12:56,280 --> 01:12:58,800
Speaker 1: such a competitive you know, if you don't get enough energy,

1207
01:12:58,840 --> 01:13:02,400
Speaker 1: you're gonna die over winter, So every little advantage, you know,

1208
01:13:02,600 --> 01:13:06,400
Speaker 1: can can play out. So we've seen that, and we

1209
01:13:06,520 --> 01:13:10,840
Speaker 1: think that's due to different squirrels, you know, trying to uh,

1210
01:13:11,400 --> 01:13:15,920
Speaker 1: trying to be deceptive. But because squirrels can smell so well,

1211
01:13:16,280 --> 01:13:20,760
Speaker 1: you know that probably isn't a great technique solely to

1212
01:13:21,120 --> 01:13:27,400
Speaker 1: to reduce predation seed competition from other seed predators, but

1213
01:13:27,800 --> 01:13:31,160
Speaker 1: for birds that typically birds can't smell. You know, there

1214
01:13:31,240 --> 01:13:33,519
Speaker 1: are a few that do, you smell, but most birds can't,

1215
01:13:34,360 --> 01:13:39,080
Speaker 1: so they buy going in and faking. Here's where I'm

1216
01:13:39,880 --> 01:13:43,920
Speaker 1: burying this, where I'm cashing this this seed. A bird

1217
01:13:44,120 --> 01:13:47,559
Speaker 1: is not going there. They're going by those visual cues

1218
01:13:47,640 --> 01:13:51,240
Speaker 1: and hey, he's you know that squirrels bearing nuts over here.

1219
01:13:51,280 --> 01:13:53,559
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go check it out and bounce around until

1220
01:13:53,640 --> 01:13:58,120
Speaker 1: I can find one. And uh so we think that

1221
01:13:58,240 --> 01:14:00,720
Speaker 1: it actually may be more advantage us for that kind

1222
01:14:00,760 --> 01:14:04,080
Speaker 1: of competition then within your own species, where you know

1223
01:14:04,200 --> 01:14:06,840
Speaker 1: you can you can pick up the smell of a

1224
01:14:06,960 --> 01:14:10,439
Speaker 1: nut much more easily. I watched one. I don't know

1225
01:14:10,479 --> 01:14:12,439
Speaker 1: if he was doing a deceptive cash or if he

1226
01:14:12,640 --> 01:14:14,880
Speaker 1: just wasn't happy with his first spot I was. I

1227
01:14:15,000 --> 01:14:18,000
Speaker 1: was quite surprised to find I was on a maybe

1228
01:14:18,080 --> 01:14:21,400
Speaker 1: a hundred foot sort of null knob in an oak

1229
01:14:21,520 --> 01:14:25,920
Speaker 1: forest in Wisconsin, but a solid hundred yards from the

1230
01:14:26,000 --> 01:14:29,880
Speaker 1: nearest stock of corn. I'm standing there just observing, and

1231
01:14:30,160 --> 01:14:33,200
Speaker 1: up up onto this null pops the squirrel with at

1232
01:14:33,320 --> 01:14:36,360
Speaker 1: least a half a corn cob in its mouth, runs

1233
01:14:36,360 --> 01:14:38,720
Speaker 1: along some logs, goes to a spot, sets it down,

1234
01:14:39,000 --> 01:14:42,160
Speaker 1: digs What I thought was pretty like put some effort

1235
01:14:42,200 --> 01:14:43,760
Speaker 1: into making a hole. I mean, he's talking about a

1236
01:14:43,760 --> 01:14:47,920
Speaker 1: half a corn cob and then just leaves picks up

1237
01:14:47,960 --> 01:14:50,360
Speaker 1: his corn cob, you know, goes ten feet farther, and

1238
01:14:50,400 --> 01:14:55,200
Speaker 1: then stashes it in there. But two things, Well, the

1239
01:14:55,240 --> 01:14:57,360
Speaker 1: biggest thing that struck means that how far he had

1240
01:14:57,439 --> 01:14:59,880
Speaker 1: gone to go get get that. I'm guessing the color

1241
01:15:00,240 --> 01:15:02,839
Speaker 1: value of what he was dashing was worth that trouble

1242
01:15:03,479 --> 01:15:06,320
Speaker 1: and putting him away. But my, uh that what you

1243
01:15:06,320 --> 01:15:08,400
Speaker 1: said earlier brought up a question you keep talking about

1244
01:15:08,400 --> 01:15:11,120
Speaker 1: like near the same tree, Like how big is that

1245
01:15:11,320 --> 01:15:16,200
Speaker 1: stash zone for a squirrel? So it can be the

1246
01:15:16,800 --> 01:15:19,839
Speaker 1: size of the home range, the area that they're roaming

1247
01:15:20,120 --> 01:15:23,200
Speaker 1: really varies on the kind of the quality of the forest.

1248
01:15:23,320 --> 01:15:25,240
Speaker 1: So if you're in a really poor forest, you've got

1249
01:15:25,320 --> 01:15:29,080
Speaker 1: to range more widely, and so the zone that they're

1250
01:15:29,120 --> 01:15:33,920
Speaker 1: burying them, you know, varies by those kinds of conditions.

1251
01:15:34,040 --> 01:15:38,240
Speaker 1: But typically you're looking at the home range of most

1252
01:15:38,360 --> 01:15:40,880
Speaker 1: squirrels is kind of a football field or two or

1253
01:15:40,920 --> 01:15:46,120
Speaker 1: talking just a couple of acres and you are although

1254
01:15:46,240 --> 01:15:51,160
Speaker 1: males during the breeding season rome you know times sometimes

1255
01:15:51,240 --> 01:15:54,719
Speaker 1: more than that, and they but within that they typically

1256
01:15:54,840 --> 01:15:58,920
Speaker 1: will yeah, they'll they'll bury. If you're talking out in

1257
01:15:59,000 --> 01:16:01,439
Speaker 1: an oak forest, they'll be bry them in kind of

1258
01:16:01,600 --> 01:16:05,400
Speaker 1: concentrated areas. But they also, you know, it's it's energetically

1259
01:16:05,479 --> 01:16:09,679
Speaker 1: costly if you're you're going to going to grab an acorn,

1260
01:16:10,560 --> 01:16:11,840
Speaker 1: you know, if you have to run a mile to

1261
01:16:11,960 --> 01:16:14,400
Speaker 1: bury it, you're not gonna you know that that makes

1262
01:16:14,479 --> 01:16:18,840
Speaker 1: no energetic sense. So they typically don't go very far,

1263
01:16:19,000 --> 01:16:21,920
Speaker 1: but they're spreading them out, sometimes hundreds of yards away

1264
01:16:22,000 --> 01:16:25,000
Speaker 1: from the tree. And that's actually kind of the thought

1265
01:16:25,080 --> 01:16:27,040
Speaker 1: to be that's to the advantage of the tree. You

1266
01:16:27,120 --> 01:16:30,680
Speaker 1: know that the acorn fall straight down. Now it's you know,

1267
01:16:30,880 --> 01:16:34,320
Speaker 1: it's parent tree is the competitor for sunlight and water.

1268
01:16:34,800 --> 01:16:37,920
Speaker 1: But giving this nice tasty tidbit that a squirrel is

1269
01:16:37,920 --> 01:16:40,479
Speaker 1: going to take out and bury, you know, is that

1270
01:16:40,760 --> 01:16:44,160
Speaker 1: really the advantage of the trees looking for out of

1271
01:16:44,200 --> 01:16:47,880
Speaker 1: the deal. So we have seen them there. They they're

1272
01:16:47,920 --> 01:16:51,639
Speaker 1: known when you get a walnut tree that's in fruit,

1273
01:16:51,920 --> 01:16:54,559
Speaker 1: you can actually smell it if you're if you're out there.

1274
01:16:55,280 --> 01:16:57,920
Speaker 1: Squirrels are known to come from a couple of miles

1275
01:16:58,000 --> 01:17:00,680
Speaker 1: away to get a walnut tree that's a black hole

1276
01:17:00,760 --> 01:17:04,200
Speaker 1: nut tree back east that's in you know, in fruit,

1277
01:17:04,439 --> 01:17:07,719
Speaker 1: and just think they're smelling it. Yep, they smell it, yep, definitely,

1278
01:17:07,760 --> 01:17:11,360
Speaker 1: just like they find females from from far away. That

1279
01:17:11,920 --> 01:17:15,000
Speaker 1: scent is really the way that squirrels communicate. I know

1280
01:17:15,080 --> 01:17:17,080
Speaker 1: we've all heard the same probably you know, even a

1281
01:17:17,120 --> 01:17:20,599
Speaker 1: blind squirrel finds a nut sometimes they don't use their

1282
01:17:20,640 --> 01:17:23,920
Speaker 1: eyes to find squirrels really technically should be even an

1283
01:17:24,040 --> 01:17:27,800
Speaker 1: anosmic squirrel finds finds a nut sometimes because you know,

1284
01:17:27,960 --> 01:17:31,280
Speaker 1: you they used smell to find these things. They used

1285
01:17:31,320 --> 01:17:34,600
Speaker 1: smell to find females, they smell to find food. They

1286
01:17:34,680 --> 01:17:38,680
Speaker 1: also used smell to communicate in clay. I'm really be

1287
01:17:38,760 --> 01:17:43,160
Speaker 1: really curious if you've seen this. Uh, they use scent

1288
01:17:43,280 --> 01:17:46,559
Speaker 1: marking sites fox squirrels and gray squirrels. In particular, if

1289
01:17:46,600 --> 01:17:49,320
Speaker 1: you look at the underside of a branch or the

1290
01:17:49,439 --> 01:17:53,080
Speaker 1: base of a big cottonwood tree, you'll see areas that

1291
01:17:53,200 --> 01:17:57,240
Speaker 1: look like something's you know, and you know, maybe maybe

1292
01:17:57,280 --> 01:18:00,680
Speaker 1: a buck has come by and scraped along there. Uh.

1293
01:18:01,320 --> 01:18:03,599
Speaker 1: But if you look at it closely, you'll see squirrel

1294
01:18:03,640 --> 01:18:07,360
Speaker 1: insiz remarks. These are a set marks that all the

1295
01:18:07,439 --> 01:18:12,320
Speaker 1: males roam by and mark there. Sometimes they'll sometimes they'll

1296
01:18:12,479 --> 01:18:14,920
Speaker 1: urnate on it, but they have glands in their cheeks

1297
01:18:14,960 --> 01:18:18,679
Speaker 1: and they just they'll wipe them. They got a little

1298
01:18:18,720 --> 01:18:21,599
Speaker 1: scrape out in the woods, a little buck yep, theys

1299
01:18:21,680 --> 01:18:26,720
Speaker 1: some big trees. Never never seen that, never never seen it.

1300
01:18:26,840 --> 01:18:29,920
Speaker 1: Never never heard that. Look at some hickories, and look

1301
01:18:30,000 --> 01:18:33,880
Speaker 1: at some oaks, and especially on the underside of the

1302
01:18:34,040 --> 01:18:37,240
Speaker 1: lowest big branches, or if their trees got a little

1303
01:18:37,240 --> 01:18:40,720
Speaker 1: bit of a tilt on it where it's less exposed

1304
01:18:40,920 --> 01:18:45,519
Speaker 1: to uh, you know, to weather, where that scent probably stays.

1305
01:18:45,760 --> 01:18:48,880
Speaker 1: You'll see these things that Sometimes they'll get as big

1306
01:18:48,920 --> 01:18:51,080
Speaker 1: as maybe two ft by like a foot and a

1307
01:18:51,120 --> 01:18:55,200
Speaker 1: half or something. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you'll see them. They're

1308
01:18:55,240 --> 01:18:58,439
Speaker 1: all over I'm coming. I came here from Laramie where

1309
01:18:58,479 --> 01:19:01,439
Speaker 1: we've got fox squirrels. They're all all over the trees there.

1310
01:19:01,520 --> 01:19:03,519
Speaker 1: So like, would that be a good strategy to sit

1311
01:19:03,600 --> 01:19:07,320
Speaker 1: that little scrape? So if you sit there that and

1312
01:19:07,439 --> 01:19:09,360
Speaker 1: I was going to say, if you sit there long enough,

1313
01:19:09,439 --> 01:19:12,559
Speaker 1: you'll you'll see animals come through, especially as you're approaching

1314
01:19:12,600 --> 01:19:15,800
Speaker 1: the breeding season. So in the spring it is a

1315
01:19:15,880 --> 01:19:19,280
Speaker 1: good place to go to to see squirrels and likely

1316
01:19:19,360 --> 01:19:22,400
Speaker 1: to hunt squirrels. And it's it's male biased, so you

1317
01:19:22,479 --> 01:19:24,639
Speaker 1: know you're you're not you're not hunting the big bucks.

1318
01:19:24,960 --> 01:19:28,240
Speaker 1: You're getting you're getting the big one point two pounders.

1319
01:19:29,640 --> 01:19:32,240
Speaker 1: What are some other things like that that hunters are

1320
01:19:32,320 --> 01:19:35,000
Speaker 1: probably ignoring or don't know about, Like if if they're

1321
01:19:35,000 --> 01:19:36,400
Speaker 1: in the woods and they're trying to find a good

1322
01:19:36,439 --> 01:19:40,080
Speaker 1: place to hunt besides the obvious, like actual squirrels, what

1323
01:19:40,200 --> 01:19:43,439
Speaker 1: are some indicators that this is gonna be a good place. Well,

1324
01:19:43,479 --> 01:19:45,639
Speaker 1: if you put your deer stand up, you can almost

1325
01:19:45,720 --> 01:19:51,960
Speaker 1: be sure that that's one of the best places. But

1326
01:19:53,120 --> 01:19:57,919
Speaker 1: so a couple of things those in the mornings, animals

1327
01:19:58,000 --> 01:20:01,160
Speaker 1: come out, and almost the first thing they do, if

1328
01:20:01,200 --> 01:20:04,840
Speaker 1: you're talking fall, winter in spring, is they'll bask in

1329
01:20:04,880 --> 01:20:07,439
Speaker 1: the sun. And that's when you get a group of squirrels.

