WEBVTT - Ep. 259: The Squirrel Doctor Is In 0:00:08.960 --> 0:00:13.320 This is me Eater podcast coming at you shirtless, severely 0:00:13.440 --> 0:00:18.360 bug bitten in my case underwear listening Hunt podcast, you 0:00:18.360 --> 0:00:22.600 can't predict anything presented by on X. Hunt creators are 0:00:22.600 --> 0:00:26.160 the most comprehensive digital mapping system for hunters. Download the 0:00:26.239 --> 0:00:29.440 Hunt app from the iTunes or Google play store. Nor 0:00:29.440 --> 0:00:36.720 where you stand with on X. All right, Everyboddy, this 0:00:36.800 --> 0:00:40.000 is the most special podcast episode we've ever had. That's 0:00:40.040 --> 0:00:44.839 because we're joined by John lad Is your middle name right, correct? 0:00:45.159 --> 0:00:49.199 John lads Kaprowski Kaprowski, you got it? Who has a 0:00:49.320 --> 0:00:54.160 genuine PhD in squirrels? More specifically, what would you say? 0:00:55.200 --> 0:00:59.800 I a wildlife conservation biologist, but I happened to work 0:00:59.840 --> 0:01:04.759 on squirrels. I appreciate the finer aspects of life, the smaller, 0:01:04.959 --> 0:01:08.040 less obvious things. Um. I gotta ask you this right 0:01:08.040 --> 0:01:11.040 off the bat, though, before we get into Clay as uh, 0:01:11.160 --> 0:01:15.280 Clay Newcom has a squirrel baculum pecker bone, which we'll 0:01:15.280 --> 0:01:18.959 get into in a minute. But um uh why school? Like, 0:01:19.000 --> 0:01:20.840 did you know when you were when you were a 0:01:20.840 --> 0:01:23.520 little boy and people said when your friends like I'm 0:01:23.520 --> 0:01:25.920 gonna be a fireman, You're like, I'm gonna be a 0:01:25.920 --> 0:01:31.240 squirrel expert. First it was center fielder for the Cleveland Indians. 0:01:31.400 --> 0:01:35.440 And while that seems outlandish, the Indians were so bad 0:01:35.480 --> 0:01:39.520 when I was young, there was a recentable chance there. 0:01:39.920 --> 0:01:41.679 But soon after that I knew I had to do 0:01:41.760 --> 0:01:44.760 something with wildlife. And I grew up on the west 0:01:44.800 --> 0:01:48.520 side of Cleveland, and you had pigeons, robins, you know, 0:01:48.720 --> 0:01:52.000 Norway rats and squirrels and so it was like a 0:01:52.000 --> 0:01:56.080 wildlife deprived area. Yep. And it was my connection and 0:01:56.400 --> 0:02:00.400 my father. I grew up fishing. My father or love 0:02:00.480 --> 0:02:03.000 to fish. I like to fish. We'd go out at 0:02:03.040 --> 0:02:06.280 four in the morning. I'd fish untill about two. Then 0:02:06.400 --> 0:02:09.280 Dad would drop me off on the uh drop me 0:02:09.320 --> 0:02:13.840 off on the shore. I'd walk it looking for for squirrels, 0:02:13.880 --> 0:02:19.040 for turtles, anything that I could and uh. So that 0:02:19.160 --> 0:02:22.560 was my It was my connection when I came home 0:02:22.680 --> 0:02:24.560 to be able to look out the window and see something. 0:02:24.639 --> 0:02:27.920 So I sat out in the garage live trapping squirrels 0:02:28.320 --> 0:02:32.079 from a young age and then painting their sides or something. 0:02:32.840 --> 0:02:34.239 We got into that and we were little kids for 0:02:34.240 --> 0:02:35.679 a while. We try to be like our own mark 0:02:35.760 --> 0:02:41.560 and recapt Yeah, that's exactly what we do. Oh yeah, 0:02:41.600 --> 0:02:43.440 if you if you went to my mom's house right 0:02:43.520 --> 0:02:46.240 now and went into her garage and went where they 0:02:46.280 --> 0:02:49.519 have a heart traps are sitting on a shelf, you 0:02:49.560 --> 0:02:52.640 would see that they're slathered in red paint from us 0:02:52.680 --> 0:02:56.040 trying to take a paint brush and uh do mark 0:02:56.120 --> 0:02:59.440 and recapture projects on chipmunks our squirrels. Easy to have 0:02:59.520 --> 0:03:03.919 tool to fool with the trap. Oh well, no, we 0:03:03.960 --> 0:03:06.560 would just do chipmunks. We had the chipmunks aze have hearts, 0:03:07.240 --> 0:03:08.840 and we didn't put too much effort into it. We 0:03:08.880 --> 0:03:10.200 thought it'd be cool if you could paint it and 0:03:10.280 --> 0:03:11.880 see him running around the yard and be like, oh, 0:03:11.919 --> 0:03:15.480 that's the one. You know why had that same childhood experience. 0:03:15.560 --> 0:03:18.639 We would catch them in have a Hearts and then 0:03:19.000 --> 0:03:21.800 squirt whatever I could on him. And then the neighbors 0:03:21.840 --> 0:03:25.840 started complaining about the green squirrel the red squirrel, and 0:03:25.919 --> 0:03:28.320 so Mom and Dad weren't too thrilled about that part 0:03:28.360 --> 0:03:31.760 of it. But then I went to went to university 0:03:31.840 --> 0:03:36.000 Ohio State University, and I was like, oh, I can't 0:03:36.000 --> 0:03:39.120 wait to work on mountain lions or you know, elk 0:03:39.240 --> 0:03:42.680 or something something cool. And when I go forward and 0:03:43.120 --> 0:03:46.560 I started my master's and got a call from a 0:03:46.560 --> 0:03:50.000 professor said, hey, I got this great squirrel project. Like okay, 0:03:50.000 --> 0:03:52.920 but my next degree, I'm working on polar bears or 0:03:53.080 --> 0:03:57.040 wilds or something. And I worked on squirrels again University 0:03:57.040 --> 0:04:00.360 of Kansas, and then now I'm working on bunch of 0:04:00.360 --> 0:04:02.920 those other things. But they're just such a good way 0:04:03.000 --> 0:04:07.400 for people to connect, you know, to conservation, to value. Uh, 0:04:07.600 --> 0:04:10.280 you know, value the kinds of places we value. And 0:04:10.320 --> 0:04:13.120 they tell us a lot about the quality of a forest, 0:04:13.560 --> 0:04:16.440 you know, how severe a fire was, all those things. Yep, 0:04:16.520 --> 0:04:19.040 they're just great indicators. I want to hit you up 0:04:19.080 --> 0:04:23.520 with some a couple of squirrel myth questions. Go for it. Well, no, 0:04:23.600 --> 0:04:25.520 not yet, except we went to talk about Clay's little 0:04:25.640 --> 0:04:28.720 clays back and go ahead, Clay, show show him your deal. There. 0:04:29.320 --> 0:04:36.880 I'm gonna narrate because actually his back all right. Ah. 0:04:36.960 --> 0:04:42.520 I was actually unaware that that squirrels had a a 0:04:42.960 --> 0:04:47.560 a vaculum, a bone penis. Uh. The other day I 0:04:47.640 --> 0:04:50.400 pulled this one out and and they do, and most 0:04:50.560 --> 0:04:53.680 a whole lot of placentals send to mammals have them. 0:04:53.720 --> 0:04:56.480 And it's I just measured at Steve. It's exactly a 0:04:56.520 --> 0:05:01.719 half inch. And this is a just a andered gray squirrel. 0:05:02.040 --> 0:05:04.920 He appeared to me to be of average age and maturity. 0:05:05.120 --> 0:05:07.479 So he's gotta he's got a he's a that that 0:05:07.520 --> 0:05:12.360 squirrels what a pound and a half john two pounds okay, 0:05:12.440 --> 0:05:15.800 so he's got a hat. So that's an inch per 0:05:15.839 --> 0:05:26.000 every four pounds generously, which goodness. But but described to 0:05:26.040 --> 0:05:30.680 people what you're like the because you know people at 0:05:30.680 --> 0:05:32.320 home was the driving to work right now. I can't 0:05:32.320 --> 0:05:35.040 tell what the hell you're holding, Uh, describe what you're holding. 0:05:36.600 --> 0:05:39.080 You know, if you saw this bone on the ground, 0:05:39.200 --> 0:05:42.560 let's say, you know, you found a just a bone 0:05:42.640 --> 0:05:45.080 pile and it was a squirrel it was the bone 0:05:45.080 --> 0:05:50.000 would be totally indiscernible in any recognizable shape. It just 0:05:50.640 --> 0:05:55.200 it's kind of it's about as small as a a 0:05:55.240 --> 0:05:58.640 pencil lead and a number two pencil. The thickness of that. 0:05:58.720 --> 0:06:03.480 It's a half inch long. The tip of the baculum 0:06:03.520 --> 0:06:07.599 flares out, which is pretty typical of all these vacula 0:06:08.080 --> 0:06:11.280 of bears of coons that kind of flares out at 0:06:11.279 --> 0:06:14.920 the end and towards the backside. It's kind of it 0:06:15.080 --> 0:06:18.599 kind of is bulbous slightly, you know, kind of kind 0:06:18.600 --> 0:06:21.279 of widen think at the back, almost like a baseball bat, 0:06:21.839 --> 0:06:28.719 that it would be a good baseball bat. Yeah, yeah, 0:06:29.200 --> 0:06:32.320 before he wanted to be a squirrel ball. Yeah. So anyway, 0:06:32.440 --> 0:06:36.800 just a little indiscernible bone. Uh, how John are you? 0:06:36.800 --> 0:06:39.400 Are you? How schooled are you on like physiology and whatnot? 0:06:40.080 --> 0:06:43.840 I'm happy to go there. And I really loved Clay's 0:06:44.279 --> 0:06:47.080 description there. I thought you were just gonna stop. It's 0:06:47.120 --> 0:06:50.440 just this little bone, but all those those components that 0:06:50.440 --> 0:06:54.039 you talked about are are are what make that that 0:06:54.080 --> 0:06:56.560 bone function. Another name for it is the os penis, 0:06:56.600 --> 0:07:01.320 the penis bone literally. Um, and so Clay, could you 0:07:01.400 --> 0:07:04.360 take a look and does it look a little twisted? 0:07:04.440 --> 0:07:07.080 Usually they're also a little kind of corkscrewy if you 0:07:07.400 --> 0:07:10.800 if you look at there, reminds me a Limerick I 0:07:10.880 --> 0:07:16.560 used to know. It's this one, uh just a bit, 0:07:16.600 --> 0:07:19.880 I think for gray squirrels. This one still has a 0:07:19.880 --> 0:07:22.240 little bit of This one's pretty fresh, so it's not 0:07:22.600 --> 0:07:25.400 I don't have it clean totally. It appears to have 0:07:25.600 --> 0:07:30.080 almost like a thread towards the end. It looks like 0:07:30.120 --> 0:07:32.800 a yeah, kind of like a corkscrew. Yeah, I see 0:07:32.840 --> 0:07:36.600 one kind of rib, you got it. That's uh. So 0:07:37.600 --> 0:07:43.679 these are used as part of the squirrel reproductive mating system. Uh. 0:07:44.160 --> 0:07:49.080 Males form copulatory plugs, so when they copulate with a female, 0:07:49.640 --> 0:07:55.040 they they're the seaman hardens into a plug that tries 0:07:55.080 --> 0:07:59.920 to guarantee them their paternity. And I don't understand that, 0:08:01.040 --> 0:08:06.080 so that when uh once when you have a copulation 0:08:06.160 --> 0:08:10.760 with the female, within just a few seconds, the semen 0:08:11.600 --> 0:08:15.280 actually hardens into a waxy plug in the reproductive track 0:08:15.440 --> 0:08:21.800 and blocks other males from uh from breeding. And so 0:08:22.200 --> 0:08:25.840 the corkscrew shape that that kind of bulb his head 0:08:25.840 --> 0:08:29.960 that you talked about, that actually helps remove the copulatory 0:08:30.040 --> 0:08:35.160 plug of the previous mail. And so it's just kind 0:08:35.160 --> 0:08:38.480 of amazing detail in that if you pick one bone 0:08:39.160 --> 0:08:42.760 in a squirrel, the vaculum is probably the place to go, Clay. 0:08:43.000 --> 0:08:45.720 You just you just see that whole mating system laid 0:08:45.720 --> 0:08:49.040 out right there. Rodents do that or is that exclusive 0:08:49.040 --> 0:08:54.760 to them? All rodents have some form of a vaculum, 0:08:55.240 --> 0:08:59.720 but the plug part of the plug. Uh, it's not 0:08:59.800 --> 0:09:02.320 some thing that everyone's looked at in all rodents, but 0:09:03.040 --> 0:09:06.000 I think for all that where it's been studied, well, 0:09:06.080 --> 0:09:10.080 most um where it's been studied. H they're they've been demonstrated. 0:09:10.360 --> 0:09:13.880 Like red squirrels, there's not really good evidence that the 0:09:13.920 --> 0:09:16.160 red squirrel you find around here, there's not really good 0:09:16.160 --> 0:09:18.760 evidence that they form a copulatory plug. But like the 0:09:18.800 --> 0:09:22.400 whole squirrel family, most of the rats and mice do 0:09:22.480 --> 0:09:25.400 it as well. I hate the fact that a squirrel 0:09:25.440 --> 0:09:28.040 has to be lumped in with a rat and a 0:09:28.080 --> 0:09:30.880 mouse and you call it a a rodent. I always think 0:09:30.920 --> 0:09:34.200 about that with beavers, man Like, it bums me out 0:09:34.240 --> 0:09:37.400 that beavers are a rodent. Yeah, too cool to be 0:09:37.440 --> 0:09:42.760 a rodent. Yeah, yeah, but that's a scientific term rodent. Yeah. Yeah, 0:09:42.800 --> 0:09:46.120 it's a whole order. So it's everything with those kind 0:09:46.160 --> 0:09:49.200 of you know, gnawing teeth. For the most part, rabbits 0:09:49.200 --> 0:09:53.640 are a whole different order, but somewhat closely related. And 0:09:54.040 --> 0:10:02.280 so rodents include beaver, muskrat, all the voles and field mice, rats, 0:10:03.000 --> 0:10:08.240 all of those things. The cappy barra cappy bar or 0:10:09.520 --> 0:10:14.920 you got it, chinchilla, chinchilla roding chinchilla are yes. I 0:10:15.000 --> 0:10:18.680 was just gonna say, going back to the the semen 0:10:18.760 --> 0:10:23.840 plug and then the corkscrew bacula. It's it seems counterproductive 0:10:23.920 --> 0:10:27.040 because if the semen plug is designed to keep other 0:10:27.120 --> 0:10:32.400 males from you know, actually breeding a female successfully, but 0:10:32.480 --> 0:10:37.120 then you've got an anatomical feature that defeats the semen plug, 0:10:38.040 --> 0:10:41.800 then it seems like you might as well, Like from 0:10:40.840 --> 0:10:45.720 adaptive standpoint of a squirrel, it doesn't do any good 0:10:45.760 --> 0:10:47.840 to have a semen plug or a corkscrew. Do you 0:10:47.840 --> 0:10:50.520 see what I'm saying. It's an arms race man, and 0:10:50.600 --> 0:10:53.760 that's it. Yeah, survival of the fittest. Yeah, they've got 0:10:53.760 --> 0:10:56.559 this feature, but then they've got another feature that defeats 0:10:56.600 --> 0:10:59.280 the first feature. Yeah, but what it pushes toward is 0:10:59.320 --> 0:11:04.640 that you would develop a really like that your plug 0:11:05.080 --> 0:11:07.720 is the best plug on the in the in the field, 0:11:08.160 --> 0:11:13.600 and your extractor is like a phenomenal extractor. So you're like, 0:11:13.800 --> 0:11:15.760 I don't care if you could he if he plugged it. 0:11:15.840 --> 0:11:18.840 I'm gonna I got the best unplugger and then I'm 0:11:18.840 --> 0:11:22.200 gonna throw something in there that no one will unplugged. Yeah. Yeah. 0:11:22.200 --> 0:11:25.240 I once I asked an ecologists like, is there such 0:11:25.320 --> 0:11:28.120 thing as the evolution like to go backwards? And like, 0:11:28.160 --> 0:11:31.080 well no, because if it goes backwards, it's for a reason. 0:11:31.200 --> 0:11:34.600 It's just evolving more despite it like losing some trade 0:11:34.679 --> 0:11:38.040 or something. That's still evolution. It's not the evolution by 0:11:38.040 --> 0:11:45.079 going backwards, it's still going forwards. Yeah, I yeah, sure, 0:11:48.000 --> 0:11:52.920 that's John Well. And so that's this is an incredible 0:11:53.240 --> 0:11:56.120 opportunity where you can just kind of see this battle. Right, 0:11:56.160 --> 0:12:00.000 so you say, all right, we need more squirrels. Uh, 0:11:59.800 --> 0:12:02.360 you know, it doesn't really matter who is the one 0:12:02.400 --> 0:12:06.320 that breeds, who's the most successful, but in this case, 0:12:06.440 --> 0:12:08.760 you just see that battle played out. Right. You talked 0:12:08.800 --> 0:12:12.640 about plug characteristics. You know how much sperm is in 0:12:12.679 --> 0:12:17.000 the um, you know, is it is transfer transferred during 0:12:17.040 --> 0:12:21.240 that copulation and then this removal tool that helps you 0:12:21.320 --> 0:12:24.520 be successful. And the other thing is it's not just 0:12:24.679 --> 0:12:27.840 the males where this is happening. There are multiple males 0:12:27.840 --> 0:12:30.160 that mate with a female. You've probably seen one of 0:12:30.160 --> 0:12:34.720 these squirrel mating bouts where um, usually the females only 0:12:34.760 --> 0:12:38.720 in heat for a short time on a single day, 0:12:38.920 --> 0:12:41.400 usually just like six or eight hours, so you'll get 0:12:41.480 --> 0:12:46.679 really yep and you'll get eight or ten females. I've 0:12:46.679 --> 0:12:50.080 seen as many as males chasing a female. I've seen 0:12:50.080 --> 0:12:54.640 as many as forty five Eastern gray squirrels like the species. Uh, 0:12:55.080 --> 0:12:59.199 Clay was just talking about males chasing one in heat 0:12:59.240 --> 0:13:03.200 female for six hours yep. And for the female that's 0:13:03.240 --> 0:13:06.680 the one time time she gets to mate. So typically 0:13:07.000 --> 0:13:09.160 it's to her advantage to mate with a number of 0:13:09.160 --> 0:13:14.080 males and rodents. And so after a copulation, the female 0:13:14.120 --> 0:13:18.680 actually will remove the copulatory plug if it isn't um 0:13:18.760 --> 0:13:21.520 embedded far enough in a reproductive track, and then she'll 0:13:21.520 --> 0:13:24.400 mate with the next mail um you know that's able 0:13:24.440 --> 0:13:27.839 to gain out? How does it? She just reaches down 0:13:28.120 --> 0:13:31.080 and with her teeth pulls it out. So you know, 0:13:31.200 --> 0:13:34.600 rodents have those two two big upper incisors, two big 0:13:34.600 --> 0:13:37.800 lower incisors, like presumably she can feel that it's seeded 0:13:37.800 --> 0:13:40.520 properly or like not where it needs to be. So 0:13:40.679 --> 0:13:43.880 every time she mates, she'll actually groom herself and the 0:13:43.880 --> 0:13:47.559 male will groom himself as well, and then uh, there's 0:13:47.760 --> 0:13:50.960 there's a few minute period before she'll be receptive again, 0:13:51.360 --> 0:13:54.640 and during that time males are all attacking each other 0:13:54.720 --> 0:13:58.679 trying to gain access to the female. And then during 0:13:58.840 --> 0:14:01.880 that grooming, if it's if there's any plug sticking out, 0:14:01.920 --> 0:14:05.200 she'll she'll pull it out and throw it to the 0:14:05.200 --> 0:14:08.360 ground sometimes even eat it. There's a lot of It's 0:14:08.400 --> 0:14:11.360 a massive kind of waxy plug of protein. How do 0:14:12.040 --> 0:14:15.559 how does a male win about? Like does a female 0:14:15.600 --> 0:14:18.559 then select one? Or like what is what is the 0:14:18.600 --> 0:14:22.560 winning process? Like? So there's varies a little bit between 0:14:22.640 --> 0:14:27.520 different species um in, but it's typically based on size 0:14:27.840 --> 0:14:33.000 and just the ability to continue to track the female. Uh. 0:14:33.240 --> 0:14:35.360 Males can figure out that a female is going to 0:14:35.400 --> 0:14:39.040 be in heat about five days in advance, and so 0:14:39.440 --> 0:14:42.480 they start during the breeding season, males are just roaming 0:14:42.520 --> 0:14:45.760 around figuring out kind of the timing of when some 0:14:45.880 --> 0:14:49.240 of their female neighbors are going to are going to 0:14:49.280 --> 0:14:54.160 be receptive. And then before sunrise they're out there waiting 0:14:54.200 --> 0:14:58.440 for the for the female outside outside her nest yep, 0:14:58.920 --> 0:15:02.680 and you'll get dozens sometimes, you know, lined up and 0:15:02.720 --> 0:15:05.360 they're fighting each other. Where where were you though? You 0:15:05.400 --> 0:15:09.360 had forty five males? Like where were you? There's gray 0:15:09.400 --> 0:15:11.680 squirrels in one like Steve and I are going to 0:15:11.760 --> 0:15:15.600 go home there. I'm not telling you that's my secret 0:15:15.640 --> 0:15:19.840 spot is a park or there's just no predators around. Yeah. 0:15:19.920 --> 0:15:22.520 So this was in Lawrence, Kansas, where I was doing 0:15:22.560 --> 0:15:26.480 my PhD, and so kind of open park land, pretty 0:15:26.560 --> 0:15:31.480 high density of animals, and it was the other part 0:15:31.520 --> 0:15:34.160 of this is during the breeding season, when mails start 0:15:34.520 --> 0:15:38.200 picking up that faint scent of a female that's coming 0:15:38.200 --> 0:15:42.440 close to being in heat, they really expand their range. 