1330
01:20:07,479 --> 01:20:10,919
Speaker 1: So you'll have you know, six, eight, ten, twelve squirrels

1331
01:20:11,000 --> 01:20:15,599
Speaker 1: all nesting together, and so finding those big old trees

1332
01:20:15,760 --> 01:20:18,880
Speaker 1: that have some cavities in they're not they don't like

1333
01:20:19,000 --> 01:20:22,280
Speaker 1: the incredibly decomposed one wind and we're going to fall

1334
01:20:22,400 --> 01:20:26,120
Speaker 1: over kind of kind of tree. But if you're if

1335
01:20:26,160 --> 01:20:31,200
Speaker 1: you're in a place where you've got some pretty good older, large,

1336
01:20:31,320 --> 01:20:33,640
Speaker 1: older trees, they may not even produce they may be

1337
01:20:33,800 --> 01:20:37,640
Speaker 1: so old they're overmature, aren't producing any tree seeds, but

1338
01:20:37,800 --> 01:20:40,840
Speaker 1: they've got some good cavities. That's the place to go.

1339
01:20:41,080 --> 01:20:44,600
Speaker 1: You've you've all seen those den cavities probably and you

1340
01:20:44,680 --> 01:20:46,920
Speaker 1: can tell where squirrel has been gnawing it, and the

1341
01:20:47,000 --> 01:20:50,120
Speaker 1: tree keep kind of keeps re growing, so it's kind

1342
01:20:50,160 --> 01:20:52,800
Speaker 1: of a nice smooth edge. That's you know, that's a

1343
01:20:53,800 --> 01:20:59,040
Speaker 1: good indicator. And uh. To to assess whether the animals

1344
01:20:59,160 --> 01:21:01,479
Speaker 1: might be there, I like to go out the night

1345
01:21:01,520 --> 01:21:04,920
Speaker 1: before because that's when animals are going back to the nest.

1346
01:21:05,200 --> 01:21:08,120
Speaker 1: And so if you follow animals back, that's when you

1347
01:21:08,200 --> 01:21:11,360
Speaker 1: get six or eight animals coming together right at you know,

1348
01:21:11,560 --> 01:21:15,920
Speaker 1: right before before sunset. So picking up an animal in

1349
01:21:16,040 --> 01:21:18,920
Speaker 1: the woods and following it back, you can usually figure

1350
01:21:18,920 --> 01:21:21,040
Speaker 1: out what tree or a couple of trees they're going

1351
01:21:21,120 --> 01:21:24,360
Speaker 1: back to, and and that's that's a really good indicator.

1352
01:21:25,040 --> 01:21:28,439
Speaker 1: Uh uh. And then just the noise of them, and

1353
01:21:29,720 --> 01:21:32,080
Speaker 1: most hunters will you know, use that noise or the

1354
01:21:32,160 --> 01:21:35,200
Speaker 1: falling of you know, cone scales. If you're looking at

1355
01:21:35,240 --> 01:21:38,640
Speaker 1: red squirrels, you're looking at pieces of of nuts that

1356
01:21:38,720 --> 01:21:41,840
Speaker 1: are falling. Uh, that's always a great indicator. But these

1357
01:21:41,880 --> 01:21:44,720
Speaker 1: scent marks are something like Clay Clay sent I know

1358
01:21:44,840 --> 01:21:48,720
Speaker 1: Clay loves loves squirrel hunting. And most people haven't seen that.

1359
01:21:48,840 --> 01:21:51,120
Speaker 1: But if you go out and look, I guarantee that

1360
01:21:51,200 --> 01:21:53,839
Speaker 1: you'll that you'll find a bunch of those. Red squirrels

1361
01:21:53,880 --> 01:21:56,200
Speaker 1: don't do that as far as we can tell, but

1362
01:21:56,360 --> 01:21:59,640
Speaker 1: all squirrels had these scent glands in their cheeks, and

1363
01:22:00,400 --> 01:22:03,080
Speaker 1: when they're going back to the nest, they wipe those.

1364
01:22:03,479 --> 01:22:05,840
Speaker 1: They'll stop every few feet on a branch and wipe

1365
01:22:05,960 --> 01:22:08,880
Speaker 1: their head back and forth. Called it face wipe, and

1366
01:22:09,200 --> 01:22:13,000
Speaker 1: their depositing scent that probably says there's an animal here.

1367
01:22:13,120 --> 01:22:16,600
Speaker 1: This nest is going to be occupied. And you know,

1368
01:22:16,680 --> 01:22:19,280
Speaker 1: if you're a friend, come join me, share your body

1369
01:22:19,360 --> 01:22:22,200
Speaker 1: heat for the you know, for the night or uh,

1370
01:22:22,439 --> 01:22:25,320
Speaker 1: you know, be prepared to like that mink who won

1371
01:22:25,400 --> 01:22:28,240
Speaker 1: the battle, to be prepared to do to do get

1372
01:22:28,320 --> 01:22:31,320
Speaker 1: out there. I once did that by accident. Followed I

1373
01:22:31,520 --> 01:22:33,519
Speaker 1: was not just like following it to see where the

1374
01:22:33,600 --> 01:22:37,160
Speaker 1: dentry was. I was chasing this group of squirrels, and

1375
01:22:37,280 --> 01:22:40,439
Speaker 1: they got to the dentry ahead of me. I thought, well,

1376
01:22:40,520 --> 01:22:42,599
Speaker 1: by golly, I'm hunting tomorrow morning. I know where I'll

1377
01:22:42,600 --> 01:22:44,720
Speaker 1: be sitting in the dark and waiting for him. Now.

1378
01:22:45,000 --> 01:22:49,559
Speaker 1: I had a very successful first ten minutes of the morning. Uh,

1379
01:22:49,680 --> 01:22:53,400
Speaker 1: am I doing anything? Uh? Like? Am I hurting the

1380
01:22:53,479 --> 01:22:57,479
Speaker 1: squirrel population by by doing that? I felt bad about, Like,

1381
01:22:58,160 --> 01:23:01,360
Speaker 1: just like, you know, getting close to three quarters of

1382
01:23:01,439 --> 01:23:03,360
Speaker 1: my limit in the first ten minutes of the morning

1383
01:23:03,439 --> 01:23:07,880
Speaker 1: out of that one tree. So spreading, spreading your your

1384
01:23:08,000 --> 01:23:11,800
Speaker 1: hunting effort out would be a good strategy. Uh. Those

1385
01:23:11,880 --> 01:23:15,519
Speaker 1: groups though, especially if you're not taking all the animals

1386
01:23:15,600 --> 01:23:18,599
Speaker 1: in the group there, they're either groups of related females,

1387
01:23:19,280 --> 01:23:24,120
Speaker 1: and that that group of females, although they're not territorial,

1388
01:23:24,320 --> 01:23:25,960
Speaker 1: is you know, that's kind of their space. So if

1389
01:23:26,000 --> 01:23:29,080
Speaker 1: you're not taking all the animals, you know there are

1390
01:23:29,120 --> 01:23:31,080
Speaker 1: some that are still going to be there. Or it's

1391
01:23:31,120 --> 01:23:34,120
Speaker 1: a group of males, and the males are typically if

1392
01:23:34,160 --> 01:23:36,560
Speaker 1: you're not a male youngster who's with your mom and

1393
01:23:36,680 --> 01:23:41,280
Speaker 1: your grandmother and you're you know, you know, maybe a

1394
01:23:41,360 --> 01:23:45,720
Speaker 1: great grandmother kind of in that spot then, Uh, that

1395
01:23:46,040 --> 01:23:48,720
Speaker 1: you're you disperse from where you're born and you're in

1396
01:23:48,760 --> 01:23:51,080
Speaker 1: a group with males, and you know, as we know,

1397
01:23:51,240 --> 01:23:55,000
Speaker 1: the really important demographic class is going to be those females.

1398
01:23:55,200 --> 01:23:58,240
Speaker 1: So you know, just being a little bit attentive and

1399
01:23:58,280 --> 01:24:02,479
Speaker 1: spreading it around. You know, they have good litter sizes,

1400
01:24:02,640 --> 01:24:06,720
Speaker 1: they typically rebound from hunting pressure that's not you know,

1401
01:24:06,920 --> 01:24:10,880
Speaker 1: constant and immense without any problem at all. So, uh,

1402
01:24:11,240 --> 01:24:13,719
Speaker 1: you know, I think you don't have to feel so guilty,

1403
01:24:13,800 --> 01:24:15,640
Speaker 1: and I can see it in your eyes, but I

1404
01:24:15,720 --> 01:24:29,599
Speaker 1: think you're okay with all the raptors and everything killing

1405
01:24:29,680 --> 01:24:32,000
Speaker 1: them and all the other stuff that kills him. Is

1406
01:24:32,040 --> 01:24:35,599
Speaker 1: that have you ever seen where um where squirrel hunters

1407
01:24:35,720 --> 01:24:41,960
Speaker 1: have had like a localized impact on population that was

1408
01:24:42,880 --> 01:24:47,479
Speaker 1: of note? So there's no I've never seen it. And

1409
01:24:48,080 --> 01:24:51,760
Speaker 1: because of the difficulty in finding them, I mean, you know,

1410
01:24:51,880 --> 01:24:54,320
Speaker 1: we've just heard from Yanni that he can only find

1411
01:24:54,400 --> 01:24:56,479
Speaker 1: him ten minutes out of a day, So we've got

1412
01:24:56,560 --> 01:24:59,120
Speaker 1: that kind of an aptitude. You know, they're they're they're

1413
01:24:59,160 --> 01:25:02,960
Speaker 1: always going to you know, going to be squirrels around. Uh,

1414
01:25:03,560 --> 01:25:06,600
Speaker 1: they tend to have good litter sizes, They tend to

1415
01:25:06,680 --> 01:25:09,920
Speaker 1: be able to have two litters a year if the

1416
01:25:10,120 --> 01:25:13,439
Speaker 1: resources are high. So when densities start to get low,

1417
01:25:13,920 --> 01:25:16,400
Speaker 1: you see, and you have a good cone crop or

1418
01:25:16,720 --> 01:25:20,160
Speaker 1: or good mass crop, you have the ability to respond

1419
01:25:20,240 --> 01:25:25,360
Speaker 1: pretty quickly. There was a study back east in Virginia

1420
01:25:25,640 --> 01:25:29,599
Speaker 1: where they they tried to have an impact. They hunted

1421
01:25:29,680 --> 01:25:34,600
Speaker 1: them exceedingly high and it's something like Jesus should I

1422
01:25:34,640 --> 01:25:38,439
Speaker 1: want to say sevent mortality something like that, where they

1423
01:25:38,560 --> 01:25:43,200
Speaker 1: really were hunting an area very heavily. Then in that

1424
01:25:43,439 --> 01:25:50,000
Speaker 1: case they showed some impacts of hunting. But what happens

1425
01:25:50,120 --> 01:25:54,360
Speaker 1: is you have more individuals producing two litters a year.

1426
01:25:55,439 --> 01:25:57,960
Speaker 1: You know, kind of compensate for that because now they're

1427
01:25:58,080 --> 01:26:00,439
Speaker 1: they're getting more food, they're in better shape, you know,

1428
01:26:00,600 --> 01:26:03,320
Speaker 1: don't have they're not being chased around by other squirrels

1429
01:26:03,360 --> 01:26:08,919
Speaker 1: as much, and they can squirrels. Tree squirrels can reproduce

1430
01:26:09,000 --> 01:26:11,040
Speaker 1: at about six months of age. So if you're in

1431
01:26:11,400 --> 01:26:14,280
Speaker 1: a time when you have a really good mask here

1432
01:26:15,200 --> 01:26:18,400
Speaker 1: younger the year will reproduce really early. So you're born

1433
01:26:18,680 --> 01:26:23,439
Speaker 1: in February March and you can reproduce in that. There

1434
01:26:23,439 --> 01:26:26,880
Speaker 1: are cases where they've reproduced even in that second breeding season.

1435
01:26:26,960 --> 01:26:29,840
Speaker 1: So they're born in one breeding season and able to

1436
01:26:30,320 --> 01:26:33,720
Speaker 1: uh to reproduce just a few months later. So you

1437
01:26:33,800 --> 01:26:37,160
Speaker 1: know they're they're geared to be able to take advantage

1438
01:26:37,360 --> 01:26:41,080
Speaker 1: of these boom and bust mass crops. So a good year,

1439
01:26:41,479 --> 01:26:43,840
Speaker 1: you know a mask, you're going to get lots of young.

1440
01:26:44,040 --> 01:26:48,320
Speaker 1: They're going to reproduce quickly and capitalize on them. Squirrel

1441
01:26:48,360 --> 01:26:51,680
Speaker 1: hunting is really so inefficient. I mean you realize that

1442
01:26:51,800 --> 01:26:54,160
Speaker 1: when you do a lot of squirrel hunting, how you

1443
01:26:54,320 --> 01:26:58,360
Speaker 1: may hunt this big block of timber and you realize

1444
01:26:58,400 --> 01:27:00,599
Speaker 1: how many times your dogs tree and you don't kill

1445
01:27:00,680 --> 01:27:02,960
Speaker 1: that squirrel, or how many squirrels you see that you

1446
01:27:03,040 --> 01:27:06,280
Speaker 1: don't kill, And so I mean you you have to

1447
01:27:06,560 --> 01:27:08,519
Speaker 1: You would have to hunt very very hard to be

1448
01:27:08,560 --> 01:27:12,160
Speaker 1: able to knock them down. And there's there there. They

1449
01:27:12,200 --> 01:27:13,880
Speaker 1: seem to be a species, like you said, that just

1450
01:27:13,960 --> 01:27:17,599
Speaker 1: bounces back so quickly and the other way, I think

1451
01:27:17,640 --> 01:27:19,920
Speaker 1: about it as a hunter, and I'm trying to calm

1452
01:27:20,080 --> 01:27:23,120
Speaker 1: Janice's nerves here and bring him back a little more

1453
01:27:23,280 --> 01:27:27,240
Speaker 1: center here. Uh, I'm joking you honest um. Is that

1454
01:27:28,040 --> 01:27:30,439
Speaker 1: that you know, if you had a hundred acre track

1455
01:27:30,479 --> 01:27:33,240
Speaker 1: of land to squirrel hunt and you just pounded it

1456
01:27:33,840 --> 01:27:36,280
Speaker 1: and maybe you killed sevent the squirrels in there, which

1457
01:27:36,280 --> 01:27:40,719
Speaker 1: you probably couldn't. The there would be a vacuum around

1458
01:27:40,800 --> 01:27:44,839
Speaker 1: that place. I mean, like there, you know, I've squirrels

1459
01:27:44,880 --> 01:27:46,720
Speaker 1: would just fill that in because think of all the

1460
01:27:46,800 --> 01:27:49,760
Speaker 1: land you're not hunting around that. Like so if you

1461
01:27:49,880 --> 01:27:53,960
Speaker 1: could like grid off and just hunt equally, like some

1462
01:27:54,200 --> 01:27:56,439
Speaker 1: huge portion of land, like maybe you could knock them down.