0:15:42.480 --> 0:15:46.160 And so for those five days they're they're roaming farther 0:15:46.240 --> 0:15:49.120 than they ever moved the rest of the year. The 0:15:49.160 --> 0:15:51.200 rest the rest of the year, they're in just a 0:15:51.200 --> 0:15:55.040 couple couple acres of their home range, but during this 0:15:55.120 --> 0:15:58.480 time they'll expand it five to ten times. And so 0:15:58.520 --> 0:16:02.080 they're trying to find mates and you know, be successful 0:16:02.120 --> 0:16:04.360 in the survival of the Fittest battle that we were 0:16:04.400 --> 0:16:07.760 just talking about by just finding as many females that 0:16:07.840 --> 0:16:10.840 might be in in heat. So they come We've had 0:16:10.880 --> 0:16:16.520 males move uh, three or four miles during to find 0:16:16.560 --> 0:16:20.320 a receptive female. So they are coming in from everywhere. 0:16:20.360 --> 0:16:22.720 So you get forty five coming in from you know, 0:16:22.800 --> 0:16:25.840 say a square mile or two. You've seen where one 0:16:25.920 --> 0:16:30.560 squirrel has moved how many miles three to five miles 0:16:30.960 --> 0:16:34.440 from his home during a mating chase. I've seen a 0:16:34.480 --> 0:16:37.960 move about about three miles. I've actually this is how 0:16:38.000 --> 0:16:40.920 how lonely I am. Guys um during my PhD, I 0:16:40.960 --> 0:16:43.880 would go out in the morning and follow male squirrels 0:16:43.880 --> 0:16:46.160 and see how far they went. And well, you know 0:16:46.200 --> 0:16:49.200 you weren't just spooking them along, so well at a 0:16:49.240 --> 0:16:53.760 great distance, and do I look scary? I'm a good dude. 0:16:54.160 --> 0:16:57.880 You're following him with some sort of tell him that 0:16:57.920 --> 0:16:59.880 try or this was the old fashioned way. It was 0:16:59.880 --> 0:17:04.640 an open park land, so I was just a little 0:17:04.680 --> 0:17:08.760 bit well like big oak and hickory forest. But because 0:17:08.800 --> 0:17:13.040 it was in in a small town Lawrence, Kansas, you know, 0:17:13.160 --> 0:17:16.280 mode grass, you know, some some houses even in that 0:17:16.359 --> 0:17:18.199 kind of thing. And then the whole campus, which is 0:17:18.240 --> 0:17:19.919 so just take a pair of binoculars and keep an 0:17:19.920 --> 0:17:22.800 eye on them. Ye stayed at a distance, followed them 0:17:22.800 --> 0:17:27.320 around and and uh figured out how much time you puts. 0:17:28.600 --> 0:17:30.600 It used to be much better shape back then, following 0:17:30.640 --> 0:17:33.760 squirrels three miles. One of my questions was is there 0:17:33.800 --> 0:17:36.040 such a thing as a rut tree? And I think 0:17:36.119 --> 0:17:38.439 you've pretty much answered it. When we roll, when we 0:17:38.520 --> 0:17:40.800 sometimes find like a tree where you like, you shoot 0:17:40.880 --> 0:17:44.439 one and then alone and behold ten squirrels start, you know, jumping. 0:17:44.680 --> 0:17:46.920 He talks about finding a rut tree. Yeah, but so 0:17:47.600 --> 0:17:51.119 it's one female and nine males and they're just all 0:17:51.119 --> 0:17:53.080 working that But it's just that they happened to be 0:17:53.160 --> 0:17:55.919 in that tree, like that tree could move, not the 0:17:55.920 --> 0:17:58.680 tree doesn't move, but I mean you just happened to 0:17:58.720 --> 0:18:00.959 catch it where it's occurring in that tree. But it's 0:18:01.000 --> 0:18:02.800 likely to drift to the next tree, to the next tree. 0:18:02.880 --> 0:18:05.199 And so it's part of that uh spencer you were 0:18:05.200 --> 0:18:08.960 asking about what makes him successful. The female doesn't. She's 0:18:09.000 --> 0:18:12.080 moving around too. She's trying to feed that day and 0:18:12.080 --> 0:18:15.280 and and so she's moving out there in the forest. 0:18:15.800 --> 0:18:18.959 And if the males get they're all fighting, and that 0:18:19.080 --> 0:18:22.000 level of aggression, they're really hyped up, and they'll attack 0:18:22.080 --> 0:18:24.440 each other. Another male tries to mate with the female, 0:18:25.200 --> 0:18:27.840 males will try to interrupt it, and so it's risky 0:18:27.920 --> 0:18:30.680 for her. And you know the male that's the one 0:18:30.840 --> 0:18:33.040 that's the one day they have to you know, they 0:18:33.080 --> 0:18:36.080 have to be successful. The female has to raise that 0:18:36.160 --> 0:18:39.879 litter now for the next few months, and so she'll 0:18:39.880 --> 0:18:42.040 hold up in a cavity, you know, going one of 0:18:42.080 --> 0:18:44.919 these what we call leafness or dres is kind of balls. 0:18:45.200 --> 0:18:49.760 Was the word dre clay nuke. Have you ever heard 0:18:49.800 --> 0:18:54.119 that word dre. I've seen it in the literature. I 0:18:54.119 --> 0:18:57.000 would not have used that word, but I've seen it written. Dude, 0:18:57.000 --> 0:18:59.320 I'm gonna start using that word big time. Man. How's 0:18:59.359 --> 0:19:03.160 it spelled? Well, it depends if you're if you're British, 0:19:03.200 --> 0:19:05.920 you spell it d R E y or d R 0:19:06.000 --> 0:19:10.080 A y. Uh. And so yeah, if you if you 0:19:10.160 --> 0:19:14.480 really want to speak that you know speaks PhD and 0:19:14.560 --> 0:19:17.000 s stuff. And I'm gonna be Dr. Trey has to 0:19:17.040 --> 0:19:21.240 be sweet, man. Do red squirrels participate in gray squirrel 0:19:21.880 --> 0:19:27.399 bouts and vice versa? No, it's just a single species, uh, 0:19:27.480 --> 0:19:31.639 and so there, but there is some confusion that can occur, 0:19:32.240 --> 0:19:35.360 and so I did. I've worked in areas where fox 0:19:35.359 --> 0:19:39.080 squirrels and gray squirrels both occurred, and you would in 0:19:39.280 --> 0:19:43.200 that case where there are forty five Eastern gray squirrels, 0:19:43.680 --> 0:19:45.960 there were a couple of fox squirrels that were attracted 0:19:45.960 --> 0:19:49.320 by the noise, maybe like vaguely the scent, but they 0:19:49.400 --> 0:19:53.240 never really participated. You know. There there's enough difference between 0:19:53.280 --> 0:19:56.320 the species that you know, it doesn't seem to get there. 0:19:56.400 --> 0:19:59.880 And red squirrels are even more kind of taxonomically distant 0:20:00.040 --> 0:20:04.080 from fox squirrels and gray squirrels, so they're never seen 0:20:04.119 --> 0:20:07.680 any overlap there. Do you, um, have you heard? I 0:20:07.680 --> 0:20:10.200 think we might have asked you about this? Have you heard? 0:20:10.960 --> 0:20:13.560 Are you familiar with the theory that or the idea 0:20:13.600 --> 0:20:16.080 that people put out there that when males are competing 0:20:16.520 --> 0:20:19.000 they'll actually try to harm, that they'll like bite the 0:20:19.000 --> 0:20:22.159 testicles of another male. I like, are you familiar with 0:20:22.160 --> 0:20:24.280 this being an idea that people throw out there? I 0:20:24.359 --> 0:20:27.600 hear this all the time. And who from? Uh, well 0:20:27.680 --> 0:20:32.240 from you from St. John is the person I interviewed 0:20:32.240 --> 0:20:34.679 for the article. He was one of my tea. I 0:20:34.680 --> 0:20:38.520 don't trust things coming through your coming to you before 0:20:38.560 --> 0:20:40.320 we go here. I want to know can you handle 0:20:40.320 --> 0:20:45.960 the truth? Steve? You know I can that. If you 0:20:46.080 --> 0:20:49.800 notice my line of questioning, I haven't asked you does 0:20:49.840 --> 0:20:53.760 it happen? I said, are you familiar? And and and 0:20:53.800 --> 0:20:57.840 I want to then get into how far back in time? 0:20:59.640 --> 0:21:02.600 Like have you heard this theory? And where do you 0:21:02.600 --> 0:21:04.920 feel that it? Uh? Where do you feel that has 0:21:04.960 --> 0:21:09.760 come from? I almost FELFI Felfier skilled interview technique of 0:21:09.880 --> 0:21:14.720 sneaking into this. Yeah, I was very deliberate and my 0:21:14.800 --> 0:21:17.399 question as well and I'm also I listened to the 0:21:17.440 --> 0:21:21.359 podcast UM just last night where where you were discussing 0:21:21.400 --> 0:21:25.000 this previously, and you two have a relationship that's kind 0:21:25.040 --> 0:21:27.879 of tenuous, and this seemed like something that could really 0:21:27.960 --> 0:21:30.480 separate you. So the whole other thing that we're in 0:21:30.520 --> 0:21:32.040 a fight about that I don't even know about yet, 0:21:32.560 --> 0:21:34.320 as there was something he did to my friend Doug 0:21:34.400 --> 0:21:39.240 during Oh yeah, Well, so I know people who have 0:21:39.800 --> 0:21:43.680 said they're great grandfathers told them that. And I'm fifty 0:21:43.760 --> 0:21:47.240 nine years old, so we're talking like, you know, last century, 0:21:47.560 --> 0:21:51.000 you know, people two centuries ago, late eighteen hundreds. I 0:21:51.040 --> 0:21:54.960 know folks who have heard that story. And uh so 0:21:55.000 --> 0:21:58.000 it is something that's been passed along from you know, 0:21:58.119 --> 0:22:03.359 from generation to generation, which is zero zero evidence, zero evidence. Ye, 0:22:04.040 --> 0:22:08.160 And I mentioned following males for three miles. You don't 0:22:08.200 --> 0:22:10.520 do that and see lots of things going on between, 0:22:11.119 --> 0:22:14.680 you know, between different squirrels, and have never seen that. 0:22:14.720 --> 0:22:18.320 They do all the dirty trips. So they get in 0:22:18.320 --> 0:22:20.679 fights they don't need to. They've got the you know, 0:22:20.720 --> 0:22:24.439 the copulatory plug and the h the baculum that you 0:22:24.440 --> 0:22:28.680 know that helps them in that battle. But what happens, 0:22:29.119 --> 0:22:32.600 What does happen, and so you've hit on something that's 0:22:33.240 --> 0:22:37.800 kind of unique about rodent biology. Uh, you can see 0:22:37.800 --> 0:22:41.439 why someone thinks that they have an animal that doesn't 0:22:41.440 --> 0:22:45.080 have any testicles, because it's just a seasonal cycle in 0:22:45.240 --> 0:22:50.920 rodents and squirrels. During the breeding season, the testes descend 0:22:51.119 --> 0:22:55.479 into the scrotum and you know, in large produced sperm, 0:22:55.760 --> 0:22:58.480 and they're ready to get ready to mate day after 0:22:58.600 --> 0:23:02.600 day for sometime times two or three months, so they're 0:23:02.720 --> 0:23:07.120 they're really functional then. But then during the non breeding 0:23:07.119 --> 0:23:11.840 season there they move back into the abdomen up a 0:23:11.920 --> 0:23:14.480 canal and they're kind of held in the abdomen and 0:23:14.480 --> 0:23:17.560 they get really really small, so you you would have 0:23:17.600 --> 0:23:20.080 to if you're just gutting the squirrel, you're not even 0:23:20.080 --> 0:23:23.080 gonna notice. You could have to really look and see it. 0:23:23.160 --> 0:23:26.800 So just this natural natural pattern then and the screwed 0:23:26.880 --> 0:23:30.959 um itself to sort of just struggles up and it 0:23:30.960 --> 0:23:34.080 just becomes belly skin again. It looks like belly skin. 0:23:34.119 --> 0:23:37.359 You'll see if if you've got an older male, you'll 0:23:37.359 --> 0:23:40.439 see that there it takes on a darker pigment and 0:23:40.520 --> 0:23:43.240 you'll kind of see where the scrotum was and if 0:23:43.280 --> 0:23:45.240 you kind of spread the hairs a little bit. You'll 0:23:45.280 --> 0:23:48.040 notice that, all right, you know that this is you 0:23:48.080 --> 0:23:50.960 can tell us an adult male because of that, juvenile 0:23:51.000 --> 0:23:54.640 males will not have a pigmented screwed them. And then 0:23:55.359 --> 0:23:57.520 once they've gone through a breeding season or two, it 0:23:57.560 --> 0:24:01.119 gets dark and you could tell, hey, this guy's bread before, 0:24:01.160 --> 0:24:05.800 but it just it will. You wouldn't notice that this 0:24:05.960 --> 0:24:08.320 was even a male if you were just watching them, 0:24:08.359 --> 0:24:11.000 you know, from a distance with binoculars or something like that. 0:24:11.280 --> 0:24:16.560 Do you do you believe in squirrel migrations? Is that true? Yep? 0:24:17.400 --> 0:24:22.080 That historically massive squirrel migrations, and I think like like 0:24:22.440 --> 0:24:27.280 concerted movements where they're like all the squirrels are moving 0:24:27.280 --> 0:24:32.000 in a direction now now, so yeah, loosely using the 0:24:32.040 --> 0:24:36.920 word migration, there there have been historical reports and even 0:24:36.920 --> 0:24:39.680 relatively recently, I was getting reports two or three years 0:24:39.680 --> 0:24:44.359 ago in the Eastern US of following mass failures. So 0:24:44.600 --> 0:24:49.080 master you know, acorns, primarily hickory, some of those things, 0:24:49.400 --> 0:24:53.640 and when you get a failure, it's often a regional failure. 0:24:53.800 --> 0:24:58.240 And especially if you're looking at uh, you know, forests 0:24:58.240 --> 0:25:00.679 that aren't super diverse and there just you know, a 0:25:00.720 --> 0:25:03.280 long stand of just a couple of species. If it's 0:25:03.280 --> 0:25:07.360 a bad year, then there there are reports of literally 0:25:07.400 --> 0:25:10.840 tens of thousands of animals swimming across the Ohio River 0:25:11.080 --> 0:25:15.199 to get into Kentucky, um swimming across the Great Lakes 0:25:15.720 --> 0:25:18.879 um leaving some Some of the more recent reports of 0:25:18.960 --> 0:25:22.640 these kind of large scale movements are uh in Lake 0:25:22.680 --> 0:25:26.840 Michigan UM and I think Lake Superior, coming off of 0:25:26.920 --> 0:25:29.239 islands where you've had a failure of mass and then 0:25:29.680 --> 0:25:32.560 swim into the mainland. Yep, yeah, oh you know. Nothing 0:25:32.600 --> 0:25:34.680 I want to ask you about back to reproduction is 0:25:34.800 --> 0:25:38.120 what is the timing of the squirrel rut right now? 0:25:38.440 --> 0:25:42.439 Perfect time? These uh so right now they're the squirrel 0:25:42.520 --> 0:25:48.240 ruts starting. Uh it begins sometimes even late December. Kind 0:25:48.240 --> 0:25:52.000 of depends what, uh where you are in our in 0:25:52.320 --> 0:25:56.520 a country, but like the heartland of the country, going 0:25:56.560 --> 0:26:02.760 back to Michigan or or Ohio where where we're from, Steve, Uh, 0:26:02.960 --> 0:26:05.280 things are starting right about now. You'll be seeing these 0:26:05.280 --> 0:26:09.080 mating chases that I was talking about. And for many things. 0:26:09.160 --> 0:26:14.000 Many species like eastern gray squirrels and the fox squirrels, 0:26:14.040 --> 0:26:19.280 the two most common species around the country, those will 0:26:19.320 --> 0:26:23.439 have a second reproductive season during the summer also, and 0:26:23.880 --> 0:26:28.000 uh so there's kind of two peaks and that's when 0:26:28.080 --> 0:26:31.600 during those times are when males have squirrel testes that 0:26:31.720 --> 0:26:35.520 kind of real obvious case, you know that that it's 0:26:35.560 --> 0:26:38.000 the breeding season. So then the most females kick off 0:26:38.000 --> 0:26:43.240 two litters annually they can. Females in good condition will 0:26:43.400 --> 0:26:49.080 pull off to two litters. Uh most often the average 0:26:49.119 --> 0:26:52.520 female usually pulls off one during those times. And if 0:26:52.720 --> 0:26:55.040 if you have a late spring frost, that knocks back, 0:26:55.520 --> 0:26:59.280 so they're breeding now in places with deciduous forest that 0:26:59.760 --> 0:27:03.560 the uh the food crop is still not really determined 0:27:04.000 --> 0:27:07.840 and so you're just gonna start getting leaves starting to 0:27:07.880 --> 0:27:09.520 pop out and that kind of thing. If you have 0:27:09.520 --> 0:27:11.800 a late spring frost and all that gets knocked back, 0:27:12.600 --> 0:27:17.560 often females will absorb their litter and not produce that 0:27:17.680 --> 0:27:21.200 first breeding season, and then they'll they'll be in better 0:27:21.240 --> 0:27:25.199 shape and uh reproduced during that second season. But some 0:27:25.320 --> 0:27:29.040 really some older females and females and good condition, if 0:27:29.080 --> 0:27:31.679 you had a good uh you know, mass crop the 0:27:31.680 --> 0:27:34.680 previous year and they're they've fattened up over winter, they 0:27:34.680 --> 0:27:39.200 are you know, ready to go, uh in in really 0:27:39.240 --> 0:27:42.600 good breeding condition, you'll get a couple of litters, they'll 0:27:42.640 --> 0:27:44.840 they'll be able to pull off. During a mass failure, 0:27:45.040 --> 0:27:48.679 nobody will reproduce sometimes and you'll have no reproduction in 0:27:48.720 --> 0:27:51.000 a given year. And what's the average litter and then 0:27:51.000 --> 0:27:54.880 a great litter size? So usually about three So two 0:27:54.920 --> 0:27:56.840 and a half to three and a half is average 0:27:56.880 --> 0:28:01.280 for most most tree squirrels. And the records are kind 0:28:01.320 --> 0:28:04.800 of eight or nine um, depending on which which sources 0:28:04.840 --> 0:28:09.359 you believe, but they're published records of seven eight nine 0:28:09.960 --> 0:28:14.480 uh nine squirrels. Ground squirrels have have larger litters typically, 0:28:15.240 --> 0:28:18.080 but most of the tree squirrels are kind of in 0:28:18.160 --> 0:28:21.200 that three animals two and a half to three animals 0:28:21.280 --> 0:28:25.000 that half animals always difficult to difficult to count. Do you, uh, 0:28:25.160 --> 0:28:29.640 what's been your relationship with um squirrel hunters and squirrel 0:28:29.720 --> 0:28:32.800 hunting like, do you find that that's where most of 0:28:32.840 --> 0:28:37.120 your of the sort of popular interest in your work 0:28:37.160 --> 0:28:38.840 comes from or do you find it more more from 0:28:38.880 --> 0:28:43.040 wildlife observers. That's the great thing about squirrels, I mean, 0:28:43.080 --> 0:28:44.960 it's kind of across the board. It's one of the 0:28:45.000 --> 0:28:48.120 things to me, you know that the reason I'm doing 0:28:48.160 --> 0:28:51.520 what I do and wildlife conservation is to bring people 0:28:51.560 --> 0:28:55.320 together to save these kinds of opportunities, you know, keep 0:28:55.320 --> 0:28:59.720 our wild and working lands, um, you know, for future generations. 0:28:59.760 --> 0:29:02.560 And squirrels are one of those species that you can, 0:29:02.640 --> 0:29:05.680 you know, can bring everyone together. Sure there's an occasional 0:29:05.720 --> 0:29:09.920 squirrel hater because they're bird feeders being attacked, but you know, 0:29:10.000 --> 0:29:12.840 that's just the cost of having a bird feeder, uh it. 0:29:13.480 --> 0:29:17.000 I have a number of folks who are very interested 0:29:17.080 --> 0:29:20.160 because just like I mentioned when when I grew up, 0:29:20.200 --> 0:29:22.600 it was the connection that someone has with the you know, 0:29:22.640 --> 0:29:26.440 with the natural world. And then you know, squirrel hunters also, 0:29:26.480 --> 0:29:29.480 it's a connection they have with the natural world. And 0:29:29.480 --> 0:29:32.080 then you don't have any animosity to squirrel hunters. I 0:29:32.080 --> 0:29:36.040 don't know. I've hunted squirrels, I've I've eaten squirrels. Every 0:29:36.040 --> 0:29:37.960 time I go to my brother in law's house, he's 0:29:37.960 --> 0:29:41.320 got a different squirrel recipe for me to try. You 0:29:41.320 --> 0:29:45.200 never feel bad about it. There's this one moment perhaps, 0:29:45.360 --> 0:29:48.840 but you know, but then if it's well cooked, of 0:29:48.880 --> 0:29:52.280 course I don't feel bad about it. Um. Can you explain, 0:29:52.360 --> 0:29:57.280 Can you talk a little bit about how the the 0:29:57.320 --> 0:30:01.719 color phases work with at the eastern gray squirrel. I 0:30:01.760 --> 0:30:05.720 find there is like endless confusion about it's a black squirrel, 0:30:05.760 --> 0:30:07.440 it's a gray squirrel. There used to be a lot 0:30:07.480 --> 0:30:11.080 of black squirrels. Now it's all gray squirrels, like, which 0:30:11.120 --> 0:30:15.560 is true. Yeah, it's like shifts over time. Just watch 0:30:15.640 --> 0:30:18.680 my mom's yard. You're like, most of gray squirrels are black. 