1463
01:27:56,600 --> 01:28:01,280
Speaker 1: Does that sound about right, John? Yeah, exactly. The you know,

1464
01:28:01,640 --> 01:28:06,120
Speaker 1: prime sites are always somewhat limited out there, and you've

1465
01:28:06,200 --> 01:28:08,760
Speaker 1: got when you're having a litter size of two and

1466
01:28:08,800 --> 01:28:11,840
Speaker 1: a half, you know, three and a half young maybe

1467
01:28:11,880 --> 01:28:14,759
Speaker 1: a couple of times a year. Animals we talked about

1468
01:28:14,760 --> 01:28:16,920
Speaker 1: how long they can live. You know, there's not this

1469
01:28:17,200 --> 01:28:20,439
Speaker 1: massive turnover of adults, and so when when an animal

1470
01:28:20,560 --> 01:28:25,200
Speaker 1: dies another animals moving in really quickly. Always have individuals

1471
01:28:25,280 --> 01:28:28,479
Speaker 1: that are are looking for quality spots with red squirrels

1472
01:28:28,520 --> 01:28:31,960
Speaker 1: that are territorial. Even more so, as I mentioned, you know,

1473
01:28:32,280 --> 01:28:33,920
Speaker 1: we put it, we catch an animal in a live

1474
01:28:34,000 --> 01:28:37,280
Speaker 1: trap and you know, just for thirty minutes and the

1475
01:28:37,360 --> 01:28:40,840
Speaker 1: neighbor knows that this spot is available, and you know

1476
01:28:41,200 --> 01:28:43,280
Speaker 1: we'll be over there in a minute. So, yeah, you're

1477
01:28:43,280 --> 01:28:46,160
Speaker 1: exactly right, Clay. I didn't want your honest to be

1478
01:28:46,280 --> 01:28:49,519
Speaker 1: too soft hearted when he comes to Arkansas here later

1479
01:28:49,640 --> 01:28:52,240
Speaker 1: this winter. You take what you can get when you're

1480
01:28:52,240 --> 01:28:55,759
Speaker 1: squirrel hunting, buddy. Listen, I've put a lot of time

1481
01:28:56,800 --> 01:29:00,840
Speaker 1: effort into hunting squirrels and I've only had one episode

1482
01:29:01,120 --> 01:29:05,200
Speaker 1: like that. So yeah, I've I've yet to not bullet

1483
01:29:05,360 --> 01:29:10,160
Speaker 1: bullet trigger on a on a scroll opportunity. All right, vocalizations,

1484
01:29:10,920 --> 01:29:14,200
Speaker 1: let's do it like just the because I'm guessing fox

1485
01:29:14,280 --> 01:29:17,559
Speaker 1: and grays are pretty similar, right, so let's do then,

1486
01:29:17,640 --> 01:29:20,479
Speaker 1: because that's what most hunters concentrate on. I know, I

1487
01:29:20,640 --> 01:29:24,400
Speaker 1: think that like red pine squirrels have interesting vocalizations. I've

1488
01:29:24,439 --> 01:29:25,920
Speaker 1: heard a lot of them, and I think that they

1489
01:29:26,000 --> 01:29:28,960
Speaker 1: can sort of be valuable to know, maybe to like

1490
01:29:29,120 --> 01:29:32,040
Speaker 1: an elk hunter, because you hear them in the woods

1491
01:29:32,040 --> 01:29:34,720
Speaker 1: and stuff, how it might be associated with you. So

1492
01:29:34,880 --> 01:29:36,640
Speaker 1: let's let's break it up. But let's let's kind of

1493
01:29:36,640 --> 01:29:39,240
Speaker 1: maybe go through all the ones that you know of

1494
01:29:39,760 --> 01:29:42,920
Speaker 1: what they mean and then maybe how we can use

1495
01:29:43,000 --> 01:29:46,679
Speaker 1: them to our advantage. So it's there are a series

1496
01:29:46,920 --> 01:29:49,720
Speaker 1: of chucks, you know, kind of that cluck cluck cluck.

1497
01:29:52,040 --> 01:29:56,680
Speaker 1: That that kind of noise very good. Yeah, that's really good.

1498
01:29:57,080 --> 01:30:06,760
Speaker 1: That's very good. So uh that uh And basically it's

1499
01:30:07,000 --> 01:30:11,320
Speaker 1: it starts there and they become more prolonged, closer together,

1500
01:30:11,960 --> 01:30:15,680
Speaker 1: louder with the level of threat or you know, the

1501
01:30:16,280 --> 01:30:20,760
Speaker 1: y it no, I can't do it. You know, it's

1502
01:30:20,760 --> 01:30:25,080
Speaker 1: like it's like it becomes a home almost right. So,

1503
01:30:25,479 --> 01:30:27,720
Speaker 1: and and that's it. You take these kind of you know,

1504
01:30:27,840 --> 01:30:31,160
Speaker 1: separate notes that are just cluck cluck, cluck, and then

1505
01:30:31,240 --> 01:30:34,680
Speaker 1: you push them, push them together, and it becomes a

1506
01:30:34,760 --> 01:30:37,280
Speaker 1: bit of a hum and then if they're really upset,

1507
01:30:37,720 --> 01:30:40,479
Speaker 1: then you get the wine at the end. So why

1508
01:30:41,640 --> 01:30:45,200
Speaker 1: why And that is and that's even worse than you. Yeah,

1509
01:30:47,600 --> 01:30:52,960
Speaker 1: but that's like a super agitated piste off exactly. And

1510
01:30:53,120 --> 01:30:57,439
Speaker 1: he's telling his buddies there's trouble bruin. We think that

1511
01:30:57,600 --> 01:31:01,800
Speaker 1: it's more they're telling the predator that I know you're there,

1512
01:31:02,160 --> 01:31:05,719
Speaker 1: and I'm really piste off. And so they'll usually stand

1513
01:31:05,760 --> 01:31:08,200
Speaker 1: their ground things like something, Yeah, I was gonna I

1514
01:31:08,320 --> 01:31:10,800
Speaker 1: was gonna interrupt and say that. Usually when I hear that,

1515
01:31:10,920 --> 01:31:12,599
Speaker 1: I feel like I got a good chance of killing

1516
01:31:12,640 --> 01:31:15,519
Speaker 1: that squirrel. Because I feel like he's sitting there and like,

1517
01:31:15,720 --> 01:31:18,400
Speaker 1: I don't care if you're walking towards me exactly. So

1518
01:31:18,439 --> 01:31:21,560
Speaker 1: they're gonna sit there and they're just letting you know

1519
01:31:21,800 --> 01:31:24,160
Speaker 1: that they know. And you know, that typically works if

1520
01:31:24,240 --> 01:31:27,400
Speaker 1: you're you know, if you're a squirrel against other squirrels,

1521
01:31:27,760 --> 01:31:30,759
Speaker 1: probably most predators who aren't gonna waste their time and effort,

1522
01:31:30,880 --> 01:31:33,040
Speaker 1: you know, if you're a if you're a bobcat or

1523
01:31:33,600 --> 01:31:36,040
Speaker 1: you know, a gray fox, and I've seen gray foxes

1524
01:31:36,080 --> 01:31:38,920
Speaker 1: climb trees going after squirrels. Uh, you know, you're not

1525
01:31:39,000 --> 01:31:41,840
Speaker 1: gonna spend all that effort if you've got something already

1526
01:31:41,880 --> 01:31:43,920
Speaker 1: knows you're there, like you're you're bust did and there's

1527
01:31:43,960 --> 01:31:46,240
Speaker 1: nothing you're gonna do about it now. Okay. So it's

1528
01:31:46,280 --> 01:31:48,679
Speaker 1: just the fact that I'm aware of you that's gonna

1529
01:31:48,720 --> 01:31:50,920
Speaker 1: make him not go, not because he's like, oh there's

1530
01:31:50,960 --> 01:31:54,400
Speaker 1: a mad squirrel. I'm not gonna mess with that squirrel.

1531
01:31:54,680 --> 01:31:58,160
Speaker 1: And so a lot of ground squirrels that live in groups,

1532
01:31:58,680 --> 01:32:01,599
Speaker 1: there is advantage to alling and letting, you know, letting

1533
01:32:01,640 --> 01:32:05,680
Speaker 1: all your neighbors sometimes are related animals know, uh, and

1534
01:32:06,120 --> 01:32:08,479
Speaker 1: so you'll hear those alarm calls. You've you've been walking

1535
01:32:08,520 --> 01:32:10,840
Speaker 1: in a you know, a meadow and heard a bunch

1536
01:32:10,920 --> 01:32:14,400
Speaker 1: of yellow belly marmots, you know, start sending off their

1537
01:32:14,400 --> 01:32:19,360
Speaker 1: alarm calls. That's those are often related individuals. They're alerting

1538
01:32:20,160 --> 01:32:23,560
Speaker 1: other members of their own species in that group know

1539
01:32:23,720 --> 01:32:26,560
Speaker 1: that there's a predator there. But it also lets the

1540
01:32:26,640 --> 01:32:30,040
Speaker 1: predator know that you've been recognized. And initially we used

1541
01:32:30,040 --> 01:32:32,360
Speaker 1: to think that was altruistic. You know, that you'd have

1542
01:32:33,040 --> 01:32:37,760
Speaker 1: you'd have ground squirrels alerting everyone and drawing attention to themselves.

1543
01:32:38,439 --> 01:32:40,479
Speaker 1: Turns out that when you actually watch what predators do,

1544
01:32:40,640 --> 01:32:42,840
Speaker 1: they don't go for the one that saw them and

1545
01:32:43,000 --> 01:32:45,000
Speaker 1: is making the call. They're going for the one that's

1546
01:32:45,080 --> 01:32:48,480
Speaker 1: running for its borrow because it doesn't know where the predators.

1547
01:32:48,960 --> 01:32:51,439
Speaker 1: So now we think that that's actually kind of a

1548
01:32:51,560 --> 01:32:56,320
Speaker 1: selfish activity. You call, Hey, watch all these other animals

1549
01:32:56,360 --> 01:32:58,760
Speaker 1: scurry around, and you know the hawks gonna get one

1550
01:32:58,800 --> 01:33:01,360
Speaker 1: of them, and they're not gonna at you because you

1551
01:33:01,439 --> 01:33:05,400
Speaker 1: know you've already identified that that you see them. Plus,

1552
01:33:05,439 --> 01:33:08,639
Speaker 1: those high pitch calls are really hard hard to locate sometimes,

1553
01:33:08,680 --> 01:33:11,280
Speaker 1: and that that's the thing the chucks that you hear

1554
01:33:11,720 --> 01:33:14,439
Speaker 1: those individual notes. The barks A lot of a lot

1555
01:33:14,479 --> 01:33:17,680
Speaker 1: of times you'll read about squirrels barking. Those are a

1556
01:33:17,760 --> 01:33:20,040
Speaker 1: little easier to locate when they go into that high

1557
01:33:20,120 --> 01:33:24,000
Speaker 1: pitched mode. You know. It's those high pitched calls are

1558
01:33:24,080 --> 01:33:27,720
Speaker 1: really hard. They're harder to locate. So once they get

1559
01:33:27,760 --> 01:33:31,240
Speaker 1: to that level of agitation, uh, you know, they it's

1560
01:33:31,280 --> 01:33:34,240
Speaker 1: thought that if they're that level of agitation, the predators

1561
01:33:34,320 --> 01:33:37,400
Speaker 1: really close, then it's a little bit harder to actually locate.

1562
01:33:37,479 --> 01:33:39,280
Speaker 1: I know they're in this tree somewhere, but the squirrel

1563
01:33:39,360 --> 01:33:41,559
Speaker 1: is going to see him before you know, the predators

1564
01:33:41,600 --> 01:33:46,160
Speaker 1: sees the squirrel. I've seen them when they're like chased

1565
01:33:46,200 --> 01:33:49,439
Speaker 1: each other, like rutting around. I've seen him do some

1566
01:33:49,600 --> 01:33:53,080
Speaker 1: amount of agitated chirping at each other. But one like

1567
01:33:53,280 --> 01:33:56,920
Speaker 1: when you're squirrel calling, Like my my understanding of this

1568
01:33:57,040 --> 01:34:00,800
Speaker 1: is eyes that you're making the alarm call when you

1569
01:34:00,880 --> 01:34:03,880
Speaker 1: do that noise, thinking that other squirrels are gonna wonder

1570
01:34:03,960 --> 01:34:07,240
Speaker 1: what the story is and come out to try to

1571
01:34:07,280 --> 01:34:10,719
Speaker 1: figure out what the problem is. It's not very effective.

1572
01:34:10,760 --> 01:34:13,280
Speaker 1: It's very like at a certain time a year, making

1573
01:34:13,320 --> 01:34:16,760
Speaker 1: the distress noise seems to get females out, but I

1574
01:34:16,800 --> 01:34:19,120
Speaker 1: don't it's squirrel calling is not like a great thing.

1575
01:34:19,160 --> 01:34:21,320
Speaker 1: I don't think. Yeah, the squirrel calls to Penny. Which

1576
01:34:21,360 --> 01:34:23,679
Speaker 1: ones you have? You know, the ones that I've used

1577
01:34:23,760 --> 01:34:26,639
Speaker 1: to when we're trying to locate them. You know, you're

1578
01:34:27,320 --> 01:34:30,280
Speaker 1: it's it's a percussion kind of instrument. You know, you're

1579
01:34:30,320 --> 01:34:34,240
Speaker 1: pound and it's the chucks. You're getting this little plunger yep.