0:30:18.720 --> 0:30:20.880 Then it's like a while later, it's like, most of 0:30:20.880 --> 0:30:25.040 gray squirrels are gray. What's going on? So they're all 0:30:25.080 --> 0:30:29.240 gray squirrels, you know, to someone who's interested in kind 0:30:29.240 --> 0:30:32.440 of the taxonomy classification, they're all gray squirrels. They were 0:30:32.480 --> 0:30:36.520 that species. They can interbreed eastern eastern because the western 0:30:36.560 --> 0:30:39.120 gray he doesn't have a black phase. Right, there's just 0:30:39.160 --> 0:30:42.520 been a couple of cases of of uh, and in 0:30:42.560 --> 0:30:45.320 the most species you you have this rare these rare 0:30:45.320 --> 0:30:48.560 occurrences of melanic forms, the you know, the black forms, 0:30:48.600 --> 0:30:53.680 and then also some Albanistic or just uh, you know 0:30:53.760 --> 0:30:56.920 forms that are that where some of the pigments gone, 0:30:56.920 --> 0:31:00.600 so they'll be some kind of something in between are 0:31:00.680 --> 0:31:03.720 mostly white but not completely. But yeah, it's just a 0:31:04.520 --> 0:31:07.720 you know, just like hair color, eye color in humans, 0:31:07.920 --> 0:31:11.480 it's you know, it's all due to genetics and the 0:31:12.000 --> 0:31:16.560 So I'm guessing your mom lives in in Michigan still. Ye. 0:31:16.840 --> 0:31:20.120 So once you start getting north far enough, the black 0:31:20.160 --> 0:31:24.840 forms become more common and that actually has a physiological advantage, 0:31:25.600 --> 0:31:29.720 like with heat. Yep, that's exactly. It heat better, Yep, 0:31:29.840 --> 0:31:32.479 that's it. So the advantage is during winter, during the summer, 0:31:32.840 --> 0:31:36.000 people have done physiology on him. Doesn't make a difference. 0:31:36.160 --> 0:31:39.360 They you know, they they're both color morphs, have this 0:31:39.680 --> 0:31:42.640 you know, kind of same metabolic cost. But during the winter, 0:31:43.160 --> 0:31:46.280 the ability to absorb and retain heat in that black color. 0:31:46.440 --> 0:31:49.320 You know, we've all watched the sunshine and they come 0:31:49.320 --> 0:31:52.640 out and splay out on that s that sun up exactly, 0:31:53.000 --> 0:31:54.760 and that's usually in the winter. The first thing they 0:31:54.760 --> 0:31:56.280 do in the morning, they come out of the nest 0:31:56.280 --> 0:31:59.240 and just lay flat, warm up and and and then 0:31:59.320 --> 0:32:03.400 start their day. While the black forms have an energetic advantage. 0:32:03.400 --> 0:32:05.800 And when you're on that kind of razor's edge of 0:32:05.920 --> 0:32:08.800 you know, do I have enough energy to survive to 0:32:09.080 --> 0:32:13.360 produce offspring? You know, any little advantage um, you know, 0:32:13.440 --> 0:32:16.560 it's something that could be capitalized on. So Toronto, you know, 0:32:16.680 --> 0:32:20.040 southern Ontario, lots of black color morphs. But if you 0:32:20.080 --> 0:32:22.680 go down to eastern gray squirrels get all the way 0:32:22.720 --> 0:32:25.440 down to the floor to South Florida and close to 0:32:25.480 --> 0:32:30.040 the Florida keys, black forms are are hardly ever seen 0:32:30.160 --> 0:32:34.000 down there? Is there right now? Can one litter have 0:32:35.760 --> 0:32:41.160 full on like full on gray and full on black ones? Yep, 0:32:41.640 --> 0:32:44.840 that we just talked about. We started off talking about 0:32:44.840 --> 0:32:48.920 the mating system, multiple fathers for a single litter, and 0:32:49.000 --> 0:32:53.000 so you've got that possibility, and then just the heritability. 0:32:53.120 --> 0:32:56.760 People are still working out how that black color morph 0:32:57.080 --> 0:33:00.280 you know how dominant it is in that kind of thing. 0:33:00.320 --> 0:33:04.560 But uh, typically that melanic form, we do know that 0:33:04.600 --> 0:33:09.600 it is a dominant morph. So if it's if that 0:33:09.880 --> 0:33:12.680 gene is present, then you're going to get the production 0:33:12.720 --> 0:33:16.120 of lots of black pigment. God should be dark individuals. 0:33:16.680 --> 0:33:20.080 So you can have you can have mixed litters of 0:33:20.280 --> 0:33:23.440 mixed coloration, usually that kind of grizzled gray color that 0:33:23.480 --> 0:33:28.120 you're familiar with, and then the black morph. Okay, guys, 0:33:28.120 --> 0:33:30.320 I'll go I'll go on for three hours. Man, you 0:33:30.360 --> 0:33:32.000 got do you want to throw one in there? So 0:33:32.240 --> 0:33:36.120 I read from an aerospace engineer once that squirrels can 0:33:36.120 --> 0:33:40.040 survive a fall from any reasonable distance, like any height 0:33:40.080 --> 0:33:43.320 of any building. What's like the furthest You've seen one 0:33:43.360 --> 0:33:46.760 fall and live. I've seen one fall seventy ft and 0:33:46.880 --> 0:33:49.400 hit the ground and just get up and start running. 0:33:49.400 --> 0:33:51.840 They're always a little dazed. They're always a little dazed 0:33:51.880 --> 0:33:57.160 when they hit the ground. Um they so that's excusable, Yeah, okay, 0:33:57.360 --> 0:33:59.959 And it's just like you if you fell, you know, 0:34:00.160 --> 0:34:02.160 usually see them kind of shake their head, blink their 0:34:02.200 --> 0:34:06.640 eyes a few times, and doesn't shatter every bone body. 0:34:06.720 --> 0:34:09.400 I guess they're not like they got like enough air resistance. 0:34:09.840 --> 0:34:12.360 And that's it. It's kind of a surface area to volume. 0:34:12.560 --> 0:34:15.239 You know that people of people said, no one has 0:34:15.640 --> 0:34:18.560 experimentally looked at this, but you know that a mouse 0:34:18.560 --> 0:34:21.720 could fall off the Empire State building and and still 0:34:21.960 --> 0:34:25.840 and survive that fall. Uh you know where a squirrel 0:34:26.200 --> 0:34:29.000 with its size, when they've calculated it, they wouldn't be 0:34:29.000 --> 0:34:32.640 able to survive fall that far. But during those mating 0:34:32.719 --> 0:34:36.640 chases I mentioned all that, aggression males do not sit 0:34:36.719 --> 0:34:40.120 there passively. When you've got you know, ten fifteen forty 0:34:40.200 --> 0:34:42.520 five males, they'll knock each other out of the trees 0:34:42.560 --> 0:34:45.520 all the time, and you know, it sets their competitor 0:34:45.560 --> 0:34:48.520 back a little bit. But I've I've seen I've seen 0:34:48.560 --> 0:34:52.880 them fall, you know, seventy feet and hit the ground. 0:34:53.120 --> 0:34:56.120 They shake around a little bit, you know, they're stunned 0:34:56.160 --> 0:34:58.319 for a few minutes, and then they're they're back at 0:34:58.320 --> 0:35:00.560 it during those mating chases. So we what was going 0:35:00.600 --> 0:35:04.000 on at the seventy ft fall. So they were at 0:35:04.040 --> 0:35:08.280 the top of a large tree. The male and female 0:35:08.440 --> 0:35:12.160 were copulating, and another male came and knocked him both 0:35:12.160 --> 0:35:14.000 out of the tree. The female was able to hold 0:35:14.000 --> 0:35:17.759 onto the tree. The male fell seventy feet and you 0:35:17.800 --> 0:35:20.360 know he went from you know, thinking that he was 0:35:20.400 --> 0:35:24.440 going to be successful that day, trying to work his 0:35:24.520 --> 0:35:29.160 way back. You know. So have you ever seen one 0:35:29.200 --> 0:35:32.759 die from a fall? Then nope. But people have looked at, 0:35:33.440 --> 0:35:38.000 uh looked at skeletons in museums to look for breakage 0:35:38.000 --> 0:35:42.040 of longbones and that kind of thing, and not surprisingly, uh, 0:35:42.360 --> 0:35:44.640 somewhere from five to ten percent of the animals have 0:35:44.760 --> 0:35:49.319 broken longbones, so they may sustain some damage on those falls. Uh. 0:35:49.400 --> 0:35:51.439 You know, those broken longbones could have come from lots 0:35:51.440 --> 0:35:55.480 of things, but uh, you know, they there's some evidence 0:35:55.520 --> 0:35:59.120 that maybe maybe you know they they do, you know, 0:35:59.200 --> 0:36:02.120 take on some some real physical damage too. We've come 0:36:02.160 --> 0:36:06.440 across dead squirrels laying like inexplicably on the forest floor. 0:36:06.520 --> 0:36:10.239 It's exactly my question deduce with for no reason whatsoever, 0:36:10.360 --> 0:36:13.080 that they must have fallen. Yeah, it might be an 0:36:13.080 --> 0:36:17.640 impossible question to answer, but yeah, you're like, it's probably 0:36:17.640 --> 0:36:19.200 been the same squirrel a couple of times. But I 0:36:19.200 --> 0:36:22.040 know that just with my kids, I've been walking through 0:36:22.040 --> 0:36:25.240 the woods squirrel hunting, and there is a perfectly fine 0:36:25.360 --> 0:36:29.040 looking squirrel, not eaten, not eaten, no claw marks, no 0:36:29.160 --> 0:36:33.800 talent marks, uh, no twenty two hole in it. Um, 0:36:33.920 --> 0:36:36.120 I mean, looks fresh as as a daisy. Like you 0:36:36.120 --> 0:36:37.600 do almost want to just put it in your game 0:36:37.640 --> 0:36:40.160 pouch and take it home, but you don't because you 0:36:40.200 --> 0:36:43.840 don't know what killed it. So a couple of things. 0:36:44.400 --> 0:36:48.279 Often when you find those animals and you and you 0:36:48.320 --> 0:36:50.879 actually if you skinned them out and looked, you'd see 0:36:50.920 --> 0:36:53.600 that there was a talent that whacked him, and the 0:36:53.719 --> 0:36:57.879 and you know, the hawk or uh, the owl ended 0:36:57.960 --> 0:37:00.719 up you know, losing it. Sometimes they'll fight over each other. 0:37:01.040 --> 0:37:03.600 So we've had a number of times where where I'll 0:37:03.600 --> 0:37:07.120 get an animal, I'll say, oh, there's absolutely absolutely no 0:37:07.640 --> 0:37:10.160 reason for this animal dieing. And when you skin it out, 0:37:10.440 --> 0:37:13.160 you just see those you know that you can see 0:37:13.160 --> 0:37:15.879 where the talent marks were. So it's possible that it's 0:37:15.920 --> 0:37:19.440 that I hate to go back to squirrel mating systems again, 0:37:19.480 --> 0:37:23.560 but we're going to go there. Uh So, where I 0:37:23.600 --> 0:37:27.720 have seen animals fall dead was that during the breeding season, 0:37:28.160 --> 0:37:31.959 those males are getting up early every morning, going out, 0:37:32.280 --> 0:37:35.000 trying to mate with females during the day, then trying 0:37:35.000 --> 0:37:37.000 to figure out when the next female is going to 0:37:37.040 --> 0:37:39.839 be in heat, and you know, plan their next day 0:37:39.880 --> 0:37:44.520 of activity. And when you do that for forty fifty 0:37:44.640 --> 0:37:48.799 sixty days, males are often in horrific condition and they're 0:37:48.800 --> 0:37:52.440 fighting each other. So we've had I've seen probably a 0:37:52.480 --> 0:37:55.920 dozen animals that have They'll wake up in the morning 0:37:56.120 --> 0:37:59.040 and fall dead to the ground and you'll and you 0:37:59.040 --> 0:38:01.640 will just find them. They'll look like there's malnurished. Yep, 0:38:01.680 --> 0:38:04.320 they're just malnurished. Skin them out and we do a 0:38:04.360 --> 0:38:09.560 knee cropsy on them and you'll see often puncture marks 0:38:09.600 --> 0:38:12.680 from other males the incisors where they beat each other up, 0:38:13.080 --> 0:38:15.080 and then they've got no body fat on them, so 0:38:15.239 --> 0:38:17.359 you know they're they're giving it. They're all you know, 0:38:17.480 --> 0:38:20.320 and and you know, as far as survival to finish, 0:38:20.719 --> 0:38:23.040 if they've made it with some females, you know that 0:38:23.600 --> 0:38:25.520 they've done all they need to do for that year. 0:38:26.160 --> 0:38:31.080 But so I have come across male squirrels like that 0:38:31.560 --> 0:38:34.319 on the ground and they have and I've watched them 0:38:34.320 --> 0:38:36.319 fall out of fall out of a you know, from 0:38:36.640 --> 0:38:39.719 a den first thing in the morning or early in 0:38:39.719 --> 0:38:42.759 the morning, just haven't been had enough energy to to 0:38:42.800 --> 0:38:46.359 continue to move. I was at the Durren's house, he's 0:38:46.360 --> 0:38:51.120 a buddy bars in Wisconsin deer hunting one time and 0:38:51.200 --> 0:38:56.960 I heard uh noises like that most people wouldn't recognize, 0:38:56.960 --> 0:38:59.919 but it was a mink. They have a very high pitch, 0:39:00.200 --> 0:39:04.439 like like this high pitched squeal when they're agitated. There's 0:39:04.480 --> 0:39:09.959 a mink trying to gain entrance into a squirrel hole, 0:39:10.640 --> 0:39:15.240 and there is a squirrel fighting yep like the dickens 0:39:15.960 --> 0:39:18.319 to keep him out of that hole. And eventually the 0:39:18.400 --> 0:39:21.000 mink gains entrance into that hole. And I never heard 0:39:21.160 --> 0:39:24.480 another peep and never saw that mink come out. Well, 0:39:24.520 --> 0:39:26.840 it's got a lot of food for a while he 0:39:27.000 --> 0:39:30.200 like went in there. I don't really know, but it's 0:39:30.239 --> 0:39:32.520 like he went in there, killed the thing and then 0:39:32.560 --> 0:39:37.040 just settled in. Well, I'm sure that's the case. They 0:39:37.760 --> 0:39:39.520 there may have been more than one squirrel in their 0:39:39.600 --> 0:39:44.040 Most squirrels, especially during the winter, you'll you'll get groups 0:39:44.440 --> 0:39:49.120 of especially female squirrels. Eastern gray squirrels are actually really 0:39:49.200 --> 0:39:54.240 highly social, so there'll be several generations living together of females. 0:39:54.320 --> 0:39:57.320 During the day they're out, you won't see them in groups, 0:39:57.360 --> 0:39:59.520 but at night they all come back and it's that 0:39:59.640 --> 0:40:02.399 same Instead of a predator trying to get in, it's 0:40:02.440 --> 0:40:05.560 another squirrel trying to get back into that nest. Uh. 0:40:05.640 --> 0:40:08.359 You know, they use each other's body heat. That gives 0:40:08.400 --> 0:40:13.200 them an advantage, and so you'll see multiple animals. I've 0:40:13.200 --> 0:40:16.080 seen nesting groups I think I think the largest I've 0:40:16.080 --> 0:40:20.520 seen is fourteen related females together in a nest, and 0:40:20.560 --> 0:40:24.120 then males will get together and nest um uh. And 0:40:24.440 --> 0:40:28.439 they're not based on relatedness, So you'll sometimes find eight 0:40:28.520 --> 0:40:31.880 or ten males in the coldest nights nesting together, and 0:40:31.880 --> 0:40:34.279 then first thing in the morning they take off. But 0:40:34.520 --> 0:40:37.120 that's a finding a quality nest that they can defend 0:40:37.239 --> 0:40:40.279 from inside is one of the biggest resources. You know. 0:40:40.280 --> 0:40:42.719 We always think of food and that kind of thing, 0:40:42.800 --> 0:40:45.760 but those quality dens that you get in big old 0:40:45.800 --> 0:40:50.200 trees are huge for these these groups of related animals. 0:40:50.200 --> 0:40:53.440 So when we think about managing forests, retaining some of 0:40:53.480 --> 0:40:57.120 those big old trees, you know, becomes really important to 0:40:57.640 --> 0:41:00.320 quality forest management. I'll tell you something. You got to 0:41:00.320 --> 0:41:05.120 write a paper on two years ago. I was hunting 0:41:05.120 --> 0:41:07.239 squirrels and Brodie Henderson was there. He can back me 0:41:07.320 --> 0:41:09.920 up on this. We're hunting squirrels and we got a 0:41:09.920 --> 0:41:14.239 bad hit on a fox squirrel. He goes into a 0:41:14.280 --> 0:41:19.640 hole of a cottonwood tree. But then a fight ensues 0:41:20.400 --> 0:41:23.560 and another fox squirrel kicks him out of the hole, 0:41:25.640 --> 0:41:28.960 fought him back out, and then we want up getting him. 0:41:30.680 --> 0:41:32.640 I would call that. I don't know what to call 0:41:32.719 --> 0:41:36.600 that paper. How how how would you name a paper like that? Uh, 0:41:37.280 --> 0:41:43.319 Steve is a poor shot and and elicits the assistance 0:41:43.560 --> 0:41:48.799 of because we uh Hefflefinger. Heffle Finger who you know 0:41:49.640 --> 0:41:52.319 recently sent a paper where a guy got a publication 0:41:52.480 --> 0:41:56.319 off of the fact that, Uh, they got a publication 0:41:57.000 --> 0:41:59.520 off of that they had a trail camp set up, 0:42:00.360 --> 0:42:04.920 and a jaguar came and drank from the whole leaves 0:42:05.560 --> 0:42:09.400 and auslot sons and drinks. The jaguar kills the aslot, 0:42:09.760 --> 0:42:12.160 and this guy gets a scientific publication out of it. 0:42:13.160 --> 0:42:16.560 It's just like an observation. And then you're like, huh, 0:42:17.280 --> 0:42:20.200 so I do feel that you could publish this piece well, 0:42:20.400 --> 0:42:25.080 but with that attitude, but you know, yeah, I'd be 0:42:25.120 --> 0:42:27.799 game as long as we can put the steve as 0:42:27.840 --> 0:42:31.200 a poor shot um like in the abstract. It could 0:42:31.200 --> 0:42:34.440 be the first line of the abstract. But those kinds 0:42:34.440 --> 0:42:37.880 of rare observations are really critical. And you know, I 0:42:37.920 --> 0:42:40.600 know some some scientists get a little snobby about oh, 0:42:40.680 --> 0:42:43.319 sample size and things like that, and for some things, 0:42:43.360 --> 0:42:45.480 we obviously want to have enough sample size so we 0:42:45.880 --> 0:42:49.880 you know, we can make rigorous management decisions and conserved species. 0:42:49.920 --> 0:42:53.000 But you know, for these really rare events, to me, 0:42:53.080 --> 0:42:56.400 it's really important to get that information out. And so 0:42:56.800 --> 0:42:59.120 I am all four of those kinds of kinds of 0:42:59.120 --> 0:43:02.600 publications my health. I mean, I sent that jaguar awesol 0:43:02.600 --> 0:43:07.560 Lot thing to my brother who's an ecologist. Um, he 0:43:07.600 --> 0:43:10.839 thought it was interesting, but he felt that in that 0:43:11.080 --> 0:43:15.760 article that talking about the that this was possibly something 0:43:15.760 --> 0:43:17.680 to do with climate change. He felt that was a 0:43:17.680 --> 0:43:20.240 little ting too far. He thought that was a little 0:43:20.320 --> 0:43:37.799 so it's important, but understanding the significance more talent. John, 0:43:37.840 --> 0:43:41.520 I've got to I've got a question for you about 0:43:41.520 --> 0:43:44.080 something that I read. And it was a research project 0:43:44.080 --> 0:43:46.759 and it was actually done in between nineteen thirty nine 0:43:46.800 --> 0:43:50.640 and nineteen forty three, and this guy was studying squirrel 0:43:50.640 --> 0:43:55.120 populations in Illinois the height of World War Two. Yeah, 0:43:55.160 --> 0:44:00.000 in the height of Americans that's what he's thinking about, Yeah, 0:44:00.040 --> 0:44:03.200 right of American squirrel hunting. To um. He said that 0:44:04.320 --> 0:44:06.960 the earliest they saw a female squirrel coming to estrus 0:44:07.040 --> 0:44:09.440 was December eleven, and the latest that they saw a 0:44:09.480 --> 0:44:13.560 female squirrel come in was January, you know, for the 0:44:13.600 --> 0:44:16.200 winter rut. And he was real clear that there were 0:44:16.200 --> 0:44:21.439 two breeding cycles, especially with older females, and he get 0:44:21.520 --> 0:44:26.759 He said that that from northern Illinois to southern Illinois 0:44:26.880 --> 0:44:32.640 there was a ten to fourteen day delay, Like the 0:44:32.680 --> 0:44:37.040 southern Illinois squirrels came into breeding cycles earlier than Northern Illinois. 0:44:37.040 --> 0:44:39.200 And I just saw that parallel. I guess with a 0:44:39.239 --> 0:44:42.239 lot of mammals that are the breeding cycles of the 0:44:42.280 --> 0:44:47.000 North are gonna be later, so that the the offspring 0:44:47.040 --> 0:44:50.240 survival is better because it happens later in the spring. 0:44:50.239 --> 0:44:52.759 But I was just gonna say, like here in Arkansas, 0:44:53.000 --> 0:44:54.839 if you were to ask just the squirrel hunter down 0:44:54.880 --> 0:44:57.640 the road, when's the squirrel rut, they'd say early December. 0:44:58.440 --> 0:45:00.799 You know, that's that's kind of what they would say. 0:45:01.200 --> 0:45:04.920 But like I heard you talking about Michigan being is 0:45:05.000 --> 0:45:09.239 it later John up there? Yeah? Correct, it's a little 0:45:09.280 --> 0:45:13.040 bit later up there. And it actually varies between species 0:45:13.080 --> 0:45:16.480 a little bit. If you have both gray and fox squirrels. 0:45:16.520 --> 0:45:19.320 Fox squirrels usually are a week to ten days earlier. 