1580
01:34:34,680 --> 01:34:37,080
Speaker 1: And and that makes sense because that's one they're easier

1581
01:34:37,120 --> 01:34:40,559
Speaker 1: to locate. So and usually use them when the squirrels

1582
01:34:40,600 --> 01:34:42,160
Speaker 1: in the back side of the tree or a big

1583
01:34:42,240 --> 01:34:44,559
Speaker 1: branch and they kind of look around, you know, that's

1584
01:34:44,680 --> 01:34:47,800
Speaker 1: that's where they're effective, is actually getting there, you know,

1585
01:34:47,920 --> 01:34:51,519
Speaker 1: getting their attention. Rarely do do they can you draw

1586
01:34:51,640 --> 01:34:54,920
Speaker 1: them out of a nest uh? And so so you

1587
01:34:55,120 --> 01:34:57,240
Speaker 1: use those for research. Per We use them for research

1588
01:34:57,280 --> 01:34:59,519
Speaker 1: if we know, if we're trying to check on is

1589
01:34:59,680 --> 01:35:03,200
Speaker 1: this individual live and we don't have radio collars on

1590
01:35:03,320 --> 01:35:05,640
Speaker 1: all our animals, you can go in and use that

1591
01:35:05,800 --> 01:35:10,160
Speaker 1: chucking call or use my really lame chucks. That's enough

1592
01:35:10,320 --> 01:35:13,679
Speaker 1: for a squirrel typically to to peek around a tree,

1593
01:35:13,720 --> 01:35:16,800
Speaker 1: and so you'll hear them, you'll hear them skirting around

1594
01:35:16,840 --> 01:35:18,719
Speaker 1: the tree a little bit that you know, running against

1595
01:35:18,760 --> 01:35:21,320
Speaker 1: the bark, um, and that's it's a great way to

1596
01:35:21,400 --> 01:35:24,680
Speaker 1: locate individuals. And oh yeah, it's ready red right ear

1597
01:35:24,720 --> 01:35:29,280
Speaker 1: and green left ear kind of thing. The other call

1598
01:35:29,400 --> 01:35:34,760
Speaker 1: that you'll hear during those mating chases is that it's

1599
01:35:34,840 --> 01:35:38,559
Speaker 1: kind of a snorting of males and as they run along,

1600
01:35:38,720 --> 01:35:40,960
Speaker 1: it's a great way to locate. That's how we locate

1601
01:35:41,040 --> 01:35:43,680
Speaker 1: mating chases in kind of natural forest that's not a

1602
01:35:43,800 --> 01:35:46,800
Speaker 1: park land like I was describing before. So we work

1603
01:35:46,880 --> 01:35:51,439
Speaker 1: on endangered gram red squirrels in Arizona and really dense forests.

1604
01:35:51,479 --> 01:35:53,960
Speaker 1: But during the breeding season you can hear this kind

1605
01:35:54,000 --> 01:35:57,479
Speaker 1: of sneezing or snorting um as all these males are

1606
01:35:57,520 --> 01:36:00,439
Speaker 1: chasing the female. And it's thought that one there's they're

1607
01:36:00,439 --> 01:36:05,120
Speaker 1: trying to clear their uh, their their nasal passages so

1608
01:36:05,240 --> 01:36:07,360
Speaker 1: they can pick up scent and figure out where the

1609
01:36:07,400 --> 01:36:10,880
Speaker 1: female is as quickly as possible. Um. So it's thought

1610
01:36:10,960 --> 01:36:13,920
Speaker 1: that it's related to that. The only other call with

1611
01:36:14,160 --> 01:36:18,200
Speaker 1: a couple other really rare calls, but um the probably

1612
01:36:18,280 --> 01:36:21,120
Speaker 1: the the other one that's similar to some of these

1613
01:36:21,200 --> 01:36:26,200
Speaker 1: that high pitched wine that we talked about females. If so,

1614
01:36:26,360 --> 01:36:30,519
Speaker 1: during these mating chases, the females will avoid males um

1615
01:36:30,920 --> 01:36:34,439
Speaker 1: and kind of incite this chase so that the it's thoughts,

1616
01:36:34,479 --> 01:36:36,800
Speaker 1: so the most, you know, the animal that's in the

1617
01:36:36,920 --> 01:36:40,000
Speaker 1: best shape, has the best ability to locate a limited

1618
01:36:40,120 --> 01:36:45,200
Speaker 1: resource can find her, and so she'll run through shrubbery

1619
01:36:45,400 --> 01:36:47,120
Speaker 1: and things like that, and then she'll just sit at

1620
01:36:47,160 --> 01:36:49,240
Speaker 1: the base of a tree and and it's usually the

1621
01:36:49,400 --> 01:36:51,760
Speaker 1: first male that finds her that will get to mate

1622
01:36:51,800 --> 01:36:54,560
Speaker 1: with her. So the success is a little bit on dominance,

1623
01:36:54,680 --> 01:36:58,080
Speaker 1: but it's on your skill in locating the female. If

1624
01:36:58,160 --> 01:37:00,880
Speaker 1: they don't find her, she's now you know, she has

1625
01:37:00,960 --> 01:37:03,000
Speaker 1: to meet. She's only in heat for six hours. If

1626
01:37:03,040 --> 01:37:05,320
Speaker 1: she doesn't, you know, then she's not going to repridase.

1627
01:37:05,640 --> 01:37:08,599
Speaker 1: So she'll actually issue that alarm call, that really high

1628
01:37:08,640 --> 01:37:11,639
Speaker 1: pitched call, and it will attract all those mails again

1629
01:37:11,880 --> 01:37:14,679
Speaker 1: to the site, and then she'll mate with the first

1630
01:37:14,760 --> 01:37:17,280
Speaker 1: one if they find her before the other males do.

1631
01:37:18,040 --> 01:37:21,360
Speaker 1: So the same calls used in a slightly different context.

1632
01:37:22,840 --> 01:37:26,360
Speaker 1: Are you familiar with I'm sure you are. When when

1633
01:37:26,360 --> 01:37:30,400
Speaker 1: they're sitting there doing that piste off call, that their

1634
01:37:30,439 --> 01:37:33,000
Speaker 1: tails moving it and that's what gives them away. I

1635
01:37:33,120 --> 01:37:37,680
Speaker 1: heard someone suggests that they're using that tail to to

1636
01:37:38,280 --> 01:37:42,080
Speaker 1: trick predators, because when the hawks come to slap them,

1637
01:37:43,880 --> 01:37:45,760
Speaker 1: they hit that tail because they see the tail moving,

1638
01:37:46,320 --> 01:37:49,400
Speaker 1: and then the squirrel skinnies out because they got him

1639
01:37:49,439 --> 01:37:52,560
Speaker 1: by the tail. So a couple of things. One that

1640
01:37:52,760 --> 01:37:56,080
Speaker 1: flicking the tail also kind of correlated with how piste

1641
01:37:56,120 --> 01:37:59,320
Speaker 1: off they are, so the more worked up there about something,

1642
01:37:59,680 --> 01:38:02,519
Speaker 1: you'll see them flicking that tail more. People have tried

1643
01:38:02,600 --> 01:38:05,360
Speaker 1: to see how much information is really conveyed in that,

1644
01:38:05,600 --> 01:38:08,639
Speaker 1: you know, is there a hidden squirrel language, and uh,

1645
01:38:09,080 --> 01:38:12,360
Speaker 1: you know, there's not at that level where it's like, oh,

1646
01:38:12,560 --> 01:38:15,559
Speaker 1: here's a you know, meaning of that flicking the tail,

1647
01:38:15,680 --> 01:38:19,160
Speaker 1: but it does, uh seem to be correlated with how

1648
01:38:19,680 --> 01:38:24,160
Speaker 1: risky the situation is, so that perhaps the predator sees that,

1649
01:38:25,000 --> 01:38:28,880
Speaker 1: but other individuals may see that as well and recognize, okay,

1650
01:38:29,120 --> 01:38:31,200
Speaker 1: you know there's something really close here that's you know,

1651
01:38:31,320 --> 01:38:34,800
Speaker 1: that's bothersome. But that tail itself has a couple of

1652
01:38:34,880 --> 01:38:41,880
Speaker 1: different functions. One is that it is used for dissipaining heat.

1653
01:38:42,120 --> 01:38:45,280
Speaker 1: So if you if you watch a squirrel during the

1654
01:38:45,360 --> 01:38:49,280
Speaker 1: heat of the summer and clay, you know, in Arkansas

1655
01:38:49,400 --> 01:38:53,000
Speaker 1: you probably see this sometimes, but you'll see them splaited

1656
01:38:53,040 --> 01:38:56,880
Speaker 1: out sometimes on the ground in some moist soil. They'll

1657
01:38:56,880 --> 01:38:58,479
Speaker 1: flick their tail up and if you look at the

1658
01:38:58,520 --> 01:39:00,599
Speaker 1: base that if you look at the base to the tail,

1659
01:39:01,240 --> 01:39:04,759
Speaker 1: they actually spread the hairs and you'll see blood pulsing

1660
01:39:04,840 --> 01:39:07,040
Speaker 1: through there. So it's a way that they dissipate heat.

1661
01:39:07,680 --> 01:39:11,839
Speaker 1: And you can in Arizona some of the squirrel species

1662
01:39:11,880 --> 01:39:14,040
Speaker 1: that we have down there, like the Mexican fox squirrel,

1663
01:39:14,360 --> 01:39:16,360
Speaker 1: you know they're they're in a hundred and ten degree

1664
01:39:16,400 --> 01:39:19,880
Speaker 1: temperatures and you know, if you're out running around, you've

1665
01:39:19,880 --> 01:39:22,320
Speaker 1: got to get rid of that heat fast. And you're

1666
01:39:22,320 --> 01:39:25,400
Speaker 1: wearing this, you know, this fur coat. So they literally

1667
01:39:25,520 --> 01:39:28,040
Speaker 1: sit there and use that tail, so they'll flip it

1668
01:39:28,120 --> 01:39:30,840
Speaker 1: up over themselves, send blood through it and sound blood

1669
01:39:30,840 --> 01:39:33,000
Speaker 1: through it. It's just a surface to get rid of heat.

1670
01:39:33,520 --> 01:39:36,400
Speaker 1: It Also, we know that they'll use them during the winter.

1671
01:39:36,800 --> 01:39:40,479
Speaker 1: It's like kind of an added layer of insulation that

1672
01:39:40,960 --> 01:39:43,920
Speaker 1: so you'll see it laying over their back. Some of

1673
01:39:44,000 --> 01:39:47,160
Speaker 1: the kind of classic squirrel pictures in the winter are

1674
01:39:47,280 --> 01:39:51,240
Speaker 1: usually just here's another another blanket you're throwing on, or

1675
01:39:51,280 --> 01:39:54,760
Speaker 1: they use them like an umbrella. You know, they're I've

1676
01:39:54,800 --> 01:39:57,840
Speaker 1: seen them with you know, half inch of snow on

1677
01:39:57,960 --> 01:40:00,280
Speaker 1: the on the top of the tail and they're just

1678
01:40:00,439 --> 01:40:05,120
Speaker 1: you know, kind of huddled down. So there's that advantage

1679
01:40:05,160 --> 01:40:08,679
Speaker 1: as well. But if you're going to have if you're

1680
01:40:08,760 --> 01:40:11,400
Speaker 1: going to be attacked by a predator, you know, talents

1681
01:40:11,600 --> 01:40:15,759
Speaker 1: in talents in the uh you know, in the tail

1682
01:40:15,880 --> 01:40:18,880
Speaker 1: are much better than talents in the rib cage. So

1683
01:40:19,800 --> 01:40:25,400
Speaker 1: they do. You do occasionally find tailless animals. Some of

1684
01:40:25,479 --> 01:40:29,120
Speaker 1: that maybe due to predators, but really if a predator

1685
01:40:29,280 --> 01:40:31,920
Speaker 1: gets you, you know, and you're that close, predators are

1686
01:40:32,000 --> 01:40:35,120
Speaker 1: really good at making sure they know seal the deal. Uh.

1687
01:40:35,800 --> 01:40:39,960
Speaker 1: More often we see these broken tails and clip tails

1688
01:40:40,360 --> 01:40:44,400
Speaker 1: are actually the result of battle between animals, so they

1689
01:40:44,439 --> 01:40:46,479
Speaker 1: don't they don't clip each other. He's going for the

1690
01:40:46,600 --> 01:40:48,840
Speaker 1: nuts and gets the tails. Gonna say, they're not going.

1691
01:40:48,880 --> 01:40:50,840
Speaker 1: I don't want to go back there, Steve, I thought

1692
01:40:50,880 --> 01:40:53,160
Speaker 1: we were past this, but uh, you know, we can

1693
01:40:53,200 --> 01:40:56,680
Speaker 1: revisit if necessary. Uh. So they don't go for the

1694
01:40:56,920 --> 01:41:00,879
Speaker 1: for those but the testicles, but they will go four tails.