0:45:19.480 --> 0:45:21.719 I'm not really sure why that is, but that's kind 0:45:21.719 --> 0:45:25.040 of a widespread pattern, and they'll start a little bit 0:45:25.040 --> 0:45:29.280 earlier in December. And you hit on it, Clay that 0:45:29.280 --> 0:45:32.680 that the farther you go north, they're usually a little 0:45:32.680 --> 0:45:35.840 bit delayed, And that all makes sense, right. Reproduction is 0:45:35.880 --> 0:45:39.120 all about producing young. Those young You want them to 0:45:39.200 --> 0:45:42.200 emerge when all those buds are coming out on the spring, 0:45:42.520 --> 0:45:45.120 on the spring trees, so that the female is going 0:45:45.200 --> 0:45:48.840 to be in in good condition while she's producing milk. 0:45:48.880 --> 0:45:54.280 Because the most energetically costly event for a female mammal 0:45:54.440 --> 0:45:59.400 is lactation, not pregnancy. Pregnancy is costly, but trying to 0:45:59.760 --> 0:46:02.880 nurse those young and produce all that protein and you know, 0:46:03.000 --> 0:46:08.240 fat rich milk that takes energy. And so the timing 0:46:08.320 --> 0:46:10.799 of these things are really critical. And so as you 0:46:10.840 --> 0:46:13.439 go a little further north, springs coming a little bit later, 0:46:13.920 --> 0:46:17.239 and you're going to see that that that change in 0:46:17.280 --> 0:46:20.439 the timing. You're right on the money, Clay. I asked 0:46:20.480 --> 0:46:24.040 a veteran guy, veteran squirrel hunter here in Arkansas the 0:46:24.040 --> 0:46:26.399 other day. I said, what's the toughest time of year 0:46:26.719 --> 0:46:30.080 to squirrel hunt? And he said late January because the 0:46:30.160 --> 0:46:33.640 females are dinning and not leaving their nest munths much. 0:46:33.680 --> 0:46:36.960 Can you is there any research on the movement of 0:46:37.480 --> 0:46:39.560 males and females during that time of year, because it 0:46:39.680 --> 0:46:43.080 is really tough right now and it it uh And 0:46:43.120 --> 0:46:46.000 he said, it's because they're dinning up, they're close to 0:46:46.040 --> 0:46:50.200 their nest, their their dentries. Is that is that about right? Well, 0:46:50.239 --> 0:46:55.520 if we eliminate poor squirrel hunting from this, then uh, 0:46:55.680 --> 0:47:02.160 what you're exactly dogs not great dogs, So you're exactly right. Yeah, 0:47:03.120 --> 0:47:06.919 So the females have gone through and reproduced already. Now 0:47:06.960 --> 0:47:10.040 they're you know, they're pregnant, and so they hold up. 0:47:10.160 --> 0:47:12.640 They don't they're not using much energy. They usually go 0:47:12.680 --> 0:47:16.040 out for literally just an hour or two a day, feed, 0:47:16.280 --> 0:47:18.279 you know, eat whatever nuts they can, and then go 0:47:18.360 --> 0:47:21.200 back in the males though it's it's usually still the 0:47:21.320 --> 0:47:24.120 end of the breeding season and they're still roaming around 0:47:24.160 --> 0:47:26.960 and they start ranging even more widely trying to find, 0:47:27.160 --> 0:47:29.319 you know, one of the last females that might still 0:47:29.360 --> 0:47:33.239 be available. So you're you're you're basically trying to hunt 0:47:33.239 --> 0:47:36.840 half the you know, half the population now because females 0:47:36.880 --> 0:47:39.719 are hold up and unless you know where Dan is 0:47:40.080 --> 0:47:42.720 you know where the female might be coming out, Um, 0:47:42.840 --> 0:47:44.839 you're you're not even going to see them very much 0:47:44.920 --> 0:47:48.719 during during that time. So you nailed it. Yeah, that's 0:47:48.719 --> 0:47:52.880 the interesting thing you brought about. The lactation takes so 0:47:53.040 --> 0:47:58.000 much energy because and people that hunt, um, people the 0:47:58.040 --> 0:48:01.400 hunt a lot of wild pigs. We'll say, the best 0:48:02.040 --> 0:48:06.360 wild pig, the best condition is a pregnant sou And 0:48:06.400 --> 0:48:09.319 always thought that like that they'll be fatty, And I thought, like, 0:48:09.320 --> 0:48:12.000 how could that be? Because how's it not so taxing 0:48:13.280 --> 0:48:15.960 to produce it, and they're saying, the worst pig is 0:48:15.960 --> 0:48:20.239 a nursing sou Yeah, that just get like sucked dry. Well, 0:48:20.239 --> 0:48:23.799 that's that's exactly it. You know, milk is really expensive 0:48:23.840 --> 0:48:28.120 to produce, and so typically they're putting everything into just 0:48:28.280 --> 0:48:31.440 producing as quality and offspring as possible, giving them the 0:48:31.480 --> 0:48:35.800 best start in life. And so with with female squirrels, 0:48:36.200 --> 0:48:40.239 they won't even the second most energetically expensive part of 0:48:40.239 --> 0:48:43.719 their life is changing their pellage, you know, molting their 0:48:43.760 --> 0:48:46.120 fur and grow a new fur. It's all protein, right, 0:48:46.360 --> 0:48:49.359 a bunch of its protein. That's costly. They don't do 0:48:49.440 --> 0:48:52.600 that until after they've finished nursing their young, so you'll 0:48:52.640 --> 0:48:57.160 see these really raggedy looking females late in the spring. 0:48:57.600 --> 0:49:00.239 I get calls where someone's like, oh, there's some kind 0:49:00.239 --> 0:49:03.400 of you know, horrific disease going through the squirrels. You know, 0:49:03.440 --> 0:49:06.680 look all mangy and manges that you know can be 0:49:07.160 --> 0:49:11.120 a problem, but it's just they're just females who are 0:49:11.360 --> 0:49:14.160 given everything they can to their offspring, and so they're 0:49:14.160 --> 0:49:16.719 producing and producing that milk. And if you look at 0:49:16.760 --> 0:49:19.600 fat stores of females at the end of nursing, there's 0:49:19.640 --> 0:49:22.319 no fat store, just just like males are invested in 0:49:22.360 --> 0:49:24.960 everything in those breeding seasons, and I mentioned some of 0:49:25.000 --> 0:49:27.959 them dying because they you know, don't have any they're 0:49:28.000 --> 0:49:31.000 just so malnourished. That's exactly what you can see with 0:49:31.160 --> 0:49:34.399 females at that kind of end of nursing. You're exactly right. 0:49:34.920 --> 0:49:39.440 I got a double question for you. Rattle off, like 0:49:39.480 --> 0:49:44.880 what normally kills squirrels like from predator from a predatory standpoint, 0:49:45.520 --> 0:49:48.080 and then what are some of the freakish things you've seen? 0:49:49.560 --> 0:49:53.760 So usually avian predators, hawks and owls are the number 0:49:53.760 --> 0:49:58.160 one predator. Then you start getting into things like you know, 0:49:58.360 --> 0:50:03.279 foxes and bobcats also take a large number of them, 0:50:03.440 --> 0:50:05.279 catching them off the ground. Catching them off the ground 0:50:05.680 --> 0:50:09.200 much harder, obviously, you know, they squirrels can get into 0:50:09.239 --> 0:50:12.960 the trees pretty quickly, but raptors nail them. Raptors and 0:50:13.080 --> 0:50:16.319 some of the studies we've done raptors account of the 0:50:16.360 --> 0:50:23.160 mortality of red squirrels. And then the remaining of predation 0:50:23.239 --> 0:50:27.319 events are from foxes, bobcats, that kind of thing. But 0:50:27.800 --> 0:50:31.560 when they're in those I mentioned the necessity of those 0:50:31.640 --> 0:50:34.279 quality den cavities and that being part of you know, 0:50:34.360 --> 0:50:37.440 kind of good forest management. If you don't have a 0:50:37.520 --> 0:50:40.279 quality den cavity, lots of things can get in. Raccoons 0:50:40.280 --> 0:50:43.239 will will come in and you know, eat a whole 0:50:43.320 --> 0:50:46.880 litter ant or a group of these nesting adults that 0:50:46.920 --> 0:50:49.000 are in there. You mentioned the mink, you know, being 0:50:49.040 --> 0:50:53.319 able to get in. Uh, we'll see crows. Crows will 0:50:53.360 --> 0:50:56.400 go into those nests. Crows actually the leaf nest the 0:50:56.440 --> 0:50:58.920 dreys that we were talking about, those piles kind of 0:50:58.920 --> 0:51:02.560 a basketball side eyes ball of leaves up in the trees. 0:51:02.880 --> 0:51:05.959 Crows will fly from tree to tree, from from tree 0:51:05.960 --> 0:51:08.759 to tree, looking at those nests and trying to pull 0:51:08.760 --> 0:51:13.200 out squirrels from within. Some raptors will do that as well, 0:51:14.280 --> 0:51:19.759 but uh, gopher snakes, bull snakes will there. There's a 0:51:19.800 --> 0:51:24.040 really cool study that showed they actually will climb trees 0:51:25.080 --> 0:51:27.799 that have those leaf nests in them more than they'll 0:51:27.840 --> 0:51:31.640 climb trees without them. Yeah, yep, and they go in. 0:51:32.880 --> 0:51:34.719 It just smells the activity at the base of the 0:51:34.760 --> 0:51:38.360 tree could be um Usually, though, squirrels they come in 0:51:38.400 --> 0:51:40.680 from they don't come from the bottom up into their 0:51:40.680 --> 0:51:43.000 nest tree. They're usually coming in from the canopy. And 0:51:43.000 --> 0:51:45.239 that's something we should talk about is some of the 0:51:45.280 --> 0:51:49.279 kind of subtle scent communication that goes on between squirrels. 0:51:49.280 --> 0:51:54.359 But that so snakes are are great nest predators as well. 0:51:54.880 --> 0:51:59.520 But there's some incredible records documented a lot like the 0:51:59.600 --> 0:52:02.720 jag are an awesome lot that you were talking about. Um, 0:52:02.760 --> 0:52:07.040 they've been reported in the stomachs of bullfrogs. Uh that's 0:52:07.560 --> 0:52:09.680 that's a big bull frog in a small squirrel. But 0:52:10.800 --> 0:52:14.720 h and they've been uh large mouth bass had plucked 0:52:14.760 --> 0:52:17.680 them off of tree branches. Uh. So there are a 0:52:17.680 --> 0:52:20.279 couple of reports of you know, seeing a bass come 0:52:20.320 --> 0:52:23.480 out with a squirrel, you know, eating some berries, you know, 0:52:23.560 --> 0:52:26.040 in this idyllic setting. You know, you can imagine the 0:52:26.320 --> 0:52:28.680 you know, the Bambi music in the background, and then 0:52:30.480 --> 0:52:33.759 out leaps this uh, this large mouth bass. So you 0:52:33.800 --> 0:52:36.640 know there anything that you know, they're a nice chunk 0:52:36.680 --> 0:52:39.719 of meat. So anything that can anything that can get 0:52:39.760 --> 0:52:42.840 them is going to go for it. I had read 0:52:42.880 --> 0:52:45.879 that squirrels, like all road into their teeth never stopped growing, 0:52:45.880 --> 0:52:48.120 so they have to grind them down and if they don't, 0:52:48.680 --> 0:52:51.680 they'll grow into their skull and kill them. Is that 0:52:51.800 --> 0:52:55.600 something you've ever like witnessed or seen. Yeah, So you're 0:52:55.760 --> 0:52:59.600 so you're partially right. The cheek teeth don't the mohlers 0:53:00.160 --> 0:53:03.600 don't grow, they're not everlasting. You actually can age squirrels 0:53:03.640 --> 0:53:05.680 by looking at their cheek teeth. So if you're out 0:53:05.719 --> 0:53:08.200 there hunting and you know you can't you get a 0:53:08.239 --> 0:53:11.160 young of the year, it'll look like a kid's molars, 0:53:11.280 --> 0:53:14.080 you know, human child's molars where you can see every 0:53:14.080 --> 0:53:16.920 little nook and cranny. But they get worn down, you know, 0:53:16.960 --> 0:53:19.959 as they get older. So really old animals, you'll see 0:53:20.000 --> 0:53:22.200 those teeth worn down to the gum line, you know, 0:53:22.280 --> 0:53:26.240 just like Heffelfinger was in here. I'm sure probably talking 0:53:26.239 --> 0:53:30.160 about deer aging numerous times, but uh, you can do 0:53:30.239 --> 0:53:34.200 the same thing with squirrels. And but the incisors are 0:53:34.200 --> 0:53:36.840 ever growing, and that's really the you know, the business 0:53:37.000 --> 0:53:39.320 end of the squirrel. If they can't gnaw into things, 0:53:39.880 --> 0:53:42.360 then you know they're not going to be able to survive. 0:53:42.440 --> 0:53:45.880 So those are ever growing. And you know, if you 0:53:45.920 --> 0:53:47.960 take a look at them, they've got that kind of 0:53:48.000 --> 0:53:51.680 orange or yellow part that you'll see looking head on 0:53:51.760 --> 0:53:56.760 at a squirrel that is harder than the white portion 0:53:56.840 --> 0:53:59.640 that's behind. And that's so they sharpened to a wonderful 0:53:59.680 --> 0:54:03.680 point that you know then and they're able to you know, 0:54:03.840 --> 0:54:09.359 open a hickory or or a walnut. And so occasionally 0:54:09.360 --> 0:54:12.480 those will get offline. They rub up against each other 0:54:12.680 --> 0:54:14.560 and they kind of, you know, just like you would 0:54:14.560 --> 0:54:17.600 sharpen your knife. That's essentially what's going on with each 0:54:18.040 --> 0:54:22.000 each bite that the squirrels taking. But if they're injured, 0:54:22.400 --> 0:54:25.000 you know, in a fall, in a battle, whatever you know, 0:54:25.360 --> 0:54:28.200 causes some injury and they get offline, that's where you 0:54:28.200 --> 0:54:31.279 see these things grow back and they you've got that 0:54:31.360 --> 0:54:35.120 kind of wonderful circular shape that helps with the self sharpening. 0:54:35.520 --> 0:54:38.640 But if they're offline, that means it circles right back 0:54:38.680 --> 0:54:41.839 and usually hits the eye or something like that. So 0:54:42.000 --> 0:54:44.480 now they're not able to gnaw into things. You know, 0:54:44.520 --> 0:54:46.759 they're going to be weakened condition and so you don't 0:54:46.800 --> 0:54:51.400 see it very often, but you do occasionally get an 0:54:51.400 --> 0:54:54.399 animal that survives long enough and still you know, still 0:54:54.440 --> 0:54:57.319 able to get enough food to be able to uh 0:54:57.480 --> 0:55:00.280 to see that you know, a death. That's there's aldo 0:55:00.400 --> 0:55:05.560 that malleclusion. Do they use those teeth to like kill 0:55:06.200 --> 0:55:10.640 little animals since they're omnivores, that's right, excellent point. They 0:55:10.680 --> 0:55:15.239 are they're they're omnivorous. They will eat lots of insects. 0:55:15.719 --> 0:55:19.120 They'll eat you know, other they'll eat small mammals. But 0:55:19.400 --> 0:55:23.560 there are also are cannibalistic at times, and they'll uh 0:55:24.040 --> 0:55:26.440 we've there are a number of cases in some ground squirrels, 0:55:26.480 --> 0:55:31.000 like prairie dogs, they're actually infanticidal. They'll they'll kill uh 0:55:31.360 --> 0:55:34.760 other young they'll go into the borough of their sister 0:55:35.120 --> 0:55:39.600 and kill her young, um to give uh the advantage 0:55:39.680 --> 0:55:45.279 to that individual's own young. In tree squirrels, uh, we've 0:55:45.360 --> 0:55:50.919 seen them kill birds. Uh, they'll they'll frequently kill birds. 0:55:50.960 --> 0:55:54.120 They're known red squirrels are kind of really nasty egg 0:55:54.280 --> 0:55:59.200 predators and nestling birds. Uh. Most most ornithologists that there's 0:55:59.239 --> 0:56:02.440 a group that will well hate squirrels, perhaps because of 0:56:02.520 --> 0:56:07.560 they they the nest predation that they have. But I've 0:56:07.600 --> 0:56:12.200 even seen cases where where they won't they haven't killed 0:56:12.239 --> 0:56:16.720 the individual. Uh. Three or four times in my career, 0:56:16.960 --> 0:56:20.680 I've seen a young animal who's just learning to kind 0:56:20.719 --> 0:56:23.879 of walk and hold onto a tree fall to its death. 0:56:24.000 --> 0:56:27.560 And so we talked about adult animals surviving falls. Juveniles 0:56:27.600 --> 0:56:30.240 that don't have the muscles too and probably the balance, 0:56:30.320 --> 0:56:33.560 yet they'll followed their death. I've watched the mother go 0:56:33.760 --> 0:56:37.160 down check the individual bumpet a few times, realize that 0:56:37.239 --> 0:56:39.480 it's dead, and then literally picked the animal up and 0:56:39.520 --> 0:56:42.000 they start eating the brain, and then they move on 0:56:42.160 --> 0:56:45.600 to other tasty bits of their own offspring that you know, 0:56:45.640 --> 0:56:48.120 they were just nursing up in the tree maybe that morning, 0:56:48.680 --> 0:56:52.839 and um, you know now they're they're uh, they're going 0:56:53.239 --> 0:56:55.680 for they've switched at carnivory. That that's called being like 0:56:55.960 --> 0:57:00.760 a pragmatist man. That's that's really something like they invested 0:57:00.760 --> 0:57:07.040 a lot in that offspring. Hey, when I was in 0:57:07.320 --> 0:57:12.359 h middle school, I had a friend that was at 0:57:12.440 --> 0:57:15.799 like the city park and he saw a squirrel get 0:57:16.000 --> 0:57:19.280 hit on the road, and for whatever reason, he went 0:57:19.360 --> 0:57:22.520 out and picks up the squirrel. And the thing, you know, 0:57:22.560 --> 0:57:24.680 we're talking about squirrel teeth and now sharp they are, 0:57:24.800 --> 0:57:29.000 and the squirrel bites him right in the webbing between 0:57:29.040 --> 0:57:32.760 the thumb and his pointer finger just nails him deep 0:57:32.840 --> 0:57:35.680 into the meat right there. And he like shakes the 0:57:35.800 --> 0:57:39.720 squirrel off his hand, and he cut his tendons in 0:57:39.840 --> 0:57:43.120 his hand and he had to have major reconstructive surgery 0:57:43.240 --> 0:57:50.200 in his hand. Yeah, yeah, I think about that when 0:57:50.240 --> 0:57:53.120 we hunt picking one up that's half a live I've 0:57:53.160 --> 0:57:56.160 had him bite through my thumbnail before, so yeah, they 0:57:56.280 --> 0:57:59.880 and cut all the way the bone instantly. H that's 0:58:00.000 --> 0:58:04.280 story that you just mentioned, Clay. I was my first 0:58:04.360 --> 0:58:08.240 time ever in Arizona. Was driving along and I wanted 0:58:08.280 --> 0:58:10.680 to see an abert squirrel, a tassel eared squirrel if 0:58:10.720 --> 0:58:14.080 you guys have seen a pretty amazing, super interested in 0:58:15.040 --> 0:58:18.320 and uh, we were driving along. I hadn't seen one yet, 0:58:18.600 --> 0:58:21.480 just north of Flagstaff and I just turned to my 0:58:21.560 --> 0:58:24.040 wife and said, I can't believe, you know, squirrel biologist 0:58:24.080 --> 0:58:26.080 hasn't been able to see one of these. And I'm 0:58:26.200 --> 0:58:31.680 driving along and literally right uh one runs out from 0:58:31.720 --> 0:58:35.400 the Ponderosa Pine forest and I hit it and um, 0:58:35.600 --> 0:58:38.600 and so I'm like, crap, you know, what what do 0:58:38.680 --> 0:58:41.040 you do? You know? And one I wanted to see 0:58:41.080 --> 0:58:43.360 it and too, I'm like, well, you know it's now 0:58:43.520 --> 0:58:46.040 donated its body to science, and I had a collecting 0:58:46.160 --> 0:58:48.520 permit so I could legally go back and pick it up. 0:58:48.880 --> 0:58:53.120 So I turned around, pull over and it's just kind 0:58:53.160 --> 0:58:55.360 of a narrow two lane road with forest right there, 0:58:55.400 --> 0:58:57.280 so I had to pull over probably a couple hundred 0:58:57.360 --> 0:59:01.040 yards away. I'm walking walking along long and almost up 0:59:01.080 --> 0:59:05.400 on it, and this Winnebago drives over and as it 0:59:05.640 --> 0:59:07.800 that suction is that goes over, you see the tail 0:59:07.880 --> 0:59:09.720 flip up. But I kind of thought the body also 0:59:10.400 --> 0:59:13.720 popped up a little bit. And uh so I go 0:59:13.920 --> 0:59:15.880 running up, not wanting it to, you know, to be 0:59:16.360 --> 0:59:19.000 hit by another car, so i'd have a good carcass. 