1695
01:41:01,040 --> 01:41:02,840
Speaker 1: And so every time I see a squirrel of the

1696
01:41:02,880 --> 01:41:07,000
Speaker 1: broken tail, I make up a mind movie where the

1697
01:41:07,120 --> 01:41:11,280
Speaker 1: fox gets him by the tail and he busts off,

1698
01:41:11,320 --> 01:41:13,400
Speaker 1: and I'm like certain that that's what's happened. I never

1699
01:41:13,439 --> 01:41:16,200
Speaker 1: thought it was like squirrel on squirrel violence. It's usually

1700
01:41:16,240 --> 01:41:20,799
Speaker 1: squirrel on squirrel violence very rarely. I have seen probably

1701
01:41:21,840 --> 01:41:26,640
Speaker 1: thirty or forty predation events by by mammal predators and

1702
01:41:27,320 --> 01:41:29,560
Speaker 1: never once had they've grabbed him by the tail. But

1703
01:41:29,720 --> 01:41:33,320
Speaker 1: never once have has that tail broken off before they've

1704
01:41:33,760 --> 01:41:38,480
Speaker 1: got the kill shot in there already. But when squirrels,

1705
01:41:38,600 --> 01:41:42,120
Speaker 1: especially during these mating chases, when two males are fighting,

1706
01:41:42,640 --> 01:41:45,360
Speaker 1: they'll often grab the other one by the tail and

1707
01:41:45,680 --> 01:41:48,120
Speaker 1: literally kind of fling them around and throw them out

1708
01:41:48,160 --> 01:41:51,519
Speaker 1: of the tree. So, uh, that's where we think most

1709
01:41:51,600 --> 01:41:54,479
Speaker 1: of the broken tails come from. And you see them

1710
01:41:54,560 --> 01:41:59,160
Speaker 1: more commonly in males than females because exactly that kind

1711
01:41:59,240 --> 01:42:05,040
Speaker 1: of biology got any more calling questions, Johnny, I mean,

1712
01:42:05,080 --> 01:42:07,840
Speaker 1: I guess if you think there's something interesting there with

1713
01:42:08,080 --> 01:42:13,479
Speaker 1: the with the red pine squirrel chatter that like ice

1714
01:42:13,560 --> 01:42:17,840
Speaker 1: always walk this, uh the irrigation ditch. You know, it's

1715
01:42:17,840 --> 01:42:19,479
Speaker 1: a great way to sneak through the woods, and it

1716
01:42:19,600 --> 01:42:21,720
Speaker 1: kind of cut through a piece of woods separated some

1717
01:42:21,840 --> 01:42:24,680
Speaker 1: agg fields these elk fed and and up above it

1718
01:42:24,840 --> 01:42:27,720
Speaker 1: was where they where they betted. And I used to

1719
01:42:27,840 --> 01:42:31,320
Speaker 1: just hate it when up ahead of me or near me, boy,

1720
01:42:31,360 --> 01:42:33,599
Speaker 1: you get one barking atch it and I just felt

1721
01:42:33,640 --> 01:42:37,120
Speaker 1: like matt every elk within you know, hundred fifty yards,

1722
01:42:37,240 --> 01:42:40,120
Speaker 1: just like I know, yohn, he's coming down the ditch. Yeah.

1723
01:42:40,160 --> 01:42:44,320
Speaker 1: But what what I like is when you um are

1724
01:42:44,439 --> 01:42:47,360
Speaker 1: aren't doing anything and you're being real quiet or whatever,

1725
01:42:48,000 --> 01:42:50,320
Speaker 1: and you hear one light up, you hear a piste

1726
01:42:50,360 --> 01:42:53,639
Speaker 1: off pine squirrel, and then you're like, there's no way

1727
01:42:53,680 --> 01:42:55,519
Speaker 1: he's mad at me, Like there's no way he knows

1728
01:42:55,520 --> 01:42:58,280
Speaker 1: about me. Then I get real curious over in that direction,

1729
01:42:59,439 --> 01:43:01,360
Speaker 1: like what is mad about? Because I think they'll bark it.

1730
01:43:01,600 --> 01:43:05,040
Speaker 1: I think they'll bark it anything coming through the woods,

1731
01:43:05,080 --> 01:43:07,080
Speaker 1: you know, So is that true? They will bark it

1732
01:43:07,160 --> 01:43:09,840
Speaker 1: anything elk walking through the woods, they'll bark at it

1733
01:43:09,840 --> 01:43:13,719
Speaker 1: because they're annoyed by it. I have seen him bark

1734
01:43:13,920 --> 01:43:18,160
Speaker 1: at elk and deer before they tend they use it

1735
01:43:18,800 --> 01:43:23,280
Speaker 1: for uh more often they'll use it for other animals,

1736
01:43:23,840 --> 01:43:28,000
Speaker 1: their squirrels, same species. So it's it's a territorial That's

1737
01:43:28,000 --> 01:43:29,680
Speaker 1: why I should have pointed out that I have never

1738
01:43:29,800 --> 01:43:33,439
Speaker 1: heard one light up and then lo and behold, here

1739
01:43:33,560 --> 01:43:39,280
Speaker 1: comes like here comes an elk. It's always like I

1740
01:43:39,400 --> 01:43:42,200
Speaker 1: never could find out what he's mad about. So they'll

1741
01:43:42,280 --> 01:43:44,920
Speaker 1: use it. They used the same kinds of calls that

1742
01:43:45,000 --> 01:43:47,479
Speaker 1: we were just we're talking about for fox squirrels and

1743
01:43:47,560 --> 01:43:52,800
Speaker 1: gray squirrels. Typically for like a predator, that's that's come through.

1744
01:43:53,400 --> 01:43:59,640
Speaker 1: But they use that territorial rattle call. It's that that

1745
01:43:59,760 --> 01:44:06,840
Speaker 1: kind a call. Okay, that's that's cool. I'll take that,

1746
01:44:07,240 --> 01:44:09,160
Speaker 1: take whatever I can get. You know, I think I

1747
01:44:09,280 --> 01:44:12,439
Speaker 1: think having that call when you're when you're hunting some

1748
01:44:12,600 --> 01:44:15,760
Speaker 1: other animal other than a squirrel, I mean, you've got

1749
01:44:15,800 --> 01:44:17,920
Speaker 1: to be paying attention to a barking squirrel. Like what

1750
01:44:18,040 --> 01:44:21,839
Speaker 1: I've seen is there's some percentage of times that squirrels

1751
01:44:21,880 --> 01:44:25,120
Speaker 1: gonna bark at a deer, and they love barking at bears.

1752
01:44:25,280 --> 01:44:28,160
Speaker 1: If you're hunting bears over bait, be listening for squirrels.

1753
01:44:28,200 --> 01:44:31,240
Speaker 1: They'll bark at a bear for sure, But but then

1754
01:44:31,360 --> 01:44:33,400
Speaker 1: you know, some percentage of the time they're gonna be

1755
01:44:33,439 --> 01:44:36,560
Speaker 1: barking another squirrel. So it's you know, not relevant information.

1756
01:44:36,680 --> 01:44:39,360
Speaker 1: But I mean lots of good woodsmen are listening for

1757
01:44:39,479 --> 01:44:43,600
Speaker 1: squirrels barking in some percentage of the time, maybe of

1758
01:44:43,640 --> 01:44:46,280
Speaker 1: the time they're barking at, you know, a target animal

1759
01:44:46,360 --> 01:44:50,920
Speaker 1: that you're after. Yeah, I would agree class, especially those

1760
01:44:51,040 --> 01:44:55,160
Speaker 1: Eastern grays and fox squirrels, they very often do that.

1761
01:44:55,280 --> 01:44:58,080
Speaker 1: The rattle calls that we're talking about with the red

1762
01:44:58,160 --> 01:45:02,559
Speaker 1: squirrels are uh those are a territorial call that tends

1763
01:45:02,600 --> 01:45:05,880
Speaker 1: to be focused on members of their own species. Although

1764
01:45:06,160 --> 01:45:10,120
Speaker 1: they had no idea, man, that explains so much. So

1765
01:45:10,640 --> 01:45:13,120
Speaker 1: you can blame your lack of success on well, no,

1766
01:45:13,240 --> 01:45:15,120
Speaker 1: I just I mean, I'm like, I'm like, I hear one,

1767
01:45:15,280 --> 01:45:17,720
Speaker 1: and I'm always dissatisfied of like that. I could never

1768
01:45:17,800 --> 01:45:19,599
Speaker 1: find out like what it was he was mad about.

1769
01:45:19,640 --> 01:45:21,439
Speaker 1: But I know he's just mad at some other squirrel,

1770
01:45:21,479 --> 01:45:23,120
Speaker 1: because if I saw two squirrels sitting there, I would

1771
01:45:23,240 --> 01:45:26,120
Speaker 1: be like, oh, he's mad at his buddy. So it

1772
01:45:26,200 --> 01:45:29,160
Speaker 1: really is an indicator that the space is occupied. So

1773
01:45:29,439 --> 01:45:32,800
Speaker 1: during and especially when when you'll see it most often

1774
01:45:32,960 --> 01:45:35,240
Speaker 1: is the fall, when they've when they've built these new

1775
01:45:35,320 --> 01:45:38,600
Speaker 1: piles of cones, and it is letting their neighbors know

1776
01:45:38,840 --> 01:45:42,160
Speaker 1: that there's somebody there that's there. That's their pile of

1777
01:45:42,240 --> 01:45:45,639
Speaker 1: cones where you do see it used is you mentioned earlier,

1778
01:45:45,840 --> 01:45:49,400
Speaker 1: you know that bears will go in, you know, grizzlies

1779
01:45:49,520 --> 01:45:52,000
Speaker 1: like to go in and rip open these and uh

1780
01:45:52,280 --> 01:45:55,280
Speaker 1: these middens and sometimes eat the little bit of meat

1781
01:45:55,479 --> 01:45:58,240
Speaker 1: or mushrooms, but they're mostly going for, like, you know,

1782
01:45:58,320 --> 01:46:00,680
Speaker 1: some of the larger pine seeds. Then that will be

1783
01:46:00,760 --> 01:46:04,519
Speaker 1: stored in there, and that's where you will hear those

1784
01:46:04,640 --> 01:46:09,160
Speaker 1: rattle calls, that territorial call of of red squirrels. That

1785
01:46:09,600 --> 01:46:13,360
Speaker 1: because now you've got another competitor for seeds. So we

1786
01:46:13,479 --> 01:46:16,800
Speaker 1: tend to see that call used against competitors, mostly other

1787
01:46:17,800 --> 01:46:21,160
Speaker 1: members of your own species. But you know, grizzlies like

1788
01:46:21,240 --> 01:46:24,320
Speaker 1: to go in and rip those open for for food.

1789
01:46:24,640 --> 01:46:26,519
Speaker 1: This is I didn't write this down on our little list,

1790
01:46:26,560 --> 01:46:29,800
Speaker 1: but I'm gonna hit someone else's question here. Whose question

1791
01:46:29,880 --> 01:46:31,040
Speaker 1: is it about how to get him out of a

1792
01:46:31,120 --> 01:46:35,200
Speaker 1: dre I put that in there. Check this out. Let's

1793
01:46:35,200 --> 01:46:38,160
Speaker 1: say you're a squirrel biologist and you're trying to observe

1794
01:46:38,320 --> 01:46:43,360
Speaker 1: a squirrel and you see him running across the forest

1795
01:46:43,439 --> 01:46:47,840
Speaker 1: floor and you're like, I spooped, and then he runs

1796
01:46:47,960 --> 01:46:50,560
Speaker 1: up and goes into a dre or goes into a

1797
01:46:50,640 --> 01:46:54,479
Speaker 1: hole and you're just a biologists trying to do a

1798
01:46:54,560 --> 01:46:59,200
Speaker 1: friendly squirrel study short of like smoke bombs and whatnot,

1799
01:46:59,520 --> 01:47:02,040
Speaker 1: Like how would you be like, I'll show you how

1800
01:47:02,080 --> 01:47:05,360
Speaker 1: I'll get him to come out. Tricks of the trade.

1801
01:47:05,400 --> 01:47:07,320
Speaker 1: You're asking me for tricks of the trade here. But

1802
01:47:07,600 --> 01:47:11,040
Speaker 1: let's say a friendly squirrel biologis is a situation. So

1803
01:47:11,600 --> 01:47:13,680
Speaker 1: in those leaf nests, those dreys that you know, the

1804
01:47:13,760 --> 01:47:17,280
Speaker 1: basketball sized ball of leaves, really hard to get them

1805
01:47:17,320 --> 01:47:20,080
Speaker 1: out of those. They typically are going in when they

1806
01:47:20,160 --> 01:47:23,920
Speaker 1: have young, they're almost always in cavities. They the whole

1807
01:47:24,040 --> 01:47:27,479
Speaker 1: you know, the tree cavities that the old rotten hole um.

1808
01:47:28,080 --> 01:47:31,000
Speaker 1: So once they're up in those balls of leaves, it's

1809
01:47:31,080 --> 01:47:33,120
Speaker 1: really difficult to get them out. That's what I've found

1810
01:47:33,160 --> 01:47:37,120
Speaker 1: to be true. But in the in cavities, uh, you

1811
01:47:37,200 --> 01:47:39,479
Speaker 1: know you you mentioned this with the with the mink,

1812
01:47:40,080 --> 01:47:42,760
Speaker 1: that the animals seem to know that that animal is.

1813
01:47:42,880 --> 01:47:45,280
Speaker 1: You know, there's an animal outside and just like you

1814
01:47:45,920 --> 01:47:48,479
Speaker 1: we've all heard a squirrel walking up bark and kind

1815
01:47:48,520 --> 01:47:51,599
Speaker 1: of how noisy that is. The animal in the den

1816
01:47:51,760 --> 01:47:56,240
Speaker 1: cavity knows that you've got something. An individual coming up.

1817
01:47:56,360 --> 01:47:59,320
Speaker 1: So the way we if we were doing a survey

1818
01:47:59,560 --> 01:48:02,920
Speaker 1: as friend leave squirrel biologists, we would you just take

1819
01:48:03,200 --> 01:48:05,680
Speaker 1: a stick and you work it up the side of

1820
01:48:05,760 --> 01:48:08,760
Speaker 1: the tree like an animal that's a potential predator, an

1821
01:48:08,760 --> 01:48:12,200
Speaker 1: animal that's coming up. And if there's a if there's

1822
01:48:12,240 --> 01:48:15,080
Speaker 1: a group of squirrels in particular, they'll come out right

1823
01:48:15,120 --> 01:48:21,160
Speaker 1: away to kind of defend the turf. So let's talk

1824
01:48:21,280 --> 01:48:25,559
Speaker 1: more about there. There's so many there's so many cavities

1825
01:48:25,600 --> 01:48:27,479
Speaker 1: that don't have squirrels in a few that's gonna be

1826
01:48:27,560 --> 01:48:30,320
Speaker 1: your soul stretch as you see of go in there,

1827
01:48:30,520 --> 01:48:32,640
Speaker 1: you know, always get a bad feeling. And then I

1828
01:48:32,680 --> 01:48:35,280
Speaker 1: always think this, maybe you can answer this. Uh. I

1829
01:48:35,280 --> 01:48:37,720
Speaker 1: always think I'm gonna sit here until that some bitch

1830
01:48:37,800 --> 01:48:40,880
Speaker 1: comes back out. But man, that could wear a fell out.