0:59:19.680 --> 0:59:22.400 And I go to grab it and it jumps up, 0:59:22.680 --> 0:59:26.560 runs off the road and does that just like the 0:59:26.640 --> 0:59:29.439 falling squirrel that we talked about before, climbs up a tree, 0:59:29.520 --> 0:59:31.880 sits there and just keeps trying to shake it off. 0:59:32.520 --> 0:59:34.280 And U so I got a really good look at 0:59:34.320 --> 0:59:36.840 the at the squirrel. But it turns out that that's 0:59:37.200 --> 0:59:40.320 that's actually really common what squirrels do when they're when 0:59:40.360 --> 0:59:44.800 they're going to be attacked. Right, if you're getting attacked 0:59:44.840 --> 0:59:47.720 by a hawk, you jump first and then then you 0:59:47.880 --> 0:59:51.080 hit the ground and start running. And that works really 0:59:51.120 --> 0:59:53.520 well if there's a hawk coming in or a fox, 0:59:53.720 --> 0:59:56.480 but it doesn't work well if there's a you know, 0:59:56.960 --> 1:00:00.439 Chevy minivan, you know that's that's driving over. You jump 1:00:00.560 --> 1:00:03.280 right up. And so they often just knocked themselves out 1:00:03.800 --> 1:00:06.880 undercarriage and then and then get hit you know, by 1:00:06.960 --> 1:00:10.240 the next car that comes by. Uh but yeah, I've 1:00:10.600 --> 1:00:13.919 so I almost had that same experience myself. Okay yan, 1:00:14.000 --> 1:00:15.800 he's got his app you with some questions, he's got 1:00:15.840 --> 1:00:18.800 some doozies. Uh, well, real quick before we get off. 1:00:18.840 --> 1:00:24.960 What kills him? What's just average lifespan, average light span? Uh? 1:00:25.400 --> 1:00:28.240 If they if you start from when they're born, you're 1:00:28.280 --> 1:00:31.440 just talking a little over a year. Very few animals 1:00:31.520 --> 1:00:34.360 make it to adulthood. Once they reach that first year, 1:00:34.440 --> 1:00:37.720 which is when they can start reproducing, typically sometimes a 1:00:37.800 --> 1:00:40.560 little bit earlier. You're you're looking at two and a 1:00:40.600 --> 1:00:42.880 half to three years. It's kind of a good lifetime. 1:00:43.400 --> 1:00:47.600 If you're looking at pet animals, Uh, they've read squirrels, 1:00:47.680 --> 1:00:50.200 fox squirrels, gray squirrels have all been people have had 1:00:50.280 --> 1:00:52.720 them for about twenty years. Uh. So they can even 1:00:52.800 --> 1:00:56.360 live that long. And in some of our studies where 1:00:56.440 --> 1:01:00.600 we've monitored, you know, animals and known age for decade 1:01:01.040 --> 1:01:03.640 or more, we've had animals get to about ten years 1:01:03.720 --> 1:01:06.600 in the wild, um and maybe a little bit more 1:01:07.120 --> 1:01:09.600 in some species, a little bit less, but for a small, 1:01:09.840 --> 1:01:13.360 small mammal you think, you know, isn't gonna isn't gonna 1:01:13.400 --> 1:01:16.200 live very long. They actually, once they figure it out, 1:01:16.520 --> 1:01:19.400 once they have that den, once they you know, have 1:01:19.720 --> 1:01:22.479 know where their food is, they actually and they're weary 1:01:22.560 --> 1:01:26.880 enough of predators, they actually can survive pretty long. Mhm. 1:01:27.440 --> 1:01:29.160 Did you like the ones I had highlighted? Are the 1:01:29.200 --> 1:01:31.720 ones that I had under my name there under your name, 1:01:31.760 --> 1:01:33.480 And I added a couple of doozies in there, but 1:01:34.320 --> 1:01:38.600 stumbled across the across that section under Yanni's I stumbled 1:01:38.600 --> 1:01:41.760 across that section under Yanni's name and my document, Um, 1:01:43.120 --> 1:01:46.800 let's let's talk about how they stash stuff and like 1:01:46.960 --> 1:01:50.280 that whole process. And Spencer's gotta follow up there too 1:01:50.360 --> 1:01:54.760 about about stashes. But were you were you involved in 1:01:54.800 --> 1:01:57.120 that study everybody got all excited about about whether they 1:01:57.160 --> 1:01:59.680 could remember where they put their nuts or not. Well, 1:02:00.000 --> 1:02:04.360 then part of a couple of those studies. Well, so 1:02:04.880 --> 1:02:07.600 a couple of different strategies that that you're looking at. 1:02:07.760 --> 1:02:11.480 If you're talking about red squirrels or Douglas squirrels out 1:02:11.560 --> 1:02:14.600 here in the in the West, mostly they're what we 1:02:14.680 --> 1:02:18.040 call larder hoarders. So you've come across I'm sure around 1:02:18.120 --> 1:02:22.000 here around Bozeman you've come across there what we call middens, 1:02:22.080 --> 1:02:25.040 these big piles of cone scales that they actually bury 1:02:25.120 --> 1:02:30.320 more cones in. Those are those middens. Those cone scale 1:02:30.400 --> 1:02:34.720 piles are effectively a refrigerator for the squirrel. They keep 1:02:34.800 --> 1:02:39.160 their they bury cones from subsequent years in there, and 1:02:39.360 --> 1:02:42.920 we've actually studied put little temperature transmitters in and studied 1:02:43.480 --> 1:02:47.160 that that they functioned just like a refrigerator does. The 1:02:47.240 --> 1:02:51.040 cones don't open. If the cone scales open, seeds fall out, 1:02:51.160 --> 1:02:54.080 anything can eat them. If they stay closed, mostly just 1:02:54.160 --> 1:02:57.440 squirrels can can eat them. So by keeping them in 1:02:57.480 --> 1:03:00.640 the refrigerator, you know, you know, food isn't spoil. So 1:03:00.760 --> 1:03:03.960 that strategy works really well with pine cones and and 1:03:04.440 --> 1:03:06.840 um in places where there are lots of coniferous trees. 1:03:07.120 --> 1:03:09.160 But it's those men's are also just a result of 1:03:09.280 --> 1:03:11.080 them just sitting in the same tree, on the same 1:03:11.160 --> 1:03:13.760 branch and just chewne on pine cones, right, and so 1:03:13.960 --> 1:03:17.040 that's often how these things start. You'll you'll have, you know, 1:03:17.160 --> 1:03:20.120 you'll have a tree that's got lots of lots of 1:03:20.680 --> 1:03:23.760 cones that in a good year the animals just start 1:03:24.400 --> 1:03:26.480 feeding there, and you get a little bit of a pile, 1:03:26.880 --> 1:03:29.400 and then a juvenile squirrel that's trying to find a 1:03:29.480 --> 1:03:33.000 place to live often starts with that place, buries a 1:03:33.000 --> 1:03:35.440 few cones there, tucks a few in the log, and 1:03:35.520 --> 1:03:38.720 then keeps eating and building these piles. Sometimes they get 1:03:38.800 --> 1:03:41.760 three or four ft high, kind of the size of 1:03:41.800 --> 1:03:47.520 a baseball pitchers mound. Uh And they're they're typically a 1:03:47.680 --> 1:03:50.800 huge resource. You can imagine, you know, a refrigerator that's 1:03:51.200 --> 1:03:55.520 you know, already proven itself in previous years. That becomes 1:03:56.120 --> 1:03:59.120 a huge resource, and so they're passed on from generation 1:03:59.200 --> 1:04:02.760 to generation. We've followed middens that have been occupied by 1:04:02.880 --> 1:04:07.240 squirrels continuously for thirty years, forty years, not the same squirrel, 1:04:07.400 --> 1:04:10.280 you know, just as soon as one one dies, another 1:04:10.320 --> 1:04:13.000 one moves in. As soon as sometimes when we're doing 1:04:13.080 --> 1:04:16.000 some of our live capture studies and market them, even 1:04:16.040 --> 1:04:18.600 when the animal gets in the trap, the neighbor realizes, hey, 1:04:18.680 --> 1:04:20.640 I can go steal a few cones. So we have 1:04:20.800 --> 1:04:23.400 to check these live traps and let animals go quickly 1:04:23.520 --> 1:04:26.840 because the neighbor comes over and starts stealing cones right away. 1:04:27.480 --> 1:04:29.960 Uh So that that's a strategy that works really well 1:04:30.040 --> 1:04:33.720 with with pine cones out here, and you know it's 1:04:34.400 --> 1:04:38.320 and the the red squirrels that we have around here 1:04:38.360 --> 1:04:42.400 in bows men are territorial, so that's their whole life is, 1:04:42.760 --> 1:04:45.360 you know, packed into one of these middens. Everything that's 1:04:45.360 --> 1:04:47.880 going to enable them to survive this winter is found 1:04:47.880 --> 1:04:51.240 there because these guys don't hibernate and uh, you know, 1:04:51.360 --> 1:04:55.600 they're they're relying on stored fat and then whatever pine 1:04:55.680 --> 1:04:59.000 cones that they've that they've saved. So being territorial and 1:04:59.080 --> 1:05:01.240 piling them in one pla it works here. The other 1:05:01.440 --> 1:05:07.000 other strategy that you see in more indeciduous forest, typically 1:05:07.400 --> 1:05:11.120 with fox squirrels and Eastern gray squirrels predominantly here in 1:05:11.160 --> 1:05:15.360 the US, they they they're scatter hoarders, so rather than 1:05:15.680 --> 1:05:18.240 pile them all in one place where they can defend 1:05:18.320 --> 1:05:22.840 them and it's just there's uh and they last for 1:05:22.920 --> 1:05:26.760 a long time because your refrigerators working uh with things 1:05:26.840 --> 1:05:30.360 like acorns, they spoil relatively quickly and tons of things 1:05:30.440 --> 1:05:33.000 can eat acorns, right, you know, those decisious force In 1:05:33.040 --> 1:05:36.560 those good years, you've got turkey, deer, every small mammal, 1:05:36.720 --> 1:05:39.840 some other crows and some other kind of you know, 1:05:39.960 --> 1:05:43.440 good sized birds uh will will eat them beside squirrels. 1:05:43.640 --> 1:05:46.840 So they take a different strategy and they scatter them out. 1:05:46.920 --> 1:05:49.600 So they actually go under a tree that has a 1:05:50.560 --> 1:05:54.160 concentration of them and they spread them out. Um and 1:05:55.320 --> 1:05:59.840 uh so that reduces the risk of other things eating them. 1:06:00.120 --> 1:06:02.560 But the problem is, you know, how do you find 1:06:02.600 --> 1:06:06.080 them again? And so it turns out that part of 1:06:06.160 --> 1:06:09.720 its memory, part of it is a strategy that they 1:06:10.680 --> 1:06:14.160 uh you know, this is their general area. Um. So 1:06:14.400 --> 1:06:18.000 there's there's not it's not territorial where it's just exclusive 1:06:18.120 --> 1:06:22.040 use they will, but they tend to bury them in 1:06:22.080 --> 1:06:27.840 the same general area. So a squirrel goes back to 1:06:27.960 --> 1:06:31.680 that area uses its memory to say, hey, over here, 1:06:31.960 --> 1:06:35.040 you know, I know I buried buried some nuts. Um 1:06:35.320 --> 1:06:38.280 you know if you're thinking like this from a from 1:06:38.320 --> 1:06:42.320 a person. But they actually find them, typically not solely 1:06:42.360 --> 1:06:45.439 by memory. It's the smell. They've got an incredible sense 1:06:45.480 --> 1:06:49.400 of smell. Their eyesights just okay, but their sense of smell. 1:06:49.720 --> 1:06:53.040 They've they've been shown to be able to find a 1:06:53.200 --> 1:06:57.840 nut three or four ft under the snow by s 1:06:59.680 --> 1:07:01.880 So it gets there, you know, it says, okay, this 1:07:02.040 --> 1:07:04.320 general spot, I know I buried them, and that makes 1:07:04.320 --> 1:07:06.200 sense if you know it looks a lot different with 1:07:06.280 --> 1:07:09.080 three ft of snow. We've all, you know, been hiking 1:07:09.120 --> 1:07:11.800 in a forest and said, you know, and no notice 1:07:11.840 --> 1:07:14.800 how different it looks in the winter. So memory alone, 1:07:15.200 --> 1:07:17.240 you know that log now is covered up, and you 1:07:17.320 --> 1:07:20.760 know the uh even parts of that tree are covered up. 1:07:20.840 --> 1:07:24.560 So they go in and they they smell through three 1:07:24.680 --> 1:07:27.080 or four ft of snow, they'll they'll pick up that set. 1:07:28.000 --> 1:07:30.480 I got two related questions here. One is do they 1:07:30.520 --> 1:07:33.200 ever stash meat? And then the other one is can 1:07:33.280 --> 1:07:36.360 you explain deceptive cashing and have you ever witnessed it? 1:07:36.720 --> 1:07:42.680 I'll take the first one. Yes, you are correct, Steve. Uh. 1:07:43.600 --> 1:07:46.640 You know you know the problem that you're I think 1:07:46.720 --> 1:07:51.920 your field has created. I don't say red squirrel. I'm 1:07:51.960 --> 1:07:55.600 all about solutions. So I'd like to problem get expunge 1:07:55.680 --> 1:08:00.720 red squirrel from your vocabulary. Pine squirrel, pine squirrel, unless 1:08:00.720 --> 1:08:03.320 there's a problem there, because I find like I got 1:08:03.440 --> 1:08:07.360 a buddy from Missouri who now lives in Michigan, and 1:08:07.480 --> 1:08:11.360 he calls fox squirrels red squirrels, like it's not a 1:08:11.400 --> 1:08:16.880 red squirrel I'm like, okay, I said, just to clean up, 1:08:16.880 --> 1:08:20.920 I said, listen with him. I'm like pine squirrels, which 1:08:20.960 --> 1:08:22.479 he is not accustomed to because he didn't grow up 1:08:22.479 --> 1:08:24.680 with them. I'm like, you got pine squirrels once you 1:08:24.800 --> 1:08:27.360 live in a place with pine squirrels. Don't say red 1:08:27.439 --> 1:08:31.320 squirrels because everybody gets mixed up. I feel that, like nationally, 1:08:31.800 --> 1:08:34.680 like Biden's is signing all these executive orders, I think 1:08:34.720 --> 1:08:38.519 you should add that in and clean that up. And 1:08:38.600 --> 1:08:41.479 in terms of Spencer's question, I read a paper one 1:08:41.520 --> 1:08:45.400 time where they're doing a study immortality study and Alberta 1:08:46.520 --> 1:08:54.320 on Leverett's so baby snowshoe hairs, and they would find 1:08:54.439 --> 1:08:57.439 the bulk of the dead ones in pine squirrel middens. 1:08:58.600 --> 1:09:01.799 And I'll add quickly that I have seen were grizzly 1:09:01.840 --> 1:09:07.880 bears dig up and raid middens. I'm back out now, Okay. 1:09:07.920 --> 1:09:10.640 So first I'm gonna go with your pine squirrel suggestion. 1:09:10.840 --> 1:09:14.880 While I am incredibly appreciative of your suggestion there and 1:09:15.280 --> 1:09:21.520 will take it into consideration. Everybody loves clarity. So red squirrels, 1:09:22.040 --> 1:09:25.479 and I said, red squirrels U in the Eastern US. 1:09:25.560 --> 1:09:27.559 You find him in deciduous force, so there aren't even 1:09:27.600 --> 1:09:35.160 pines around. You can find red squirrels. Well, ee, it's 1:09:35.160 --> 1:09:40.240 still it's still a red squirrel too, So I don't 1:09:40.439 --> 1:09:43.280 haven't grown up in the Midwest. Lots of people call 1:09:43.479 --> 1:09:45.920 fox squirrels red square you know, the red ones ye 1:09:46.400 --> 1:09:50.439 like in their orange right. Yeah, So let's go with 1:09:50.520 --> 1:09:54.240 orange squirrels. We'll talk to Joe Biden and see if 1:09:54.280 --> 1:09:58.320 he goes. I can't get in the executive more orange 1:09:58.479 --> 1:10:03.439 orange squirrel orange squirrels. Um. So those the middens that 1:10:03.520 --> 1:10:07.200 you talked about, uh, and that we've kind of discussed 1:10:07.240 --> 1:10:12.280 as a refrigerator, the refrigerator for more than just just cones. 1:10:12.400 --> 1:10:16.920 They'll squirrels will put mushrooms in there, and they will 1:10:17.000 --> 1:10:23.240 store meat. So I found chipmunks and uh Leverett's uh, 1:10:24.120 --> 1:10:28.120 we found them buried in cash within the those cone 1:10:28.120 --> 1:10:30.680 scale piles. It's kind of risky though, because lots of 1:10:30.760 --> 1:10:33.960 things eat meat. So what more frequently what they do 1:10:34.920 --> 1:10:38.000 is they hang them up in the trees. They hang 1:10:38.160 --> 1:10:45.000 mushrooms up in the trees, but they hang it's stuff 1:10:45.040 --> 1:10:50.120 man like muskrats, sorry, mushrooms in trees like someone put 1:10:50.200 --> 1:10:53.320 it there, No kidding. So they're they're putting them up there, 1:10:53.760 --> 1:10:56.800 and they actually manage them. So you guys have seen 1:10:56.960 --> 1:11:00.240 red squirrels, you know, they just they're constantly run and 1:11:00.320 --> 1:11:05.160 back and forth protecting this pile in the midden, and 1:11:05.720 --> 1:11:09.840 they're they're also is you know, anal about managing their 1:11:10.400 --> 1:11:14.560 uh there mushrooms. They will just pick them up and 1:11:14.600 --> 1:11:17.280 move them around the sun, you know, the sunny side 1:11:17.280 --> 1:11:19.160 of the tree. They'll put them there to dry out 1:11:19.200 --> 1:11:21.720 a little bit, and they'll move them back. But they 1:11:21.800 --> 1:11:25.040 do the same thing with little rabbits as well. So 1:11:25.760 --> 1:11:31.240 we've we've seen them a few times kill uh kill rabbits. 1:11:31.720 --> 1:11:35.679 But the first time that we came across this probably 1:11:35.760 --> 1:11:38.760 twenty years ago, when I first moved to Arizona, I'm 1:11:39.040 --> 1:11:41.080 looking up and I think that there's a squirrel in 1:11:41.160 --> 1:11:44.040 this tree above me, because there's a big dark blob, 1:11:44.240 --> 1:11:47.240 you know, kind of backlit, and and it's kind of 1:11:47.280 --> 1:11:48.960 blowing in the wind a little bit. So I thought 1:11:49.000 --> 1:11:52.120 it was its tail, and you know, it was a 1:11:52.200 --> 1:11:55.960 small rabbit that had been hung up there, probably to dry. 1:11:56.400 --> 1:11:57.960 You know, you've got to make good jerky if you're 1:11:57.960 --> 1:12:04.160 gonna use this man all winter along, so amazing. The 1:12:04.479 --> 1:12:07.200 next question was about deceptive cashing. Can you explain it 1:12:07.400 --> 1:12:11.000 and have you witnessed it? Yea. So this goes at 1:12:11.040 --> 1:12:14.800 that you're scatter hoarding. You're not these nuts around, right, 1:12:14.880 --> 1:12:18.080 You're trying to spread out a resource that's concentrated under 1:12:18.160 --> 1:12:20.360 one tree, and you want to end up with as 1:12:20.439 --> 1:12:23.600 much of that as possible. So there have been a 1:12:23.720 --> 1:12:26.240 few cases that I've seen, and it's been reported a 1:12:26.280 --> 1:12:30.080 little bit in the literature that squirrels will you know, 1:12:30.240 --> 1:12:32.600 do the head fake and uh, you know, go in 1:12:33.000 --> 1:12:37.920 and and fake cashing things. I've seen them pick up 1:12:38.400 --> 1:12:41.679 like a rock, put it, dig a little hole, drop 1:12:41.760 --> 1:12:45.640 it in, move a move a leaf over it, and 1:12:46.400 --> 1:12:49.479 then you know, go back and you know, grab an 1:12:49.520 --> 1:12:53.080 acorn and bury it somewhere else. And so there there's 1:12:53.160 --> 1:12:56.240 this thought that and it makes sense that this is 1:12:56.280 --> 1:12:58.800 such a competitive you know, if you don't get enough energy, 1:12:58.840 --> 1:13:02.400 you're gonna die over winter, So every little advantage, you know, 1:13:02.600 --> 1:13:06.400 can can play out. So we've seen that, and we 1:13:06.520 --> 1:13:10.840 think that's due to different squirrels, you know, trying to uh, 1:13:11.400 --> 1:13:15.920 trying to be deceptive. But because squirrels can smell so well, 1:13:16.280 --> 1:13:20.760 you know that probably isn't a great technique solely to 1:13:21.120 --> 1:13:27.400 to reduce predation seed competition from other seed predators, but 1:13:27.800 --> 1:13:31.160 for birds that typically birds can't smell. You know, there 1:13:31.240 --> 1:13:33.519 are a few that do, you smell, but most birds can't, 1:13:34.360 --> 1:13:39.080 so they buy going in and faking. Here's where I'm 1:13:39.880 --> 1:13:43.920 burying this, where I'm cashing this this seed. A bird 1:13:44.120 --> 1:13:47.559 is not going there. They're going by those visual cues 1:13:47.640 --> 1:13:51.240 and hey, he's you know that squirrels bearing nuts over here. 1:13:51.280 --> 1:13:53.559 I'm gonna go check it out and bounce around until 1:13:53.640 --> 1:13:58.120 I can find one. And uh so we think that 1:13:58.240 --> 1:14:00.720 it actually may be more advantage us for that kind 1:14:00.760 --> 1:14:04.080 of competition then within your own species, where you know 1:14:04.200 --> 1:14:06.840 you can you can pick up the smell of a 1:14:06.960 --> 1:14:10.439 nut much more easily. I watched one. I don't know 1:14:10.479 --> 1:14:12.439 if he was doing a deceptive cash or if he 1:14:12.640 --> 1:14:14.880 just wasn't happy with his first spot I was. I 1:14:15.000 --> 1:14:18.000 was quite surprised to find I was on a maybe 1:14:18.080 --> 1:14:21.400 a hundred foot sort of null knob in an oak 1:14:21.520 --> 1:14:25.920 forest in Wisconsin, but a solid hundred yards from the 1:14:26.000 --> 1:14:29.880 nearest stock of corn. I'm standing there just observing, and 1:14:30.160 --> 1:14:33.200 up up onto this null pops the squirrel with at 1:14:33.320 --> 1:14:36.360 least a half a corn cob in its mouth, runs 1:14:36.360 --> 1:14:38.720 along some logs, goes to a spot, sets it down, 1:14:39.000 --> 1:14:42.160 digs What I thought was pretty like put some effort 1:14:42.200 --> 1:14:43.760 into making a hole. I mean, he's talking about a 1:14:43.760 --> 1:14:47.920 half a corn cob and then just leaves picks up 1:14:47.960 --> 1:14:50.360 his corn cob, you know, goes ten feet farther, and 1:14:50.400 --> 1:14:55.200 then stashes it in there. But two things, Well, the 1:14:55.240 --> 1:14:57.360 biggest thing that struck means that how far he had 1:14:57.439 --> 1:14:59.880 gone to go get get that. I'm guessing the color 1:15:00.240 --> 1:15:02.839 value of what he was dashing was worth that trouble 1:15:03.479 --> 1:15:06.320 and putting him away. But my, uh that what you 1:15:06.320 --> 1:15:08.400 said earlier brought up a question you keep talking about 1:15:08.400 --> 1:15:11.120 like near the same tree, Like how big is that 1:15:11.320 --> 1:15:16.200 stash zone for a squirrel? So it can be the 1:15:16.800 --> 1:15:19.839 size of the home range, the area that they're roaming 1:15:20.120 --> 1:15:23.200 really varies on the kind of the quality of the forest. 