1831
01:48:41,600 --> 01:48:44,320
Speaker 1: Well one out of ten times, yeah, he comes out

1832
01:48:44,520 --> 01:48:46,320
Speaker 1: in less than ten minutes. It seems like the other

1833
01:48:46,439 --> 01:48:48,559
Speaker 1: nine times you sit there for thirty and he hasn't

1834
01:48:48,560 --> 01:48:50,519
Speaker 1: showed up. Be like, all right, it's more efficient to

1835
01:48:50,600 --> 01:48:56,240
Speaker 1: keep walking. So those those cavities are limited resource for squirrels,

1836
01:48:56,320 --> 01:48:59,880
Speaker 1: and and so they'll go in and just explore to

1837
01:49:00,120 --> 01:49:03,000
Speaker 1: kind of you know, likely see what their options are,

1838
01:49:03,240 --> 01:49:05,280
Speaker 1: you know, are they going to upgrade and move into

1839
01:49:05,439 --> 01:49:09,760
Speaker 1: this this cavity? Uh? And and then females when they're

1840
01:49:10,560 --> 01:49:14,479
Speaker 1: pregnant will often go around and start exploring these more

1841
01:49:14,600 --> 01:49:18,040
Speaker 1: protected cavities where they're gonna where they're gonna raise their young.

1842
01:49:18,720 --> 01:49:22,360
Speaker 1: And so either get there. This is you know, a

1843
01:49:22,439 --> 01:49:24,760
Speaker 1: quick visit and you know we've all gone looking for

1844
01:49:24,840 --> 01:49:27,040
Speaker 1: a house or an apartment. You walk in like, no,

1845
01:49:27,280 --> 01:49:29,200
Speaker 1: not for me, and I turn around and come back out.

1846
01:49:29,280 --> 01:49:32,400
Speaker 1: So sometimes you'll get those kinds of experiences. But when

1847
01:49:32,439 --> 01:49:35,880
Speaker 1: you spook them in and he runs and you're like,

1848
01:49:36,120 --> 01:49:39,040
Speaker 1: it's obvious he knew where that hole was, he ran

1849
01:49:39,120 --> 01:49:42,080
Speaker 1: to it to get away. How long do you think

1850
01:49:42,600 --> 01:49:44,920
Speaker 1: on average it would be so he's going to naturally

1851
01:49:45,000 --> 01:49:48,640
Speaker 1: come back out again, it will often be ours. So

1852
01:49:49,280 --> 01:49:53,200
Speaker 1: it's it's typically so yeah, well, you know when we're

1853
01:49:53,200 --> 01:49:55,759
Speaker 1: doing our research and you're following animals and you're like, okay,

1854
01:49:55,840 --> 01:49:58,519
Speaker 1: what you know, I'm trying to find this animal's nest

1855
01:49:58,640 --> 01:50:01,360
Speaker 1: for the night or you you know they're kind of

1856
01:50:01,439 --> 01:50:03,760
Speaker 1: in this area. You want to, you know, see if

1857
01:50:03,760 --> 01:50:07,320
Speaker 1: they're still alive. Uh, And then you spook them by accident,

1858
01:50:07,520 --> 01:50:10,839
Speaker 1: it often is hours, and during the heat of the summer,

1859
01:50:11,280 --> 01:50:14,000
Speaker 1: you know, they'll they'll go in and they'll spend sometimes

1860
01:50:14,240 --> 01:50:16,559
Speaker 1: three or four hours in the middle of the day

1861
01:50:16,960 --> 01:50:20,519
Speaker 1: keep cool to cool off, and then females with young

1862
01:50:20,720 --> 01:50:23,679
Speaker 1: go back and usually nurse for a couple of hours.

1863
01:50:24,000 --> 01:50:26,559
Speaker 1: So if you just happen to, you know, catch them

1864
01:50:26,600 --> 01:50:29,400
Speaker 1: on the way back to the nest or uh, you

1865
01:50:29,479 --> 01:50:31,439
Speaker 1: know you spooked them in and they're close enough to

1866
01:50:31,560 --> 01:50:33,439
Speaker 1: the nests that they ran in, they're not going to

1867
01:50:33,520 --> 01:50:37,519
Speaker 1: come out for for several hours. So the stick trick though,

1868
01:50:37,920 --> 01:50:41,200
Speaker 1: like diameter of the stick and then is it like

1869
01:50:41,360 --> 01:50:44,400
Speaker 1: a tapping or you more of just like like making

1870
01:50:44,479 --> 01:50:46,880
Speaker 1: some friction by rubbing. Do you have to get a

1871
01:50:46,920 --> 01:50:49,200
Speaker 1: ten ft long stick so you can actually make it

1872
01:50:49,320 --> 01:50:52,960
Speaker 1: work all the way up towards the whole itself. It

1873
01:50:53,080 --> 01:50:55,200
Speaker 1: really just depends on how far up the hole is,

1874
01:50:55,360 --> 01:50:58,400
Speaker 1: and it doesn't always work, but you'll have pretty good

1875
01:50:58,439 --> 01:51:01,200
Speaker 1: success rates with it if if there is an animal

1876
01:51:01,280 --> 01:51:03,280
Speaker 1: in there. How is that not broken into the squirrel

1877
01:51:03,360 --> 01:51:08,040
Speaker 1: hunting world? I almost think it doesn't work so well. Oh,

1878
01:51:08,160 --> 01:51:12,600
Speaker 1: so now you're calling me a liar. I spend a

1879
01:51:12,680 --> 01:51:14,880
Speaker 1: couple hours of my day with you and then right

1880
01:51:14,960 --> 01:51:18,439
Speaker 1: at the end comes out damn still feeling a little

1881
01:51:18,479 --> 01:51:23,599
Speaker 1: salty about the squirrel. Testical questions and we will report

1882
01:51:23,640 --> 01:51:28,400
Speaker 1: back guarantee. Yeah, but I know, is it more of

1883
01:51:28,479 --> 01:51:30,800
Speaker 1: like a tapping or just like are you just like

1884
01:51:31,160 --> 01:51:33,839
Speaker 1: like a rubbing. It's a rubbing. You're trying to imitate

1885
01:51:33,920 --> 01:51:37,080
Speaker 1: an animal coming up if you watch so, I would

1886
01:51:37,160 --> 01:51:39,160
Speaker 1: encourage you to go out sometime in the evening and

1887
01:51:39,200 --> 01:51:42,879
Speaker 1: follow animals back to the nest, especially during the colder seasons.

1888
01:51:43,040 --> 01:51:45,360
Speaker 1: This is what fox and grays and what red squirrels

1889
01:51:45,360 --> 01:51:48,040
Speaker 1: are pretty solitary, although in winter sometimes they'll nest together

1890
01:51:48,640 --> 01:51:53,080
Speaker 1: the but and you'll watch the animal. It'll it'll typically

1891
01:51:53,160 --> 01:51:55,960
Speaker 1: come in from the side. It won't typically come straight

1892
01:51:56,040 --> 01:51:58,479
Speaker 1: up the nest, but it'll it'll come in through the canopy,

1893
01:51:58,680 --> 01:52:00,640
Speaker 1: jump on the main stalk and and go up to

1894
01:52:00,720 --> 01:52:04,880
Speaker 1: the cavity. You'll see animals inside just kind of peek

1895
01:52:04,920 --> 01:52:07,400
Speaker 1: their head out just a little bit. And we know

1896
01:52:07,560 --> 01:52:10,920
Speaker 1: that they have ultrasonic calls to um and they haven't

1897
01:52:10,960 --> 01:52:13,760
Speaker 1: been very well studied, so we're talking about vocalizations. We

1898
01:52:13,880 --> 01:52:16,640
Speaker 1: can't hear the ultrasound, but we know that they can

1899
01:52:16,720 --> 01:52:21,559
Speaker 1: hear in that range, and so they're probably and those

1900
01:52:21,680 --> 01:52:24,320
Speaker 1: ultrasonic calls don't travel very far, so they're good for

1901
01:52:24,439 --> 01:52:27,560
Speaker 1: that really close use, you know, really close distance, so

1902
01:52:27,680 --> 01:52:30,439
Speaker 1: we think that they're actually communicating you know, friend or foe,

1903
01:52:30,840 --> 01:52:34,559
Speaker 1: you know something there. Sometimes you'll see that they'll they'll

1904
01:52:34,800 --> 01:52:37,360
Speaker 1: they'll get chased out, they'll run down, pick up some leaves,

1905
01:52:37,520 --> 01:52:40,280
Speaker 1: like some warm bedding, and try to use that almost

1906
01:52:40,320 --> 01:52:42,840
Speaker 1: as a gift to get in. Sometimes it works, um,

1907
01:52:44,200 --> 01:52:48,719
Speaker 1: but the uh so you're really trying to imitate something

1908
01:52:48,800 --> 01:52:51,840
Speaker 1: moving up, you know, maybe a predator that they all need.

1909
01:52:52,320 --> 01:52:55,640
Speaker 1: If it's if it's a you know, if it's an

1910
01:52:55,680 --> 01:52:59,320
Speaker 1: animal that could a member should be part of the group,

1911
01:52:59,400 --> 01:53:01,720
Speaker 1: those ultra sonic calls are probably gonna work. So you

1912
01:53:01,800 --> 01:53:04,960
Speaker 1: really want to imitate you know, you're it's a raccoon

1913
01:53:05,120 --> 01:53:06,880
Speaker 1: coming up where they're all going to jump out of

1914
01:53:06,920 --> 01:53:09,639
Speaker 1: the nest and and um, you know you'll be able

1915
01:53:09,680 --> 01:53:13,000
Speaker 1: to see if that's you know, if if it's occupied

1916
01:53:13,120 --> 01:53:16,960
Speaker 1: or not. But it's more just a scratching, a light scinching,

1917
01:53:17,560 --> 01:53:20,240
Speaker 1: And so I think I think that's something most people

1918
01:53:20,280 --> 01:53:22,559
Speaker 1: won't be familiar with. But if you watch the animals

1919
01:53:22,600 --> 01:53:25,040
Speaker 1: in the evening, you'll you'll you'll see that. And then

1920
01:53:25,120 --> 01:53:27,080
Speaker 1: the other thing is the scent marks that we talked

1921
01:53:27,080 --> 01:53:30,280
Speaker 1: about that can tell you if if if the area

1922
01:53:30,360 --> 01:53:34,240
Speaker 1: is occupied, can actually if you smell enough of them,

1923
01:53:34,280 --> 01:53:37,920
Speaker 1: you can tell here's one that's really active and that

1924
01:53:38,080 --> 01:53:41,560
Speaker 1: there are probably a higher density of of animals that

1925
01:53:41,960 --> 01:53:44,920
Speaker 1: are in that site. So those are those are a

1926
01:53:44,960 --> 01:53:47,960
Speaker 1: couple of tricks of the trade. This is my last question.

1927
01:53:48,120 --> 01:53:50,200
Speaker 1: Then these guys can ask their last questions to My

1928
01:53:50,320 --> 01:53:53,920
Speaker 1: last question is in your in your field as an academic,

1929
01:53:55,640 --> 01:53:59,920
Speaker 1: Let's say you got curious about squirrels falling. Okay, when

1930
01:54:00,040 --> 01:54:05,320
Speaker 1: you consider the limits of animal ethics, could you ever, like,

1931
01:54:05,520 --> 01:54:09,719
Speaker 1: would you be allowed to propose and execute a study

1932
01:54:10,320 --> 01:54:13,200
Speaker 1: in which you took squirrels and dropped them from various

1933
01:54:13,280 --> 01:54:15,519
Speaker 1: heights to see what happens to them? Or would that

1934
01:54:15,560 --> 01:54:17,479
Speaker 1: just get shut down as being like just sort of

1935
01:54:17,560 --> 01:54:23,040
Speaker 1: like the reward wasn't there wasn't enough to like justify it, right,

1936
01:54:23,280 --> 01:54:25,519
Speaker 1: And I think that's it. It's it's the kind of

1937
01:54:25,840 --> 01:54:29,080
Speaker 1: weighing the benefits and the and the cost, you know,

1938
01:54:29,200 --> 01:54:32,600
Speaker 1: the ethical costs of doing that, so you know they're

1939
01:54:33,240 --> 01:54:35,480
Speaker 1: in that case, you'd want to know. You know, I

1940
01:54:35,560 --> 01:54:38,080
Speaker 1: do the study of looking at museum bones and see

1941
01:54:38,240 --> 01:54:40,160
Speaker 1: you know how many are broken? Is you know, does

1942
01:54:40,360 --> 01:54:42,400
Speaker 1: that seem to be an issue? There may be other

1943
01:54:42,480 --> 01:54:46,400
Speaker 1: ways that you get there. And you know, while that's

1944
01:54:46,800 --> 01:54:50,880
Speaker 1: while it's interesting, you know, learning about their mortality, uh,

1945
01:54:51,360 --> 01:54:53,320
Speaker 1: that may not be you know, in my mind, that

1946
01:54:53,320 --> 01:54:55,600
Speaker 1: wouldn't be enough to sway it to let's drop squirrels

1947
01:54:55,640 --> 01:54:58,160
Speaker 1: from you know, a bunch of a bunch of different heights, Uh,

1948
01:54:58,680 --> 01:55:01,800
Speaker 1: to learn the little bit that we might add to

1949
01:55:01,960 --> 01:55:05,600
Speaker 1: just like the pain and suffering doesn't warrant the But

1950
01:55:05,880 --> 01:55:09,640
Speaker 1: for instance, we we've worked on some squirrel removal projects

1951
01:55:09,680 --> 01:55:12,440
Speaker 1: where you've got an invasive and non native species and

1952
01:55:13,040 --> 01:55:17,000
Speaker 1: that's in a place on Mount Graham. We have federally

1953
01:55:17,080 --> 01:55:20,720
Speaker 1: endangered species of red subspecies of red squirrel there and

1954
01:55:21,160 --> 01:55:24,919
Speaker 1: there's introduced abert squirrels, and so we've done some removal

1955
01:55:24,960 --> 01:55:29,840
Speaker 1: studies because because the real conservation goal is let's make

1956
01:55:29,880 --> 01:55:32,800
Speaker 1: sure we still have the native species here. And in

1957
01:55:32,880 --> 01:55:35,960
Speaker 1: that case, you know, we viewed it and so did

1958
01:55:36,440 --> 01:55:39,960
Speaker 1: our Institutional Review Board UM and the state with their

1959
01:55:40,040 --> 01:55:44,240
Speaker 1: permits viewed it as a reasonable trade off this species

1960
01:55:44,320 --> 01:55:47,120
Speaker 1: that wasn't supposed to be here. Um. And so what

1961
01:55:47,200 --> 01:55:51,320
Speaker 1: we've actually done is the state of Arizona increased the

1962
01:55:52,160 --> 01:55:54,920
Speaker 1: length of the season, bag limits, all those things as

1963
01:55:54,960 --> 01:55:57,440
Speaker 1: a way to kind of control that non native species.