1:15:23.320 --> 1:15:25.240 So if you're in a really poor forest, you've got 1:15:25.320 --> 1:15:29.080 to range more widely, and so the zone that they're 1:15:29.120 --> 1:15:33.920 burying them, you know, varies by those kinds of conditions. 1:15:34.040 --> 1:15:38.240 But typically you're looking at the home range of most 1:15:38.360 --> 1:15:40.880 squirrels is kind of a football field or two or 1:15:40.920 --> 1:15:46.120 talking just a couple of acres and you are although 1:15:46.240 --> 1:15:51.160 males during the breeding season rome you know times sometimes 1:15:51.240 --> 1:15:54.719 more than that, and they but within that they typically 1:15:54.840 --> 1:15:58.920 will yeah, they'll they'll bury. If you're talking out in 1:15:59.000 --> 1:16:01.439 an oak forest, they'll be bry them in kind of 1:16:01.600 --> 1:16:05.400 concentrated areas. But they also, you know, it's it's energetically 1:16:05.479 --> 1:16:09.679 costly if you're you're going to going to grab an acorn, 1:16:10.560 --> 1:16:11.840 you know, if you have to run a mile to 1:16:11.960 --> 1:16:14.400 bury it, you're not gonna you know that that makes 1:16:14.479 --> 1:16:18.840 no energetic sense. So they typically don't go very far, 1:16:19.000 --> 1:16:21.920 but they're spreading them out, sometimes hundreds of yards away 1:16:22.000 --> 1:16:25.000 from the tree. And that's actually kind of the thought 1:16:25.080 --> 1:16:27.040 to be that's to the advantage of the tree. You 1:16:27.120 --> 1:16:30.680 know that the acorn fall straight down. Now it's you know, 1:16:30.880 --> 1:16:34.320 it's parent tree is the competitor for sunlight and water. 1:16:34.800 --> 1:16:37.920 But giving this nice tasty tidbit that a squirrel is 1:16:37.920 --> 1:16:40.479 going to take out and bury, you know, is that 1:16:40.760 --> 1:16:44.160 really the advantage of the trees looking for out of 1:16:44.200 --> 1:16:47.880 the deal. So we have seen them there. They they're 1:16:47.920 --> 1:16:51.639 known when you get a walnut tree that's in fruit, 1:16:51.920 --> 1:16:54.559 you can actually smell it if you're if you're out there. 1:16:55.280 --> 1:16:57.920 Squirrels are known to come from a couple of miles 1:16:58.000 --> 1:17:00.680 away to get a walnut tree that's a black hole 1:17:00.760 --> 1:17:04.200 nut tree back east that's in you know, in fruit, 1:17:04.439 --> 1:17:07.719 and just think they're smelling it. Yep, they smell it, yep, definitely, 1:17:07.760 --> 1:17:11.360 just like they find females from from far away. That 1:17:11.920 --> 1:17:15.000 scent is really the way that squirrels communicate. I know 1:17:15.080 --> 1:17:17.080 we've all heard the same probably you know, even a 1:17:17.120 --> 1:17:20.599 blind squirrel finds a nut sometimes they don't use their 1:17:20.640 --> 1:17:23.920 eyes to find squirrels really technically should be even an 1:17:24.040 --> 1:17:27.800 anosmic squirrel finds finds a nut sometimes because you know, 1:17:27.960 --> 1:17:31.280 you they used smell to find these things. They used 1:17:31.320 --> 1:17:34.600 smell to find females, they smell to find food. They 1:17:34.680 --> 1:17:38.680 also used smell to communicate in clay. I'm really be 1:17:38.760 --> 1:17:43.160 really curious if you've seen this. Uh, they use scent 1:17:43.280 --> 1:17:46.559 marking sites fox squirrels and gray squirrels. In particular, if 1:17:46.600 --> 1:17:49.320 you look at the underside of a branch or the 1:17:49.439 --> 1:17:53.080 base of a big cottonwood tree, you'll see areas that 1:17:53.200 --> 1:17:57.240 look like something's you know, and you know, maybe maybe 1:17:57.280 --> 1:18:00.680 a buck has come by and scraped along there. Uh. 1:18:01.320 --> 1:18:03.599 But if you look at it closely, you'll see squirrel 1:18:03.640 --> 1:18:07.360 insiz remarks. These are a set marks that all the 1:18:07.439 --> 1:18:12.320 males roam by and mark there. Sometimes they'll sometimes they'll 1:18:12.479 --> 1:18:14.920 urnate on it, but they have glands in their cheeks 1:18:14.960 --> 1:18:18.679 and they just they'll wipe them. They got a little 1:18:18.720 --> 1:18:21.599 scrape out in the woods, a little buck yep, theys 1:18:21.680 --> 1:18:26.720 some big trees. Never never seen that, never never seen it. 1:18:26.840 --> 1:18:29.920 Never never heard that. Look at some hickories, and look 1:18:30.000 --> 1:18:33.880 at some oaks, and especially on the underside of the 1:18:34.040 --> 1:18:37.240 lowest big branches, or if their trees got a little 1:18:37.240 --> 1:18:40.720 bit of a tilt on it where it's less exposed 1:18:40.920 --> 1:18:45.519 to uh, you know, to weather, where that scent probably stays. 1:18:45.760 --> 1:18:48.880 You'll see these things that Sometimes they'll get as big 1:18:48.920 --> 1:18:51.080 as maybe two ft by like a foot and a 1:18:51.120 --> 1:18:55.200 half or something. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you'll see them. They're 1:18:55.240 --> 1:18:58.439 all over I'm coming. I came here from Laramie where 1:18:58.479 --> 1:19:01.439 we've got fox squirrels. They're all all over the trees there. 1:19:01.520 --> 1:19:03.519 So like, would that be a good strategy to sit 1:19:03.600 --> 1:19:07.320 that little scrape? So if you sit there that and 1:19:07.439 --> 1:19:09.360 I was going to say, if you sit there long enough, 1:19:09.439 --> 1:19:12.559 you'll you'll see animals come through, especially as you're approaching 1:19:12.600 --> 1:19:15.800 the breeding season. So in the spring it is a 1:19:15.880 --> 1:19:19.280 good place to go to to see squirrels and likely 1:19:19.360 --> 1:19:22.400 to hunt squirrels. And it's it's male biased, so you 1:19:22.479 --> 1:19:24.639 know you're you're not you're not hunting the big bucks. 1:19:24.960 --> 1:19:28.240 You're getting you're getting the big one point two pounders. 1:19:29.640 --> 1:19:32.240 What are some other things like that that hunters are 1:19:32.320 --> 1:19:35.000 probably ignoring or don't know about, Like if if they're 1:19:35.000 --> 1:19:36.400 in the woods and they're trying to find a good 1:19:36.439 --> 1:19:40.080 place to hunt besides the obvious, like actual squirrels, what 1:19:40.200 --> 1:19:43.439 are some indicators that this is gonna be a good place. Well, 1:19:43.479 --> 1:19:45.639 if you put your deer stand up, you can almost 1:19:45.720 --> 1:19:51.960 be sure that that's one of the best places. But 1:19:53.120 --> 1:19:57.919 so a couple of things those in the mornings, animals 1:19:58.000 --> 1:20:01.160 come out, and almost the first thing they do, if 1:20:01.200 --> 1:20:04.840 you're talking fall, winter in spring, is they'll bask in 1:20:04.880 --> 1:20:07.439 the sun. And that's when you get a group of squirrels. 1:20:07.479 --> 1:20:10.919 So you'll have you know, six, eight, ten, twelve squirrels 1:20:11.000 --> 1:20:15.599 all nesting together, and so finding those big old trees 1:20:15.760 --> 1:20:18.880 that have some cavities in they're not they don't like 1:20:19.000 --> 1:20:22.280 the incredibly decomposed one wind and we're going to fall 1:20:22.400 --> 1:20:26.120 over kind of kind of tree. But if you're if 1:20:26.160 --> 1:20:31.200 you're in a place where you've got some pretty good older, large, 1:20:31.320 --> 1:20:33.640 older trees, they may not even produce they may be 1:20:33.800 --> 1:20:37.640 so old they're overmature, aren't producing any tree seeds, but 1:20:37.800 --> 1:20:40.840 they've got some good cavities. That's the place to go. 1:20:41.080 --> 1:20:44.600 You've you've all seen those den cavities probably and you 1:20:44.680 --> 1:20:46.920 can tell where squirrel has been gnawing it, and the 1:20:47.000 --> 1:20:50.120 tree keep kind of keeps re growing, so it's kind 1:20:50.160 --> 1:20:52.800 of a nice smooth edge. That's you know, that's a 1:20:53.800 --> 1:20:59.040 good indicator. And uh. To to assess whether the animals 1:20:59.160 --> 1:21:01.479 might be there, I like to go out the night 1:21:01.520 --> 1:21:04.920 before because that's when animals are going back to the nest. 1:21:05.200 --> 1:21:08.120 And so if you follow animals back, that's when you 1:21:08.200 --> 1:21:11.360 get six or eight animals coming together right at you know, 1:21:11.560 --> 1:21:15.920 right before before sunset. So picking up an animal in 1:21:16.040 --> 1:21:18.920 the woods and following it back, you can usually figure 1:21:18.920 --> 1:21:21.040 out what tree or a couple of trees they're going 1:21:21.120 --> 1:21:24.360 back to, and and that's that's a really good indicator. 1:21:25.040 --> 1:21:28.439 Uh uh. And then just the noise of them, and 1:21:29.720 --> 1:21:32.080 most hunters will you know, use that noise or the 1:21:32.160 --> 1:21:35.200 falling of you know, cone scales. If you're looking at 1:21:35.240 --> 1:21:38.640 red squirrels, you're looking at pieces of of nuts that 1:21:38.720 --> 1:21:41.840 are falling. Uh, that's always a great indicator. But these 1:21:41.880 --> 1:21:44.720 scent marks are something like Clay Clay sent I know 1:21:44.840 --> 1:21:48.720 Clay loves loves squirrel hunting. And most people haven't seen that. 1:21:48.840 --> 1:21:51.120 But if you go out and look, I guarantee that 1:21:51.200 --> 1:21:53.839 you'll that you'll find a bunch of those. Red squirrels 1:21:53.880 --> 1:21:56.200 don't do that as far as we can tell, but 1:21:56.360 --> 1:21:59.640 all squirrels had these scent glands in their cheeks, and 1:22:00.400 --> 1:22:03.080 when they're going back to the nest, they wipe those. 1:22:03.479 --> 1:22:05.840 They'll stop every few feet on a branch and wipe 1:22:05.960 --> 1:22:08.880 their head back and forth. Called it face wipe, and 1:22:09.200 --> 1:22:13.000 their depositing scent that probably says there's an animal here. 1:22:13.120 --> 1:22:16.600 This nest is going to be occupied. And you know, 1:22:16.680 --> 1:22:19.280 if you're a friend, come join me, share your body 1:22:19.360 --> 1:22:22.200 heat for the you know, for the night or uh, 1:22:22.439 --> 1:22:25.320 you know, be prepared to like that mink who won 1:22:25.400 --> 1:22:28.240 the battle, to be prepared to do to do get 1:22:28.320 --> 1:22:31.320 out there. I once did that by accident. Followed I 1:22:31.520 --> 1:22:33.519 was not just like following it to see where the 1:22:33.600 --> 1:22:37.160 dentry was. I was chasing this group of squirrels, and 1:22:37.280 --> 1:22:40.439 they got to the dentry ahead of me. I thought, well, 1:22:40.520 --> 1:22:42.599 by golly, I'm hunting tomorrow morning. I know where I'll 1:22:42.600 --> 1:22:44.720 be sitting in the dark and waiting for him. Now. 1:22:45.000 --> 1:22:49.559 I had a very successful first ten minutes of the morning. Uh, 1:22:49.680 --> 1:22:53.400 am I doing anything? Uh? Like? Am I hurting the 1:22:53.479 --> 1:22:57.479 squirrel population by by doing that? I felt bad about, Like, 1:22:58.160 --> 1:23:01.360 just like, you know, getting close to three quarters of 1:23:01.439 --> 1:23:03.360 my limit in the first ten minutes of the morning 1:23:03.439 --> 1:23:07.880 out of that one tree. So spreading, spreading your your 1:23:08.000 --> 1:23:11.800 hunting effort out would be a good strategy. Uh. Those 1:23:11.880 --> 1:23:15.519 groups though, especially if you're not taking all the animals 1:23:15.600 --> 1:23:18.599 in the group there, they're either groups of related females, 1:23:19.280 --> 1:23:24.120 and that that group of females, although they're not territorial, 1:23:24.320 --> 1:23:25.960 is you know, that's kind of their space. So if 1:23:26.000 --> 1:23:29.080 you're not taking all the animals, you know there are 1:23:29.120 --> 1:23:31.080 some that are still going to be there. Or it's 1:23:31.120 --> 1:23:34.120 a group of males, and the males are typically if 1:23:34.160 --> 1:23:36.560 you're not a male youngster who's with your mom and 1:23:36.680 --> 1:23:41.280 your grandmother and you're you know, you know, maybe a 1:23:41.360 --> 1:23:45.720 great grandmother kind of in that spot then, Uh, that 1:23:46.040 --> 1:23:48.720 you're you disperse from where you're born and you're in 1:23:48.760 --> 1:23:51.080 a group with males, and you know, as we know, 1:23:51.240 --> 1:23:55.000 the really important demographic class is going to be those females. 1:23:55.200 --> 1:23:58.240 So you know, just being a little bit attentive and 1:23:58.280 --> 1:24:02.479 spreading it around. You know, they have good litter sizes, 1:24:02.640 --> 1:24:06.720 they typically rebound from hunting pressure that's not you know, 1:24:06.920 --> 1:24:10.880 constant and immense without any problem at all. So, uh, 1:24:11.240 --> 1:24:13.719 you know, I think you don't have to feel so guilty, 1:24:13.800 --> 1:24:15.640 and I can see it in your eyes, but I 1:24:15.720 --> 1:24:29.599 think you're okay with all the raptors and everything killing 1:24:29.680 --> 1:24:32.000 them and all the other stuff that kills him. Is 1:24:32.040 --> 1:24:35.599 that have you ever seen where um where squirrel hunters 1:24:35.720 --> 1:24:41.960 have had like a localized impact on population that was 1:24:42.880 --> 1:24:47.479 of note? So there's no I've never seen it. And 1:24:48.080 --> 1:24:51.760 because of the difficulty in finding them, I mean, you know, 1:24:51.880 --> 1:24:54.320 we've just heard from Yanni that he can only find 1:24:54.400 --> 1:24:56.479 him ten minutes out of a day, So we've got 1:24:56.560 --> 1:24:59.120 that kind of an aptitude. You know, they're they're they're 1:24:59.160 --> 1:25:02.960 always going to you know, going to be squirrels around. Uh, 1:25:03.560 --> 1:25:06.600 they tend to have good litter sizes, They tend to 1:25:06.680 --> 1:25:09.920 be able to have two litters a year if the 1:25:10.120 --> 1:25:13.439 resources are high. So when densities start to get low, 1:25:13.920 --> 1:25:16.400 you see, and you have a good cone crop or 1:25:16.720 --> 1:25:20.160 or good mass crop, you have the ability to respond 1:25:20.240 --> 1:25:25.360 pretty quickly. There was a study back east in Virginia 1:25:25.640 --> 1:25:29.599 where they they tried to have an impact. They hunted 1:25:29.680 --> 1:25:34.600 them exceedingly high and it's something like Jesus should I 1:25:34.640 --> 1:25:38.439 want to say sevent mortality something like that, where they 1:25:38.560 --> 1:25:43.200 really were hunting an area very heavily. Then in that 1:25:43.439 --> 1:25:50.000 case they showed some impacts of hunting. But what happens 1:25:50.120 --> 1:25:54.360 is you have more individuals producing two litters a year. 1:25:55.439 --> 1:25:57.960 You know, kind of compensate for that because now they're 1:25:58.080 --> 1:26:00.439 they're getting more food, they're in better shape, you know, 1:26:00.600 --> 1:26:03.320 don't have they're not being chased around by other squirrels 1:26:03.360 --> 1:26:08.919 as much, and they can squirrels. Tree squirrels can reproduce 1:26:09.000 --> 1:26:11.040 at about six months of age. So if you're in 1:26:11.400 --> 1:26:14.280 a time when you have a really good mask here 1:26:15.200 --> 1:26:18.400 younger the year will reproduce really early. So you're born 1:26:18.680 --> 1:26:23.439 in February March and you can reproduce in that. There 1:26:23.439 --> 1:26:26.880 are cases where they've reproduced even in that second breeding season. 1:26:26.960 --> 1:26:29.840 So they're born in one breeding season and able to 1:26:30.320 --> 1:26:33.720 uh to reproduce just a few months later. So you 1:26:33.800 --> 1:26:37.160 know they're they're geared to be able to take advantage 1:26:37.360 --> 1:26:41.080 of these boom and bust mass crops. So a good year, 1:26:41.479 --> 1:26:43.840 you know a mask, you're going to get lots of young. 1:26:44.040 --> 1:26:48.320 They're going to reproduce quickly and capitalize on them. Squirrel 1:26:48.360 --> 1:26:51.680 hunting is really so inefficient. I mean you realize that 1:26:51.800 --> 1:26:54.160 when you do a lot of squirrel hunting, how you 1:26:54.320 --> 1:26:58.360 may hunt this big block of timber and you realize 1:26:58.400 --> 1:27:00.599 how many times your dogs tree and you don't kill 1:27:00.680 --> 1:27:02.960 that squirrel, or how many squirrels you see that you 1:27:03.040 --> 1:27:06.280 don't kill, And so I mean you you have to 1:27:06.560 --> 1:27:08.519 You would have to hunt very very hard to be 1:27:08.560 --> 1:27:12.160 able to knock them down. And there's there there. They 1:27:12.200 --> 1:27:13.880 seem to be a species, like you said, that just 1:27:13.960 --> 1:27:17.599 bounces back so quickly and the other way, I think 1:27:17.640 --> 1:27:19.920 about it as a hunter, and I'm trying to calm 1:27:20.080 --> 1:27:23.120 Janice's nerves here and bring him back a little more 1:27:23.280 --> 1:27:27.240 center here. Uh, I'm joking you honest um. Is that 1:27:28.040 --> 1:27:30.439 that you know, if you had a hundred acre track 1:27:30.479 --> 1:27:33.240 of land to squirrel hunt and you just pounded it 1:27:33.840 --> 1:27:36.280 and maybe you killed sevent the squirrels in there, which 1:27:36.280 --> 1:27:40.719 you probably couldn't. The there would be a vacuum around 1:27:40.800 --> 1:27:44.839 that place. I mean, like there, you know, I've squirrels 1:27:44.880 --> 1:27:46.720 would just fill that in because think of all the 1:27:46.800 --> 1:27:49.760 land you're not hunting around that. Like so if you 1:27:49.880 --> 1:27:53.960 could like grid off and just hunt equally, like some 1:27:54.200 --> 1:27:56.439 huge portion of land, like maybe you could knock them down. 1:27:56.600 --> 1:28:01.280 Does that sound about right, John? Yeah, exactly. The you know, 1:28:01.640 --> 1:28:06.120 prime sites are always somewhat limited out there, and you've 1:28:06.200 --> 1:28:08.760 got when you're having a litter size of two and 1:28:08.800 --> 1:28:11.840 a half, you know, three and a half young maybe 1:28:11.880 --> 1:28:14.759 a couple of times a year. Animals we talked about 1:28:14.760 --> 1:28:16.920 how long they can live. You know, there's not this 1:28:17.200 --> 1:28:20.439 massive turnover of adults, and so when when an animal 1:28:20.560 --> 1:28:25.200 dies another animals moving in really quickly. Always have individuals 1:28:25.280 --> 1:28:28.479 that are are looking for quality spots with red squirrels 1:28:28.520 --> 1:28:31.960 that are territorial. Even more so, as I mentioned, you know, 1:28:32.280 --> 1:28:33.920 we put it, we catch an animal in a live 1:28:34.000 --> 1:28:37.280 trap and you know, just for thirty minutes and the 1:28:37.360 --> 1:28:40.840 neighbor knows that this spot is available, and you know 1:28:41.200 --> 1:28:43.280 we'll be over there in a minute. So, yeah, you're 1:28:43.280 --> 1:28:46.160 exactly right, Clay. I didn't want your honest to be 1:28:46.280 --> 1:28:49.519 too soft hearted when he comes to Arkansas here later 1:28:49.640 --> 1:28:52.240 this winter. You take what you can get when you're 1:28:52.240 --> 1:28:55.759 squirrel hunting, buddy. Listen, I've put a lot of time 1:28:56.800 --> 1:29:00.840 effort into hunting squirrels and I've only had one episode 1:29:01.120 --> 1:29:05.200 like that. So yeah, I've I've yet to not bullet 1:29:05.360 --> 1:29:10.160 bullet trigger on a on a scroll opportunity. All right, vocalizations, 1:29:10.920 --> 1:29:14.200 let's do it like just the because I'm guessing fox 1:29:14.280 --> 1:29:17.559 and grays are pretty similar, right, so let's do then, 1:29:17.640 --> 1:29:20.479 because that's what most hunters concentrate on. I know, I 1:29:20.640 --> 1:29:24.400 think that like red pine squirrels have interesting vocalizations. I've 1:29:24.439 --> 1:29:25.920 heard a lot of them, and I think that they 1:29:26.000 --> 1:29:28.960 can sort of be valuable to know, maybe to like 1:29:29.120 --> 1:29:32.040 an elk hunter, because you hear them in the woods 1:29:32.040 --> 1:29:34.720 and stuff, how it might be associated with you. So 1:29:34.880 --> 1:29:36.640 let's let's break it up. But let's let's kind of 1:29:36.640 --> 1:29:39.240 maybe go through all the ones that you know of 1:29:39.760 --> 1:29:42.920 what they mean and then maybe how we can use 1:29:43.000 --> 1:29:46.679 them to our advantage. So it's there are a series 1:29:46.920 --> 1:29:49.720 of chucks, you know, kind of that cluck cluck cluck. 1:29:52.040 --> 1:29:56.680 That that kind of noise very good. Yeah, that's really good. 1:29:57.080 --> 1:30:06.760 That's very good. So uh that uh And basically it's 1:30:07.000 --> 1:30:11.320 it starts there and they become more prolonged, closer together, 1:30:11.960 --> 1:30:15.680 louder with the level of threat or you know, the 1:30:16.280 --> 1:30:20.760 y it no, I can't do it. You know, it's 1:30:20.760 --> 1:30:25.080 like it's like it becomes a home almost right. So, 1:30:25.479 --> 1:30:27.720 and and that's it. You take these kind of you know, 1:30:27.840 --> 1:30:31.160 separate notes that are just cluck cluck, cluck, and then 1:30:31.240 --> 1:30:34.680 you push them, push them together, and it becomes a 1:30:34.760 --> 1:30:37.280 bit of a hum and then if they're really upset, 1:30:37.720 --> 1:30:40.479 then you get the wine at the end. So why 1:30:41.640 --> 1:30:45.200 why And that is and that's even worse than you. Yeah, 1:30:47.600 --> 1:30:52.960 but that's like a super agitated piste off exactly. And 1:30:53.120 --> 1:30:57.439 he's telling his buddies there's trouble bruin. We think that 1:30:57.600 --> 1:31:01.800 it's more they're telling the predator that I know you're there, 1:31:02.160 --> 1:31:05.719 and I'm really piste off. And so they'll usually stand 1:31:05.760 --> 1:31:08.200 their ground things like something, Yeah, I was gonna I 1:31:08.320 --> 1:31:10.800 was gonna interrupt and say that. Usually when I hear that, 1:31:10.920 --> 1:31:12.599 I feel like I got a good chance of killing 1:31:12.640 --> 1:31:15.519 that squirrel. Because I feel like he's sitting there and like, 1:31:15.720 --> 1:31:18.400 I don't care if you're walking towards me exactly. So 1:31:18.439 --> 1:31:21.560 they're gonna sit there and they're just letting you know 1:31:21.800 --> 1:31:24.160 that they know. And you know, that typically works if 1:31:24.240 --> 1:31:27.400 you're you know, if you're a squirrel against other squirrels, 1:31:27.760 --> 1:31:30.759 probably most predators who aren't gonna waste their time and effort, 1:31:30.880 --> 1:31:33.040 you know, if you're a if you're a bobcat or 1:31:33.600 --> 1:31:36.040 you know, a gray fox, and I've seen gray foxes 1:31:36.080 --> 1:31:38.920 climb trees going after squirrels. Uh, you know, you're not 1:31:39.000 --> 1:31:41.840 gonna spend all that effort if you've got something already 1:31:41.880 --> 1:31:43.920 knows you're there, like you're you're bust did and there's 1:31:43.960 --> 1:31:46.240 nothing you're gonna do about it now. Okay. So it's 1:31:46.280 --> 1:31:48.679 just the fact that I'm aware of you that's gonna 1:31:48.720 --> 1:31:50.920 make him not go, not because he's like, oh there's 1:31:50.960 --> 1:31:54.400 a mad squirrel. I'm not gonna mess with that squirrel. 1:31:54.680 --> 1:31:58.160 And so a lot of ground squirrels that live in groups, 1:31:58.680 --> 1:32:01.599 there is advantage to alling and letting, you know, letting 1:32:01.640 --> 1:32:05.680 all your neighbors sometimes are related animals know, uh, and 1:32:06.120 --> 1:32:08.479 so you'll hear those alarm calls. You've you've been walking 1:32:08.520 --> 1:32:10.840 in a you know, a meadow and heard a bunch 1:32:10.920 --> 1:32:14.400 of yellow belly marmots, you know, start sending off their 1:32:14.400 --> 1:32:19.360 alarm calls. That's those are often related individuals. They're alerting 1:32:20.160 --> 1:32:23.560 other members of their own species in that group know 1:32:23.720 --> 1:32:26.560 that there's a predator there. But it also lets the 1:32:26.640 --> 1:32:30.040 predator know that you've been recognized. And initially we used 1:32:30.040 --> 1:32:32.360 to think that was altruistic. You know, that you'd have 1:32:33.040 --> 1:32:37.760 you'd have ground squirrels alerting everyone and drawing attention to themselves. 1:32:38.439 --> 1:32:40.479 Turns out that when you actually watch what predators do, 1:32:40.640 --> 1:32:42.840 they don't go for the one that saw them and 1:32:43.000 --> 1:32:45.000 is making the call. They're going for the one that's 1:32:45.080 --> 1:32:48.480 running for its borrow because it doesn't know where the predators. 1:32:48.960 --> 1:32:51.439 So now we think that that's actually kind of a 1:32:51.560 --> 1:32:56.320 selfish activity. You call, Hey, watch all these other animals 1:32:56.360 --> 1:32:58.760 scurry around, and you know the hawks gonna get one 1:32:58.800 --> 1:33:01.360 of them, and they're not gonna at you because you 1:33:01.439 --> 1:33:05.400 know you've already identified that that you see them. Plus, 1:33:05.439 --> 1:33:08.639 those high pitch calls are really hard hard to locate sometimes, 1:33:08.680 --> 1:33:11.280 and that that's the thing the chucks that you hear 1:33:11.720 --> 1:33:14.439 those individual notes. The barks A lot of a lot 1:33:14.479 --> 1:33:17.680 of times you'll read about squirrels barking. Those are a 1:33:17.760 --> 1:33:20.040 little easier to locate when they go into that high 1:33:20.120 --> 1:33:24.000 pitched mode. You know. It's those high pitched calls are 1:33:24.080 --> 1:33:27.720 really hard. They're harder to locate. So once they get 1:33:27.760 --> 1:33:31.240 to that level of agitation, uh, you know, they it's 1:33:31.280 --> 1:33:34.240 thought that if they're that level of agitation, the predators 1:33:34.320 --> 1:33:37.400 really close, then it's a little bit harder to actually locate. 1:33:37.479 --> 1:33:39.280 I know they're in this tree somewhere, but the squirrel 1:33:39.360 --> 1:33:41.559 is going to see him before you know, the predators 1:33:41.600 --> 1:33:46.160 sees the squirrel. I've seen them when they're like chased 1:33:46.200 --> 1:33:49.439 each other, like rutting around. I've seen him do some 1:33:49.600 --> 1:33:53.080 amount of agitated chirping at each other. But one like 1:33:53.280 --> 1:33:56.920 when you're squirrel calling, Like my my understanding of this 1:33:57.040 --> 1:34:00.800 is eyes that you're making the alarm call when you 1:34:00.880 --> 1:34:03.880 do that noise, thinking that other squirrels are gonna wonder 1:34:03.960 --> 1:34:07.240 what the story is and come out to try to 1:34:07.280 --> 1:34:10.719 figure out what the problem is. It's not very effective. 1:34:10.760 --> 1:34:13.280 It's very like at a certain time a year, making 1:34:13.320 --> 1:34:16.760 the distress noise seems to get females out, but I 1:34:16.800 --> 1:34:19.120 don't it's squirrel calling is not like a great thing. 1:34:19.160 --> 1:34:21.320 I don't think. Yeah, the squirrel calls to Penny. Which 1:34:21.360 --> 1:34:23.679 ones you have? You know, the ones that I've used 1:34:23.760 --> 1:34:26.639 to when we're trying to locate them. You know, you're 1:34:27.320 --> 1:34:30.280 it's it's a percussion kind of instrument. You know, you're 1:34:30.320 --> 1:34:34.240 pound and it's the chucks. You're getting this little plunger yep. 1:34:34.680 --> 1:34:37.080 And and that makes sense because that's one they're easier 1:34:37.120 --> 1:34:40.559 to locate. So and usually use them when the squirrels 1:34:40.600 --> 1:34:42.160 in the back side of the tree or a big 1:34:42.240 --> 1:34:44.559 branch and they kind of look around, you know, that's 1:34:44.680 --> 1:34:47.800 that's where they're effective, is actually getting there, you know, 1:34:47.920 --> 1:34:51.519 getting their attention. Rarely do do they can you draw 1:34:51.640 --> 1:34:54.920 them out of a nest uh? And so so you 1:34:55.120 --> 1:34:57.240 use those for research. Per We use them for research 1:34:57.280 --> 1:34:59.519 if we know, if we're trying to check on is 1:34:59.680 --> 1:35:03.200 this individual live and we don't have radio collars on 1:35:03.320 --> 1:35:05.640 all our animals, you can go in and use that 1:35:05.800 --> 1:35:10.160 chucking call or use my really lame chucks. That's enough 1:35:10.320 --> 1:35:13.679 for a squirrel typically to to peek around a tree, 1:35:13.720 --> 1:35:16.800 and so you'll hear them, you'll hear them skirting around 1:35:16.840 --> 1:35:18.719 the tree a little bit that you know, running against 1:35:18.760 --> 1:35:21.320 the bark, um, and that's it's a great way to 1:35:21.400 --> 1:35:24.680 locate individuals. And oh yeah, it's ready red right ear 1:35:24.720 --> 1:35:29.280 and green left ear kind of thing. The other call 1:35:29.400 --> 1:35:34.760 that you'll hear during those mating chases is that it's 1:35:34.840 --> 1:35:38.559 kind of a snorting of males and as they run along, 1:35:38.720 --> 1:35:40.960 it's a great way to locate. That's how we locate 1:35:41.040 --> 1:35:43.680 mating chases in kind of natural forest that's not a 1:35:43.800 --> 1:35:46.800 park land like I was describing before. So we work 1:35:46.880 --> 1:35:51.439 on endangered gram red squirrels in Arizona and really dense forests. 1:35:51.479 --> 1:35:53.960 But during the breeding season you can hear this kind 1:35:54.000 --> 1:35:57.479 of sneezing or snorting um as all these males are 1:35:57.520 --> 1:36:00.439 chasing the female. And it's thought that one there's they're 1:36:00.439 --> 1:36:05.120 trying to clear their uh, their their nasal passages so 1:36:05.240 --> 1:36:07.360 they can pick up scent and figure out where the 1:36:07.400 --> 1:36:10.880 female is as quickly as possible. Um. So it's thought 1:36:10.960 --> 1:36:13.920 that it's related to that. The only other call with 1:36:14.160 --> 1:36:18.200 a couple other really rare calls, but um the probably 1:36:18.280 --> 1:36:21.120 the the other one that's similar to some of these 1:36:21.200 --> 1:36:26.200 that high pitched wine that we talked about females. If so, 1:36:26.360 --> 1:36:30.519 during these mating chases, the females will avoid males um 1:36:30.920 --> 1:36:34.439 and kind of incite this chase so that the it's thoughts, 1:36:34.479 --> 1:36:36.800 so the most, you know, the animal that's in the 1:36:36.920 --> 1:36:40.000 best shape, has the best ability to locate a limited 1:36:40.120 --> 1:36:45.200 resource can find her, and so she'll run through shrubbery 1:36:45.400 --> 1:36:47.120 and things like that, and then she'll just sit at 1:36:47.160 --> 1:36:49.240 the base of a tree and and it's usually the 1:36:49.400 --> 1:36:51.760 first male that finds her that will get to mate 1:36:51.800 --> 1:36:54.560 with her. So the success is a little bit on dominance, 1:36:54.680 --> 1:36:58.080 but it's on your skill in locating the female. If 1:36:58.160 --> 1:37:00.880 they don't find her, she's now you know, she has 1:37:00.960 --> 1:37:03.000 to meet. She's only in heat for six hours. If 1:37:03.040 --> 1:37:05.320 she doesn't, you know, then she's not going to repridase. 1:37:05.640 --> 1:37:08.599 So she'll actually issue that alarm call, that really high 1:37:08.640 --> 1:37:11.639 pitched call, and it will attract all those mails again 1:37:11.880 --> 1:37:14.679 to the site, and then she'll mate with the first 1:37:14.760 --> 1:37:17.280 one if they find her before the other males do. 1:37:18.040 --> 1:37:21.360 So the same calls used in a slightly different context. 1:37:22.840 --> 1:37:26.360 Are you familiar with I'm sure you are. When when 1:37:26.360 --> 1:37:30.400 they're sitting there doing that piste off call, that their 1:37:30.439 --> 1:37:33.000 tails moving it and that's what gives them away. I 1:37:33.120 --> 1:37:37.680 heard someone suggests that they're using that tail to to 1:37:38.280 --> 1:37:42.080 trick predators, because when the hawks come to slap them, 1:37:43.880 --> 1:37:45.760 they hit that tail because they see the tail moving, 1:37:46.320 --> 1:37:49.400 and then the squirrel skinnies out because they got him 1:37:49.439 --> 1:37:52.560 by the tail. So a couple of things. One that 1:37:52.760 --> 1:37:56.080 flicking the tail also kind of correlated with how piste 1:37:56.120 --> 1:37:59.320 off they are, so the more worked up there about something, 1:37:59.680 --> 1:38:02.519 you'll see them flicking that tail more. People have tried 1:38:02.600 --> 1:38:05.360 to see how much information is really conveyed in that, 1:38:05.600 --> 1:38:08.639 you know, is there a hidden squirrel language, and uh, 1:38:09.080 --> 1:38:12.360 you know, there's not at that level where it's like, oh, 1:38:12.560 --> 1:38:15.559 here's a you know, meaning of that flicking the tail, 1:38:15.680 --> 1:38:19.160 but it does, uh seem to be correlated with how 1:38:19.680 --> 1:38:24.160 risky the situation is, so that perhaps the predator sees that, 1:38:25.000 --> 1:38:28.880 but other individuals may see that as well and recognize, okay, 1:38:29.120 --> 1:38:31.200 you know there's something really close here that's you know, 1:38:31.320 --> 1:38:34.800 that's bothersome. But that tail itself has a couple of 1:38:34.880 --> 1:38:41.880 different functions. One is that it is used for dissipaining heat. 1:38:42.120 --> 1:38:45.280 So if you if you watch a squirrel during the 1:38:45.360 --> 1:38:49.280 heat of the summer and clay, you know, in Arkansas 1:38:49.400 --> 1:38:53.000 you probably see this sometimes, but you'll see them splaited 1:38:53.040 --> 1:38:56.880 out sometimes on the ground in some moist soil. They'll 1:38:56.880 --> 1:38:58.479 flick their tail up and if you look at the 1:38:58.520 --> 1:39:00.599 base that if you look at the base to the tail, 1:39:01.240 --> 1:39:04.759 they actually spread the hairs and you'll see blood pulsing 1:39:04.840 --> 1:39:07.040 through there. So it's a way that they dissipate heat. 1:39:07.680 --> 1:39:11.839 And you can in Arizona some of the squirrel species 1:39:11.880 --> 1:39:14.040 that we have down there, like the Mexican fox squirrel, 1:39:14.360 --> 1:39:16.360 you know they're they're in a hundred and ten degree 1:39:16.400 --> 1:39:19.880 temperatures and you know, if you're out running around, you've 1:39:19.880 --> 1:39:22.320 got to get rid of that heat fast. And you're 1:39:22.320 --> 1:39:25.400 wearing this, you know, this fur coat. So they literally 1:39:25.520 --> 1:39:28.040 sit there and use that tail, so they'll flip it 1:39:28.120 --> 1:39:30.840 up over themselves, send blood through it and sound blood 1:39:30.840 --> 1:39:33.000 through it. It's just a surface to get rid of heat. 1:39:33.520 --> 1:39:36.400 It Also, we know that they'll use them during the winter. 1:39:36.800 --> 1:39:40.479 It's like kind of an added layer of insulation that 1:39:40.960 --> 1:39:43.920 so you'll see it laying over their back. Some of 1:39:44.000 --> 1:39:47.160 the kind of classic squirrel pictures in the winter are 1:39:47.280 --> 1:39:51.240 usually just here's another another blanket you're throwing on, or 1:39:51.280 --> 1:39:54.760 they use them like an umbrella. You know, they're I've 1:39:54.800 --> 1:39:57.840 seen them with you know, half inch of snow on 1:39:57.960 --> 1:40:00.280 the on the top of the tail and they're just 1:40:00.439 --> 1:40:05.120 you know, kind of huddled down. So there's that advantage 1:40:05.160 --> 1:40:08.679 as well. But if you're going to have if you're 1:40:08.760 --> 1:40:11.400 going to be attacked by a predator, you know, talents 1:40:11.600 --> 1:40:15.759 in talents in the uh you know, in the tail 1:40:15.880 --> 1:40:18.880 are much better than talents in the rib cage. So 1:40:19.800 --> 1:40:25.400 they do. You do occasionally find tailless animals. Some of 1:40:25.479 --> 1:40:29.120 that maybe due to predators, but really if a predator 1:40:29.280 --> 1:40:31.920 gets you, you know, and you're that close, predators are 1:40:32.000 --> 1:40:35.120 really good at making sure they know seal the deal. Uh. 1:40:35.800 --> 1:40:39.960 More often we see these broken tails and clip tails 1:40:40.360 --> 1:40:44.400 are actually the result of battle between animals, so they 1:40:44.439 --> 1:40:46.479 don't they don't clip each other. He's going for the 1:40:46.600 --> 1:40:48.840 nuts and gets the tails. Gonna say, they're not going. 1:40:48.880 --> 1:40:50.840 I don't want to go back there, Steve, I thought 1:40:50.880 --> 1:40:53.160 we were past this, but uh, you know, we can 1:40:53.200 --> 1:40:56.680 revisit if necessary. Uh. So they don't go for the 1:40:56.920 --> 1:41:00.879 for those but the testicles, but they will go four tails. 1:41:01.040 --> 1:41:02.840 And so every time I see a squirrel of the 1:41:02.880 --> 1:41:07.000 broken tail, I make up a mind movie where the 1:41:07.120 --> 1:41:11.280 fox gets him by the tail and he busts off, 1:41:11.320 --> 1:41:13.400 and I'm like certain that that's what's happened. I never 1:41:13.439 --> 1:41:16.200 thought it was like squirrel on squirrel violence. It's usually 1:41:16.240 --> 1:41:20.799 squirrel on squirrel violence very rarely. I have seen probably 1:41:21.840 --> 1:41:26.640 thirty or forty predation events by by mammal predators and 1:41:27.320 --> 1:41:29.560 never once had they've grabbed him by the tail. But 1:41:29.720 --> 1:41:33.320 never once have has that tail broken off before they've 1:41:33.760 --> 1:41:38.480 got the kill shot in there already. But when squirrels, 1:41:38.600 --> 1:41:42.120 especially during these mating chases, when two males are fighting, 1:41:42.640 --> 1:41:45.360 they'll often grab the other one by the tail and 1:41:45.680 --> 1:41:48.120 literally kind of fling them around and throw them out 1:41:48.160 --> 1:41:51.519 of the tree. So, uh, that's where we think most 1:41:51.600 --> 1:41:54.479 of the broken tails come from. And you see them 1:41:54.560 --> 1:41:59.160 more commonly in males than females because exactly that kind 1:41:59.240 --> 1:42:05.040 of biology got any more calling questions, Johnny, I mean, 1:42:05.080 --> 1:42:07.840 I guess if you think there's something interesting there with 1:42:08.080 --> 1:42:13.479 the with the red pine squirrel chatter that like ice 1:42:13.560 --> 1:42:17.840 always walk this, uh the irrigation ditch. You know, it's 1:42:17.840 --> 1:42:19.479 a great way to sneak through the woods, and it 1:42:19.600 --> 1:42:21.720 kind of cut through a piece of woods separated some 1:42:21.840 --> 1:42:24.680 agg fields these elk fed and and up above it 1:42:24.840 --> 1:42:27.720 was where they where they betted. And I used to 1:42:27.840 --> 1:42:31.320 just hate it when up ahead of me or near me, boy, 1:42:31.360 --> 1:42:33.599 you get one barking atch it and I just felt 1:42:33.640 --> 1:42:37.120 like matt every elk within you know, hundred fifty yards, 1:42:37.240 --> 1:42:40.120 just like I know, yohn, he's coming down the ditch. Yeah. 1:42:40.160 --> 1:42:44.320 But what what I like is when you um are 1:42:44.439 --> 1:42:47.360 aren't doing anything and you're being real quiet or whatever, 1:42:48.000 --> 1:42:50.320 and you hear one light up, you hear a piste 1:42:50.360 --> 1:42:53.639 off pine squirrel, and then you're like, there's no way 1:42:53.680 --> 1:42:55.519 he's mad at me, Like there's no way he knows 1:42:55.520 --> 1:42:58.280 about me. Then I get real curious over in that direction, 1:42:59.439 --> 1:43:01.360 like what is mad about? Because I think they'll bark it. 1:43:01.600 --> 1:43:05.040 I think they'll bark it anything coming through the woods, 1:43:05.080 --> 1:43:07.080 you know, So is that true? They will bark it 1:43:07.160 --> 1:43:09.840 anything elk walking through the woods, they'll bark at it 1:43:09.840 --> 1:43:13.719 because they're annoyed by it. I have seen him bark 1:43:13.920 --> 1:43:18.160 at elk and deer before they tend they use it 1:43:18.800 --> 1:43:23.280 for uh more often they'll use it for other animals, 1:43:23.840 --> 1:43:28.000 their squirrels, same species. So it's it's a territorial That's 1:43:28.000 --> 1:43:29.680 why I should have pointed out that I have never 1:43:29.800 --> 1:43:33.439 heard one light up and then lo and behold, here 1:43:33.560 --> 1:43:39.280 comes like here comes an elk. It's always like I 1:43:39.400 --> 1:43:42.200 never could find out what he's mad about. So they'll 1:43:42.280 --> 1:43:44.920 use it. They used the same kinds of calls that 1:43:45.000 --> 1:43:47.479 we were just we're talking about for fox squirrels and 1:43:47.560 --> 1:43:52.800 gray squirrels. Typically for like a predator, that's that's come through. 