1964
01:55:57,520 --> 01:56:00,240
Speaker 1: So I think that you know, in that case, you say, Okay,

1965
01:56:00,320 --> 01:56:03,840
Speaker 1: you know it's a lethal method. We're removing these individuals, um,

1966
01:56:04,080 --> 01:56:06,920
Speaker 1: and they're you know, they're being hunters, are taking them

1967
01:56:07,000 --> 01:56:11,320
Speaker 1: and helping with conversation conservation. Um. In that case, you know,

1968
01:56:11,400 --> 01:56:14,640
Speaker 1: we we thought that that the balance, uh, you know,

1969
01:56:14,760 --> 01:56:19,840
Speaker 1: they're the cost versus benefits warranted. You know, they're doing

1970
01:56:19,920 --> 01:56:22,880
Speaker 1: that kind of lethal removal to try to have an

1971
01:56:22,920 --> 01:56:27,520
Speaker 1: impact on a species that you know might otherwise go extinct.

1972
01:56:29,280 --> 01:56:34,200
Speaker 1: You've written multiple books and like dozens of papers on squirrels, right,

1973
01:56:34,520 --> 01:56:39,400
Speaker 1: I have that, right, hundreds of papers. Okay, okay, So,

1974
01:56:39,600 --> 01:56:43,520
Speaker 1: like I know it's not a secured Olson Award when

1975
01:56:43,640 --> 01:56:48,400
Speaker 1: it kind of I've done my homework here. Do you

1976
01:56:48,760 --> 01:56:53,680
Speaker 1: do you prioritize like studying squirrelds in wild areas or

1977
01:56:53,720 --> 01:56:55,920
Speaker 1: would you do a study in Central Park and be

1978
01:56:56,080 --> 01:57:00,400
Speaker 1: satisfied with the observations. It really depends on what your

1979
01:57:00,480 --> 01:57:03,200
Speaker 1: question is. You know, if you're what you're trying to accomplish.

1980
01:57:03,280 --> 01:57:06,320
Speaker 1: And so, you know, if you wanted to know, uh

1981
01:57:07,040 --> 01:57:09,520
Speaker 1: something like social behaviors and some of the things that

1982
01:57:09,600 --> 01:57:14,160
Speaker 1: we've talked about, being able to observe animals is really critical.

1983
01:57:14,720 --> 01:57:18,440
Speaker 1: And although some of their social structure might change, some

1984
01:57:18,600 --> 01:57:20,640
Speaker 1: of the basics, you know, are they willing to nest

1985
01:57:20,720 --> 01:57:23,920
Speaker 1: with other individuals? Set marking those things are thing that

1986
01:57:24,240 --> 01:57:27,040
Speaker 1: things that would be almost impossible to study with radio

1987
01:57:27,120 --> 01:57:31,280
Speaker 1: telemetry or you know, with with observations in a real

1988
01:57:31,520 --> 01:57:34,800
Speaker 1: natural woodland with you know, lots of different layers to

1989
01:57:34,880 --> 01:57:38,600
Speaker 1: the canopy and uh, you know, it just would be

1990
01:57:38,720 --> 01:57:44,320
Speaker 1: very difficult to see. Uh. But but we can learn

1991
01:57:44,480 --> 01:57:47,200
Speaker 1: a great deal in those kind of open areas. And

1992
01:57:47,320 --> 01:57:51,480
Speaker 1: we can also by comparing the you know, an urban

1993
01:57:51,600 --> 01:57:56,440
Speaker 1: area and urban park land and a more wild natural situation,

1994
01:57:56,560 --> 01:57:59,120
Speaker 1: we can also learn something what might change and how

1995
01:58:00,320 --> 01:58:04,840
Speaker 1: habitat might be influential, how human impacts, you know, might work.

1996
01:58:05,640 --> 01:58:08,640
Speaker 1: Squirrels are just to me, there are a great indicator

1997
01:58:08,800 --> 01:58:11,520
Speaker 1: of change, uh, you know, things that we might not

1998
01:58:11,680 --> 01:58:15,280
Speaker 1: even yet see. Squirrels are able to pick up on

1999
01:58:15,400 --> 01:58:19,880
Speaker 1: those things, and and uh, because they're common enough, we

2000
01:58:19,960 --> 01:58:23,040
Speaker 1: can see changes in density, we can see changes in behavior.

2001
01:58:24,280 --> 01:58:26,680
Speaker 1: I've mentioned a couple of times, things like the size

2002
01:58:26,720 --> 01:58:29,200
Speaker 1: of the home range changes based on the quality of

2003
01:58:29,280 --> 01:58:31,160
Speaker 1: the forest. We go in and we look at a

2004
01:58:31,200 --> 01:58:33,960
Speaker 1: forest and say, yeah, maybe, you know, maybe not enough

2005
01:58:34,080 --> 01:58:37,120
Speaker 1: mature seed producing trees here, but it looks pretty similar

2006
01:58:37,200 --> 01:58:41,959
Speaker 1: structurally to other places. But squirrels, you know, that require

2007
01:58:43,200 --> 01:58:49,400
Speaker 1: enough food energy, enough of those seed producing trees will

2008
01:58:49,560 --> 01:58:52,480
Speaker 1: let us know that there's a problem. You know, beetle kill,

2009
01:58:52,600 --> 01:58:55,360
Speaker 1: huge problem in many of the forests here in the West.

2010
01:58:55,680 --> 01:58:58,920
Speaker 1: By the time we often even notice beetle kill, we've

2011
01:58:58,960 --> 01:59:03,880
Speaker 1: seen squirrel decreases and squirrel numbers in those areas that

2012
01:59:04,200 --> 01:59:07,360
Speaker 1: they're already responding to those changes. So in some ways,

2013
01:59:07,560 --> 01:59:09,960
Speaker 1: you know, a lot like the canary in a coal

2014
01:59:10,040 --> 01:59:12,720
Speaker 1: mine that you know coal miners would take in. Uh,

2015
01:59:13,000 --> 01:59:16,040
Speaker 1: they're kind of an early warning system, and they're common

2016
01:59:16,200 --> 01:59:20,760
Speaker 1: enough that they can that we can learn relatively quickly,

2017
01:59:21,120 --> 01:59:24,240
Speaker 1: and because they don't live that long, they respond pretty quickly.

2018
01:59:24,280 --> 01:59:28,080
Speaker 1: Their numbers respond quickly. You have in your notes that uh,

2019
01:59:28,440 --> 01:59:32,320
Speaker 1: noise can impact them. Yeah. One of the things that

2020
01:59:32,560 --> 01:59:35,480
Speaker 1: we've all been down, you know, dirt roads with lots

2021
01:59:35,520 --> 01:59:39,240
Speaker 1: of red squirrels on each side of the road and thought, ah,

2022
01:59:39,400 --> 01:59:42,040
Speaker 1: you know, not many people go down this this road,

2023
01:59:42,600 --> 01:59:46,000
Speaker 1: probably very little impact. We've actually done some studies where

2024
01:59:46,040 --> 01:59:49,480
Speaker 1: we've mapped the noise in so we we've gone out

2025
01:59:49,520 --> 01:59:52,440
Speaker 1: in the forest with a bunch of noise detectors and mapped,

2026
01:59:52,640 --> 01:59:54,920
Speaker 1: you know, had a map of the amount of noise,

2027
01:59:55,480 --> 01:59:59,720
Speaker 1: and then we've just driven a single truck through there

2028
01:59:59,800 --> 02:00:03,560
Speaker 1: and looked at how that noise level changes and and uh,

2029
02:00:04,040 --> 02:00:08,760
Speaker 1: there's enough of a change that that squirrels can avoid

2030
02:00:08,840 --> 02:00:13,120
Speaker 1: those roads a little bit. And uh, and and red

2031
02:00:13,160 --> 02:00:16,960
Speaker 1: squirrels in particular, they won't build middens near the near roads.

2032
02:00:17,480 --> 02:00:20,440
Speaker 1: And it's not the structure of the forest, it's actually

2033
02:00:20,520 --> 02:00:23,680
Speaker 1: the noise that's there. So they are really sensitive. And

2034
02:00:23,880 --> 02:00:25,720
Speaker 1: I guess you know that makes sense. We're talking about

2035
02:00:25,720 --> 02:00:29,200
Speaker 1: all these vocalizations and if you're trying to listen for

2036
02:00:29,320 --> 02:00:31,480
Speaker 1: predators all the time, you know, you're kind of a

2037
02:00:31,560 --> 02:00:35,320
Speaker 1: bite sized morsel for lots of things. Then you know

2038
02:00:35,640 --> 02:00:40,080
Speaker 1: your ability to uh to detect predators has probably decreased

2039
02:00:40,080 --> 02:00:42,080
Speaker 1: a little bit. So they're they're kind of a good

2040
02:00:43,040 --> 02:00:45,360
Speaker 1: they're a good indicator. You know, if you have the

2041
02:00:45,400 --> 02:00:50,440
Speaker 1: occasional vehicle moving down the road, that's not problematic, you know,

2042
02:00:50,720 --> 02:00:53,160
Speaker 1: but if you've got if you're hitting a point where

2043
02:00:53,200 --> 02:00:56,760
Speaker 1: there's so much traffic now that's going down down these areas,

2044
02:00:57,440 --> 02:01:00,360
Speaker 1: squirrels are kind of an early warning system that, Okay,

2045
02:01:00,560 --> 02:01:03,360
Speaker 1: something's changed, traffic levels are getting a little bit too

2046
02:01:03,480 --> 02:01:05,880
Speaker 1: much here, So you know, maybe we need to to

2047
02:01:06,000 --> 02:01:08,200
Speaker 1: look at how we're using the forest, how we're using

2048
02:01:08,240 --> 02:01:12,640
Speaker 1: those roads. If if you google squirrel expert, your name

2049
02:01:12,720 --> 02:01:18,080
Speaker 1: comes up right, like, that's that's how we's That's what

2050
02:01:18,120 --> 02:01:21,040
Speaker 1: I'm gonna get at here. That's like how we tracked

2051
02:01:21,080 --> 02:01:24,400
Speaker 1: you down right like you are North America regretting that

2052
02:01:24,560 --> 02:01:27,680
Speaker 1: right authority on squirrels. Okay, this this is gonna be

2053
02:01:27,680 --> 02:01:30,040
Speaker 1: an ignorant question, but like, how how does someone like

2054
02:01:30,120 --> 02:01:34,040
Speaker 1: yourself the squirrel expert, end up at Arizona and Wyoming

2055
02:01:34,160 --> 02:01:37,200
Speaker 1: That that seems to me like the nation's elk expert

2056
02:01:37,520 --> 02:01:40,240
Speaker 1: being in Nebraska, or like the white tail expert being

2057
02:01:40,280 --> 02:01:44,240
Speaker 1: in Washington State. It just doesn't really fit in my mind. Uh,

2058
02:01:44,520 --> 02:01:48,560
Speaker 1: And I think many people would say that initially. Uh,

2059
02:01:49,000 --> 02:01:53,160
Speaker 1: But for instance, the greatest diversity of squirrels in the

2060
02:01:53,320 --> 02:01:57,240
Speaker 1: US is in Arizona. So you know, we we've talked

2061
02:01:57,240 --> 02:01:59,800
Speaker 1: about when you think of that kind of basin and

2062
02:02:00,080 --> 02:02:04,080
Speaker 1: range landscape where you've got you know, mountaintops that are

2063
02:02:04,200 --> 02:02:07,040
Speaker 1: forested where you're gonna find squirrels, and then you've got

2064
02:02:07,320 --> 02:02:10,480
Speaker 1: ground squirrels first of all, in the you know, open grasslands,

2065
02:02:10,880 --> 02:02:14,640
Speaker 1: the kind of seas in between the these mountains. Uh.

2066
02:02:15,200 --> 02:02:18,480
Speaker 1: In many places in the West, you may have different

2067
02:02:18,560 --> 02:02:21,160
Speaker 1: species and this is the case in Arizona. When you

2068
02:02:21,400 --> 02:02:25,680
Speaker 1: just move move fifty miles between two different mountains, you've

2069
02:02:25,680 --> 02:02:28,080
Speaker 1: got a couple of different species. You know, they've been

2070
02:02:28,320 --> 02:02:32,000
Speaker 1: most of those mountains in Arizona been isolated since the

2071
02:02:32,080 --> 02:02:35,520
Speaker 1: Ice Age and uh, you know, from a squirrels perspective.

2072
02:02:35,920 --> 02:02:40,280
Speaker 1: So it's just it's really fascinating for diversity Wyoming. Uh,

2073
02:02:40,680 --> 02:02:45,400
Speaker 1: you know, just the the wonderful, wide open kind of

2074
02:02:45,480 --> 02:02:48,400
Speaker 1: wild and working lands that so many of us value

2075
02:02:48,400 --> 02:02:51,600
Speaker 1: about the West. Same here in Montana. Uh. You know,

2076
02:02:51,680 --> 02:02:55,320
Speaker 1: the ability to have species like this that are great

2077
02:02:55,400 --> 02:02:59,600
Speaker 1: indicators of change, ability to go in and you know, uh,

2078
02:03:00,000 --> 02:03:05,200
Speaker 1: really helped manage these these natural areas really really is

2079
02:03:05,240 --> 02:03:08,120
Speaker 1: critical when you have you know, a species like this

2080
02:03:08,320 --> 02:03:11,640
Speaker 1: that can be wonderful indicators, be an early warning system.

2081
02:03:12,080 --> 02:03:14,840
Speaker 1: You know. The opportunity to make a difference here, you know,

2082
02:03:15,080 --> 02:03:18,480
Speaker 1: is is really wonderful. So I've I've enjoyed living in

2083
02:03:18,560 --> 02:03:21,320
Speaker 1: the West and and having moved to the hobb School

2084
02:03:21,400 --> 02:03:24,080
Speaker 1: of Environment and Natural Resources, you know, just in the

2085
02:03:24,160 --> 02:03:27,960
Speaker 1: last few months for exactly that same opportunity to have

2086
02:03:28,040 --> 02:03:30,760
Speaker 1: an impact. And that's why you guys are as much

2087
02:03:30,800 --> 02:03:32,840
Speaker 1: fun as you have in these kinds of shows. You know,

2088
02:03:33,000 --> 02:03:35,320
Speaker 1: you want to make sure that we have these opportunities

2089
02:03:35,920 --> 02:03:38,920
Speaker 1: in the future. And and that's that's the same for me.

2090
02:03:39,120 --> 02:03:41,400
Speaker 1: So that's that's what's brought me here. I can't speak

2091
02:03:41,440 --> 02:03:45,760
Speaker 1: for the elk biologist in Nebraska, though, Clay, what you got?

2092
02:03:45,800 --> 02:03:49,240
Speaker 1: You got your final, final questions, final thoughts. Man. You know,

2093
02:03:49,400 --> 02:03:53,040
Speaker 1: my only question was about squirrel meat. Just real quick.

2094
02:03:53,680 --> 02:03:55,920
Speaker 1: I'm trying to fuel this narrative that we all have

2095
02:03:56,120 --> 02:03:58,560
Speaker 1: that squirrel meat is like rocket fuel and like this

2096
02:03:58,800 --> 02:04:04,520
Speaker 1: great meat. Um, do you have any info on protein

2097
02:04:04,560 --> 02:04:09,520
Speaker 1: and nutrient content and squirrel meat as compared to other meats? No,

2098
02:04:09,760 --> 02:04:14,000
Speaker 1: I don't, Clay. Um, you know it is very tasty. Yeah,

2099
02:04:14,480 --> 02:04:16,880
Speaker 1: you know, I I've enjoyed squirrel but I don't I

2100
02:04:16,960 --> 02:04:22,800
Speaker 1: don't have a comparison. Um. Sorry, yeah, you know, most people,

2101
02:04:22,800 --> 02:04:24,760
Speaker 1: a lot of people have the have kind of a

2102
02:04:24,840 --> 02:04:27,400
Speaker 1: stigma with squirrel meat. You know. I was just thinking,

2103
02:04:27,400 --> 02:04:30,440
Speaker 1: you know, their diet is just so much plants, fruits

2104
02:04:30,480 --> 02:04:33,040
Speaker 1: and nuts. I mean, they're that's a really clean animal.

2105
02:04:33,160 --> 02:04:35,120
Speaker 1: I mean when you skin them and eat them, it's

2106
02:04:35,280 --> 02:04:39,600
Speaker 1: it's it's really a lot of just mental stigma. But well,

2107
02:04:39,720 --> 02:04:41,600
Speaker 1: since you don't have that data, I'm gonna go ahead

2108
02:04:41,600 --> 02:04:43,960
Speaker 1: and just keep telling my story that it's like the

2109
02:04:44,040 --> 02:04:47,240
Speaker 1: most healthy meat in the world. That's all Steve Well

2110
02:04:47,320 --> 02:04:50,320
Speaker 1: I Clay, I will say that. You know, I think

2111
02:04:50,400 --> 02:04:53,400
Speaker 1: I think you're right that that squirrels get a bad rap.

2112
02:04:53,440 --> 02:04:55,680
Speaker 1: It's probably back to the tree rat kinds of things

2113
02:04:55,720 --> 02:04:58,400
Speaker 1: where we started today. Uh. You know, there's a bit

2114
02:04:58,440 --> 02:05:01,760
Speaker 1: of a stigma. But they are they're they're omnivorous, they're

2115
02:05:01,800 --> 02:05:05,680
Speaker 1: eating a variety of different foods. Uh, and so in

2116
02:05:05,840 --> 02:05:08,560
Speaker 1: that sense, you know, they are a good meat. The

2117
02:05:08,640 --> 02:05:11,880
Speaker 1: other thing that I think, you know, from a hunting perspective,

2118
02:05:11,920 --> 02:05:15,080
Speaker 1: it's a great way to get kids involved. Um, you

2119
02:05:15,160 --> 02:05:18,600
Speaker 1: know early it's one of those species they see enough of. Uh,

2120
02:05:18,920 --> 02:05:21,800
Speaker 1: and you know you may not you may not have

2121
02:05:21,960 --> 02:05:24,160
Speaker 1: to have great luck in the day, but you're out,

2122
02:05:24,320 --> 02:05:28,040
Speaker 1: you know, moving through the woods, appreciating the forest. Lots

2123
02:05:28,080 --> 02:05:30,440
Speaker 1: of sign to teach, you know, kids about You can

2124
02:05:30,520 --> 02:05:33,040
Speaker 1: see those, you know, the hull nuts, you can see

2125
02:05:33,160 --> 02:05:36,040
Speaker 1: some of the diggings, you can see these scent marks.

2126
02:05:36,160 --> 02:05:39,240
Speaker 1: It's just a great way to teach, you know, teach

2127
02:05:39,680 --> 02:05:44,080
Speaker 1: folks how to how to really enjoy those natural areas. Okay,

2128
02:05:44,120 --> 02:05:47,200
Speaker 1: what do you got, Yanni, wrap it up. I don't

2129
02:05:47,240 --> 02:05:49,040
Speaker 1: have anything else. I'm just gonna throw to John and

2130
02:05:49,080 --> 02:05:51,480
Speaker 1: see if there's anything that we uh, that you wanted

2131
02:05:51,480 --> 02:05:54,520
Speaker 1: to add that you feel like we missed a big

2132
02:05:54,640 --> 02:05:59,440
Speaker 1: squirrel conversation. I've thoroughly enjoyed this time and and and

2133
02:05:59,640 --> 02:06:03,600
Speaker 1: hope hopefully everyone's learned a little bit about things. Uh,

2134
02:06:03,920 --> 02:06:07,640
Speaker 1: we're filming this on the twenties. We're taping this on

2135
02:06:07,720 --> 02:06:12,120
Speaker 1: the twenty second of January, the day after Squirrel Appreciation Day,

2136
02:06:12,520 --> 02:06:14,280
Speaker 1: so I know it's probably hard for any of you

2137
02:06:14,440 --> 02:06:18,280
Speaker 1: to pull yourself out of bed. And Appreciation Day. That's

2138
02:06:18,320 --> 02:06:22,959
Speaker 1: my brother's birthday, so so it is every year January

2139
02:06:23,040 --> 02:06:27,240
Speaker 1: twenty one. It's it was just designated as Squirrel Appreciation Day.

2140
02:06:27,280 --> 02:06:28,960
Speaker 1: So we're kind of in the high holy days of

2141
02:06:29,040 --> 02:06:33,360
Speaker 1: squirrel biology because I'm very second Groundhog Day coming up.

2142
02:06:33,720 --> 02:06:36,880
Speaker 1: So this is you know, you're lucky that that I

2143
02:06:37,040 --> 02:06:45,920
Speaker 1: was willing to drive here on squirrel appreciation because appreciation day. Appreciate, right,

2144
02:06:46,400 --> 02:06:50,920
Speaker 1: and so I really have appreciated the discussion. But uh,

2145
02:06:51,320 --> 02:06:54,800
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's just, uh, I really feel that

2146
02:06:56,280 --> 02:06:58,880
Speaker 1: that squirrels. We've talked about them, you know, as a

2147
02:06:59,080 --> 02:07:02,200
Speaker 1: as a resource for us to enjoy, uh, you know,

2148
02:07:02,360 --> 02:07:06,120
Speaker 1: as hunters. You've got folks in urban environments like me

2149
02:07:06,280 --> 02:07:08,640
Speaker 1: growing up, really the only mammal that I could, you know,

2150
02:07:08,720 --> 02:07:12,000
Speaker 1: could see and enjoy. You know, their teachers use them

2151
02:07:12,120 --> 02:07:16,480
Speaker 1: for you know, for projects and biology early on, and

2152
02:07:16,560 --> 02:07:20,320
Speaker 1: then their their indicator species of you know, of forest change.

2153
02:07:20,520 --> 02:07:25,080
Speaker 1: So to me, I really appreciate. You know, anyone can

2154
02:07:25,120 --> 02:07:28,080
Speaker 1: appreciate the beauty of an elk moving across you know,

2155
02:07:29,040 --> 02:07:34,800
Speaker 1: a meadow, but to have the finer level of apprecia,

2156
02:07:35,920 --> 02:07:38,440
Speaker 1: it takes that special level of appreciation. How does someone

2157
02:07:38,480 --> 02:07:43,000
Speaker 1: find your books on squirrels? Uh, They're they're all on Amazon. Uh,

2158
02:07:43,840 --> 02:07:47,600
Speaker 1: you've got Squirrels of the World. Is the is the

2159
02:07:47,760 --> 02:07:50,360
Speaker 1: one that we uh that we're most proud of and

2160
02:07:50,400 --> 02:07:53,080
Speaker 1: we're working on a new new edition of that. North

2161
02:07:53,120 --> 02:07:56,880
Speaker 1: American Tree Squirrels. Uh, there's a book on the College

2162
02:07:56,880 --> 02:07:59,480
Speaker 1: of Endangerment in Mount Crme Red Squirrels, and and most

2163
02:07:59,560 --> 02:08:02,720
Speaker 1: recently the book I shared with you is um International

2164
02:08:02,800 --> 02:08:06,160
Speaker 1: Wildlife Management that looks at things broadly, but there are

2165
02:08:06,160 --> 02:08:09,120
Speaker 1: a few squirrel mentions in there. I wouldn't mind getting

2166
02:08:09,120 --> 02:08:12,120
Speaker 1: me a signed copy of North American Tree Squirrels. We

2167
02:08:12,200 --> 02:08:15,320
Speaker 1: can make that happen. I just read that book, but

2168
02:08:15,360 --> 02:08:17,240
Speaker 1: I need to read that one. You think hunters can

2169
02:08:17,360 --> 02:08:21,040
Speaker 1: learn something from your squirrel books most definitely. I think

2170
02:08:21,080 --> 02:08:23,160
Speaker 1: Squirrels of the World is kind of a compendium that

2171
02:08:23,240 --> 02:08:26,520
Speaker 1: shows everything from chipmunks. So when we talked, we've talked

2172
02:08:26,600 --> 02:08:29,560
Speaker 1: mostly about tree squirrels, but you've got flying squirrels, which

2173
02:08:29,600 --> 02:08:35,400
Speaker 1: are mostly nocturnal. You've got prairie dogs, you know, groundhogs, marmots, chipmunks,

2174
02:08:35,880 --> 02:08:38,600
Speaker 1: all of those things are are squirrels as well. That

2175
02:08:38,880 --> 02:08:41,760
Speaker 1: covers all of them. North American tree Squirrels a lot

2176
02:08:41,840 --> 02:08:44,960
Speaker 1: of these uh topics we've talked about. One of the

2177
02:08:45,000 --> 02:08:47,920
Speaker 1: great things about writing a book like that is those

2178
02:08:48,000 --> 02:08:50,400
Speaker 1: few those observations where you only have a couple of

2179
02:08:51,120 --> 02:08:53,480
Speaker 1: cases of them, you can weave them into a book

2180
02:08:53,680 --> 02:08:56,360
Speaker 1: more than you get a scientific publication out of it.

2181
02:08:56,480 --> 02:09:00,400
Speaker 1: So North American Tree Squirrels has has a bunch of

2182
02:09:00,440 --> 02:09:03,440
Speaker 1: these kinds of things. Talks a lot about the scent

2183
02:09:03,520 --> 02:09:07,800
Speaker 1: marking sites and nesting behavior, social behavior. So it would

2184
02:09:07,840 --> 02:09:10,160
Speaker 1: be a good one to to learn a learn a

2185
02:09:10,200 --> 02:09:16,400
Speaker 1: fair amount from. All right, John, once again, John, lad

2186
02:09:16,640 --> 02:09:19,600
Speaker 1: you do the last name Kaprowski. That's not that, all right,

2187
02:09:19,960 --> 02:09:25,480
Speaker 1: John led Kaprowski, Dean and Wyoming Excellence Chair at the

2188
02:09:25,600 --> 02:09:31,400
Speaker 1: Hobb School of Environment and Natural Resources, and a squirrel man.

2189
02:09:33,080 --> 02:09:36,160
Speaker 1: I'm proud of all of this. Doctor. Thank you for

2190
02:09:36,800 --> 02:09:39,680
Speaker 1: doctor squirrel. Thank you very much for coming on. This

2191
02:09:39,800 --> 02:09:42,880
Speaker 1: is great. You answered a million questions for us. Uh

2192
02:09:43,160 --> 02:09:45,640
Speaker 1: thoroughly enjoyed it. Thanks. You know, hardly anyone wants to

2193
02:09:45,640 --> 02:09:47,600
Speaker 1: talk about squirrel, so when you have the chance, you

2194
02:09:47,640 --> 02:09:51,080
Speaker 1: guys are lucky. I'm not staying an extra day. I Uh,

2195
02:09:51,840 --> 02:09:54,320
Speaker 1: it's great. It answered a lot of lifelong questions. I'll

2196
02:09:54,400 --> 02:09:57,160
Speaker 1: look at him, um differently now and I can tell

2197
02:09:57,200 --> 02:10:02,160
Speaker 1: you that, um, I am going to start trying to

2198
02:10:02,280 --> 02:10:05,840
Speaker 1: find some of those uh, those buck rubs those squirrel rubs,

2199
02:10:05,920 --> 02:10:08,080
Speaker 1: which is fascinating. I can't believe I didn't know about it.

2200
02:10:09,080 --> 02:10:11,520
Speaker 1: So if you find some, send me some pictures everyone

2201
02:10:11,560 --> 02:10:14,520
Speaker 1: out there, of your buck rubs squirrel rubs. All right,

2202
02:10:14,560 --> 02:10:16,880
Speaker 1: thanks a lot, Thanks Sean, thank you,