1:43:53.400 --> 1:43:59.640 But they use that territorial rattle call. It's that that 1:43:59.760 --> 1:44:06.840 kind a call. Okay, that's that's cool. I'll take that, 1:44:07.240 --> 1:44:09.160 take whatever I can get. You know, I think I 1:44:09.280 --> 1:44:12.439 think having that call when you're when you're hunting some 1:44:12.600 --> 1:44:15.760 other animal other than a squirrel, I mean, you've got 1:44:15.800 --> 1:44:17.920 to be paying attention to a barking squirrel. Like what 1:44:18.040 --> 1:44:21.839 I've seen is there's some percentage of times that squirrels 1:44:21.880 --> 1:44:25.120 gonna bark at a deer, and they love barking at bears. 1:44:25.280 --> 1:44:28.160 If you're hunting bears over bait, be listening for squirrels. 1:44:28.200 --> 1:44:31.240 They'll bark at a bear for sure, But but then 1:44:31.360 --> 1:44:33.400 you know, some percentage of the time they're gonna be 1:44:33.439 --> 1:44:36.560 barking another squirrel. So it's you know, not relevant information. 1:44:36.680 --> 1:44:39.360 But I mean lots of good woodsmen are listening for 1:44:39.479 --> 1:44:43.600 squirrels barking in some percentage of the time, maybe of 1:44:43.640 --> 1:44:46.280 the time they're barking at, you know, a target animal 1:44:46.360 --> 1:44:50.920 that you're after. Yeah, I would agree class, especially those 1:44:51.040 --> 1:44:55.160 Eastern grays and fox squirrels, they very often do that. 1:44:55.280 --> 1:44:58.080 The rattle calls that we're talking about with the red 1:44:58.160 --> 1:45:02.559 squirrels are uh those are a territorial call that tends 1:45:02.600 --> 1:45:05.880 to be focused on members of their own species. Although 1:45:06.160 --> 1:45:10.120 they had no idea, man, that explains so much. So 1:45:10.640 --> 1:45:13.120 you can blame your lack of success on well, no, 1:45:13.240 --> 1:45:15.120 I just I mean, I'm like, I'm like, I hear one, 1:45:15.280 --> 1:45:17.720 and I'm always dissatisfied of like that. I could never 1:45:17.800 --> 1:45:19.599 find out like what it was he was mad about. 1:45:19.640 --> 1:45:21.439 But I know he's just mad at some other squirrel, 1:45:21.479 --> 1:45:23.120 because if I saw two squirrels sitting there, I would 1:45:23.240 --> 1:45:26.120 be like, oh, he's mad at his buddy. So it 1:45:26.200 --> 1:45:29.160 really is an indicator that the space is occupied. So 1:45:29.439 --> 1:45:32.800 during and especially when when you'll see it most often 1:45:32.960 --> 1:45:35.240 is the fall, when they've when they've built these new 1:45:35.320 --> 1:45:38.600 piles of cones, and it is letting their neighbors know 1:45:38.840 --> 1:45:42.160 that there's somebody there that's there. That's their pile of 1:45:42.240 --> 1:45:45.639 cones where you do see it used is you mentioned earlier, 1:45:45.840 --> 1:45:49.400 you know that bears will go in, you know, grizzlies 1:45:49.520 --> 1:45:52.000 like to go in and rip open these and uh 1:45:52.280 --> 1:45:55.280 these middens and sometimes eat the little bit of meat 1:45:55.479 --> 1:45:58.240 or mushrooms, but they're mostly going for, like, you know, 1:45:58.320 --> 1:46:00.680 some of the larger pine seeds. Then that will be 1:46:00.760 --> 1:46:04.519 stored in there, and that's where you will hear those 1:46:04.640 --> 1:46:09.160 rattle calls, that territorial call of of red squirrels. That 1:46:09.600 --> 1:46:13.360 because now you've got another competitor for seeds. So we 1:46:13.479 --> 1:46:16.800 tend to see that call used against competitors, mostly other 1:46:17.800 --> 1:46:21.160 members of your own species. But you know, grizzlies like 1:46:21.240 --> 1:46:24.320 to go in and rip those open for for food. 1:46:24.640 --> 1:46:26.519 This is I didn't write this down on our little list, 1:46:26.560 --> 1:46:29.800 but I'm gonna hit someone else's question here. Whose question 1:46:29.880 --> 1:46:31.040 is it about how to get him out of a 1:46:31.120 --> 1:46:35.200 dre I put that in there. Check this out. Let's 1:46:35.200 --> 1:46:38.160 say you're a squirrel biologist and you're trying to observe 1:46:38.320 --> 1:46:43.360 a squirrel and you see him running across the forest 1:46:43.439 --> 1:46:47.840 floor and you're like, I spooped, and then he runs 1:46:47.960 --> 1:46:50.560 up and goes into a dre or goes into a 1:46:50.640 --> 1:46:54.479 hole and you're just a biologists trying to do a 1:46:54.560 --> 1:46:59.200 friendly squirrel study short of like smoke bombs and whatnot, 1:46:59.520 --> 1:47:02.040 Like how would you be like, I'll show you how 1:47:02.080 --> 1:47:05.360 I'll get him to come out. Tricks of the trade. 1:47:05.400 --> 1:47:07.320 You're asking me for tricks of the trade here. But 1:47:07.600 --> 1:47:11.040 let's say a friendly squirrel biologis is a situation. So 1:47:11.600 --> 1:47:13.680 in those leaf nests, those dreys that you know, the 1:47:13.760 --> 1:47:17.280 basketball sized ball of leaves, really hard to get them 1:47:17.320 --> 1:47:20.080 out of those. They typically are going in when they 1:47:20.160 --> 1:47:23.920 have young, they're almost always in cavities. They the whole 1:47:24.040 --> 1:47:27.479 you know, the tree cavities that the old rotten hole um. 1:47:28.080 --> 1:47:31.000 So once they're up in those balls of leaves, it's 1:47:31.080 --> 1:47:33.120 really difficult to get them out. That's what I've found 1:47:33.160 --> 1:47:37.120 to be true. But in the in cavities, uh, you 1:47:37.200 --> 1:47:39.479 know you you mentioned this with the with the mink, 1:47:40.080 --> 1:47:42.760 that the animals seem to know that that animal is. 1:47:42.880 --> 1:47:45.280 You know, there's an animal outside and just like you 1:47:45.920 --> 1:47:48.479 we've all heard a squirrel walking up bark and kind 1:47:48.520 --> 1:47:51.599 of how noisy that is. The animal in the den 1:47:51.760 --> 1:47:56.240 cavity knows that you've got something. An individual coming up. 1:47:56.360 --> 1:47:59.320 So the way we if we were doing a survey 1:47:59.560 --> 1:48:02.920 as friend leave squirrel biologists, we would you just take 1:48:03.200 --> 1:48:05.680 a stick and you work it up the side of 1:48:05.760 --> 1:48:08.760 the tree like an animal that's a potential predator, an 1:48:08.760 --> 1:48:12.200 animal that's coming up. And if there's a if there's 1:48:12.240 --> 1:48:15.080 a group of squirrels in particular, they'll come out right 1:48:15.120 --> 1:48:21.160 away to kind of defend the turf. So let's talk 1:48:21.280 --> 1:48:25.559 more about there. There's so many there's so many cavities 1:48:25.600 --> 1:48:27.479 that don't have squirrels in a few that's gonna be 1:48:27.560 --> 1:48:30.320 your soul stretch as you see of go in there, 1:48:30.520 --> 1:48:32.640 you know, always get a bad feeling. And then I 1:48:32.680 --> 1:48:35.280 always think this, maybe you can answer this. Uh. I 1:48:35.280 --> 1:48:37.720 always think I'm gonna sit here until that some bitch 1:48:37.800 --> 1:48:40.880 comes back out. But man, that could wear a fell out. 1:48:41.600 --> 1:48:44.320 Well one out of ten times, yeah, he comes out 1:48:44.520 --> 1:48:46.320 in less than ten minutes. It seems like the other 1:48:46.439 --> 1:48:48.559 nine times you sit there for thirty and he hasn't 1:48:48.560 --> 1:48:50.519 showed up. Be like, all right, it's more efficient to 1:48:50.600 --> 1:48:56.240 keep walking. So those those cavities are limited resource for squirrels, 1:48:56.320 --> 1:48:59.880 and and so they'll go in and just explore to 1:49:00.120 --> 1:49:03.000 kind of you know, likely see what their options are, 1:49:03.240 --> 1:49:05.280 you know, are they going to upgrade and move into 1:49:05.439 --> 1:49:09.760 this this cavity? Uh? And and then females when they're 1:49:10.560 --> 1:49:14.479 pregnant will often go around and start exploring these more 1:49:14.600 --> 1:49:18.040 protected cavities where they're gonna where they're gonna raise their young. 1:49:18.720 --> 1:49:22.360 And so either get there. This is you know, a 1:49:22.439 --> 1:49:24.760 quick visit and you know we've all gone looking for 1:49:24.840 --> 1:49:27.040 a house or an apartment. You walk in like, no, 1:49:27.280 --> 1:49:29.200 not for me, and I turn around and come back out. 1:49:29.280 --> 1:49:32.400 So sometimes you'll get those kinds of experiences. But when 1:49:32.439 --> 1:49:35.880 you spook them in and he runs and you're like, 1:49:36.120 --> 1:49:39.040 it's obvious he knew where that hole was, he ran 1:49:39.120 --> 1:49:42.080 to it to get away. How long do you think 1:49:42.600 --> 1:49:44.920 on average it would be so he's going to naturally 1:49:45.000 --> 1:49:48.640 come back out again, it will often be ours. So 1:49:49.280 --> 1:49:53.200 it's it's typically so yeah, well, you know when we're 1:49:53.200 --> 1:49:55.759 doing our research and you're following animals and you're like, okay, 1:49:55.840 --> 1:49:58.519 what you know, I'm trying to find this animal's nest 1:49:58.640 --> 1:50:01.360 for the night or you you know they're kind of 1:50:01.439 --> 1:50:03.760 in this area. You want to, you know, see if 1:50:03.760 --> 1:50:07.320 they're still alive. Uh, And then you spook them by accident, 1:50:07.520 --> 1:50:10.839 it often is hours, and during the heat of the summer, 1:50:11.280 --> 1:50:14.000 you know, they'll they'll go in and they'll spend sometimes 1:50:14.240 --> 1:50:16.559 three or four hours in the middle of the day 1:50:16.960 --> 1:50:20.519 keep cool to cool off, and then females with young 1:50:20.720 --> 1:50:23.679 go back and usually nurse for a couple of hours. 1:50:24.000 --> 1:50:26.559 So if you just happen to, you know, catch them 1:50:26.600 --> 1:50:29.400 on the way back to the nest or uh, you 1:50:29.479 --> 1:50:31.439 know you spooked them in and they're close enough to 1:50:31.560 --> 1:50:33.439 the nests that they ran in, they're not going to 1:50:33.520 --> 1:50:37.519 come out for for several hours. So the stick trick though, 1:50:37.920 --> 1:50:41.200 like diameter of the stick and then is it like 1:50:41.360 --> 1:50:44.400 a tapping or you more of just like like making 1:50:44.479 --> 1:50:46.880 some friction by rubbing. Do you have to get a 1:50:46.920 --> 1:50:49.200 ten ft long stick so you can actually make it 1:50:49.320 --> 1:50:52.960 work all the way up towards the whole itself. It 1:50:53.080 --> 1:50:55.200 really just depends on how far up the hole is, 1:50:55.360 --> 1:50:58.400 and it doesn't always work, but you'll have pretty good 1:50:58.439 --> 1:51:01.200 success rates with it if if there is an animal 1:51:01.280 --> 1:51:03.280 in there. How is that not broken into the squirrel 1:51:03.360 --> 1:51:08.040 hunting world? I almost think it doesn't work so well. Oh, 1:51:08.160 --> 1:51:12.600 so now you're calling me a liar. I spend a 1:51:12.680 --> 1:51:14.880 couple hours of my day with you and then right 1:51:14.960 --> 1:51:18.439 at the end comes out damn still feeling a little 1:51:18.479 --> 1:51:23.599 salty about the squirrel. Testical questions and we will report 1:51:23.640 --> 1:51:28.400 back guarantee. Yeah, but I know, is it more of 1:51:28.479 --> 1:51:30.800 like a tapping or just like are you just like 1:51:31.160 --> 1:51:33.839 like a rubbing. It's a rubbing. You're trying to imitate 1:51:33.920 --> 1:51:37.080 an animal coming up if you watch so, I would 1:51:37.160 --> 1:51:39.160 encourage you to go out sometime in the evening and 1:51:39.200 --> 1:51:42.879 follow animals back to the nest, especially during the colder seasons. 1:51:43.040 --> 1:51:45.360 This is what fox and grays and what red squirrels 1:51:45.360 --> 1:51:48.040 are pretty solitary, although in winter sometimes they'll nest together 1:51:48.640 --> 1:51:53.080 the but and you'll watch the animal. It'll it'll typically 1:51:53.160 --> 1:51:55.960 come in from the side. It won't typically come straight 1:51:56.040 --> 1:51:58.479 up the nest, but it'll it'll come in through the canopy, 1:51:58.680 --> 1:52:00.640 jump on the main stalk and and go up to 1:52:00.720 --> 1:52:04.880 the cavity. You'll see animals inside just kind of peek 1:52:04.920 --> 1:52:07.400 their head out just a little bit. And we know 1:52:07.560 --> 1:52:10.920 that they have ultrasonic calls to um and they haven't 1:52:10.960 --> 1:52:13.760 been very well studied, so we're talking about vocalizations. We 1:52:13.880 --> 1:52:16.640 can't hear the ultrasound, but we know that they can 1:52:16.720 --> 1:52:21.559 hear in that range, and so they're probably and those 1:52:21.680 --> 1:52:24.320 ultrasonic calls don't travel very far, so they're good for 1:52:24.439 --> 1:52:27.560 that really close use, you know, really close distance, so 1:52:27.680 --> 1:52:30.439 we think that they're actually communicating you know, friend or foe, 1:52:30.840 --> 1:52:34.559 you know something there. Sometimes you'll see that they'll they'll 1:52:34.800 --> 1:52:37.360 they'll get chased out, they'll run down, pick up some leaves, 1:52:37.520 --> 1:52:40.280 like some warm bedding, and try to use that almost 1:52:40.320 --> 1:52:42.840 as a gift to get in. Sometimes it works, um, 1:52:44.200 --> 1:52:48.719 but the uh so you're really trying to imitate something 1:52:48.800 --> 1:52:51.840 moving up, you know, maybe a predator that they all need. 1:52:52.320 --> 1:52:55.640 If it's if it's a you know, if it's an 1:52:55.680 --> 1:52:59.320 animal that could a member should be part of the group, 1:52:59.400 --> 1:53:01.720 those ultra sonic calls are probably gonna work. So you 1:53:01.800 --> 1:53:04.960 really want to imitate you know, you're it's a raccoon 1:53:05.120 --> 1:53:06.880 coming up where they're all going to jump out of 1:53:06.920 --> 1:53:09.639 the nest and and um, you know you'll be able 1:53:09.680 --> 1:53:13.000 to see if that's you know, if if it's occupied 1:53:13.120 --> 1:53:16.960 or not. But it's more just a scratching, a light scinching, 1:53:17.560 --> 1:53:20.240 And so I think I think that's something most people 1:53:20.280 --> 1:53:22.559 won't be familiar with. But if you watch the animals 1:53:22.600 --> 1:53:25.040 in the evening, you'll you'll you'll see that. And then 1:53:25.120 --> 1:53:27.080 the other thing is the scent marks that we talked 1:53:27.080 --> 1:53:30.280 about that can tell you if if if the area 1:53:30.360 --> 1:53:34.240 is occupied, can actually if you smell enough of them, 1:53:34.280 --> 1:53:37.920 you can tell here's one that's really active and that 1:53:38.080 --> 1:53:41.560 there are probably a higher density of of animals that 1:53:41.960 --> 1:53:44.920 are in that site. So those are those are a 1:53:44.960 --> 1:53:47.960 couple of tricks of the trade. This is my last question. 1:53:48.120 --> 1:53:50.200 Then these guys can ask their last questions to My 1:53:50.320 --> 1:53:53.920 last question is in your in your field as an academic, 1:53:55.640 --> 1:53:59.920 Let's say you got curious about squirrels falling. Okay, when 1:54:00.040 --> 1:54:05.320 you consider the limits of animal ethics, could you ever, like, 1:54:05.520 --> 1:54:09.719 would you be allowed to propose and execute a study 1:54:10.320 --> 1:54:13.200 in which you took squirrels and dropped them from various 1:54:13.280 --> 1:54:15.519 heights to see what happens to them? Or would that 1:54:15.560 --> 1:54:17.479 just get shut down as being like just sort of 1:54:17.560 --> 1:54:23.040 like the reward wasn't there wasn't enough to like justify it, right, 1:54:23.280 --> 1:54:25.519 And I think that's it. It's it's the kind of 1:54:25.840 --> 1:54:29.080 weighing the benefits and the and the cost, you know, 1:54:29.200 --> 1:54:32.600 the ethical costs of doing that, so you know they're 1:54:33.240 --> 1:54:35.480 in that case, you'd want to know. You know, I 1:54:35.560 --> 1:54:38.080 do the study of looking at museum bones and see 1:54:38.240 --> 1:54:40.160 you know how many are broken? Is you know, does 1:54:40.360 --> 1:54:42.400 that seem to be an issue? There may be other 1:54:42.480 --> 1:54:46.400 ways that you get there. And you know, while that's 1:54:46.800 --> 1:54:50.880 while it's interesting, you know, learning about their mortality, uh, 1:54:51.360 --> 1:54:53.320 that may not be you know, in my mind, that 1:54:53.320 --> 1:54:55.600 wouldn't be enough to sway it to let's drop squirrels 1:54:55.640 --> 1:54:58.160 from you know, a bunch of a bunch of different heights, Uh, 1:54:58.680 --> 1:55:01.800 to learn the little bit that we might add to 1:55:01.960 --> 1:55:05.600 just like the pain and suffering doesn't warrant the But 1:55:05.880 --> 1:55:09.640 for instance, we we've worked on some squirrel removal projects 1:55:09.680 --> 1:55:12.440 where you've got an invasive and non native species and 1:55:13.040 --> 1:55:17.000 that's in a place on Mount Graham. We have federally 1:55:17.080 --> 1:55:20.720 endangered species of red subspecies of red squirrel there and 1:55:21.160 --> 1:55:24.919 there's introduced abert squirrels, and so we've done some removal 1:55:24.960 --> 1:55:29.840 studies because because the real conservation goal is let's make 1:55:29.880 --> 1:55:32.800 sure we still have the native species here. And in 1:55:32.880 --> 1:55:35.960 that case, you know, we viewed it and so did 1:55:36.440 --> 1:55:39.960 our Institutional Review Board UM and the state with their 1:55:40.040 --> 1:55:44.240 permits viewed it as a reasonable trade off this species 1:55:44.320 --> 1:55:47.120 that wasn't supposed to be here. Um. And so what 1:55:47.200 --> 1:55:51.320 we've actually done is the state of Arizona increased the 1:55:52.160 --> 1:55:54.920 length of the season, bag limits, all those things as 1:55:54.960 --> 1:55:57.440 a way to kind of control that non native species. 1:55:57.520 --> 1:56:00.240 So I think that you know, in that case, you say, Okay, 1:56:00.320 --> 1:56:03.840 you know it's a lethal method. We're removing these individuals, um, 1:56:04.080 --> 1:56:06.920 and they're you know, they're being hunters, are taking them 1:56:07.000 --> 1:56:11.320 and helping with conversation conservation. Um. In that case, you know, 1:56:11.400 --> 1:56:14.640 we we thought that that the balance, uh, you know, 1:56:14.760 --> 1:56:19.840 they're the cost versus benefits warranted. You know, they're doing 1:56:19.920 --> 1:56:22.880 that kind of lethal removal to try to have an 1:56:22.920 --> 1:56:27.520 impact on a species that you know might otherwise go extinct. 1:56:29.280 --> 1:56:34.200 You've written multiple books and like dozens of papers on squirrels, right, 1:56:34.520 --> 1:56:39.400 I have that, right, hundreds of papers. Okay, okay, So, 1:56:39.600 --> 1:56:43.520 like I know it's not a secured Olson Award when 1:56:43.640 --> 1:56:48.400 it kind of I've done my homework here. Do you 1:56:48.760 --> 1:56:53.680 do you prioritize like studying squirrelds in wild areas or 1:56:53.720 --> 1:56:55.920 would you do a study in Central Park and be 1:56:56.080 --> 1:57:00.400 satisfied with the observations. It really depends on what your 1:57:00.480 --> 1:57:03.200 question is. You know, if you're what you're trying to accomplish. 1:57:03.280 --> 1:57:06.320 And so, you know, if you wanted to know, uh 1:57:07.040 --> 1:57:09.520 something like social behaviors and some of the things that 1:57:09.600 --> 1:57:14.160 we've talked about, being able to observe animals is really critical. 1:57:14.720 --> 1:57:18.440 And although some of their social structure might change, some 1:57:18.600 --> 1:57:20.640 of the basics, you know, are they willing to nest 1:57:20.720 --> 1:57:23.920 with other individuals? Set marking those things are thing that 1:57:24.240 --> 1:57:27.040 things that would be almost impossible to study with radio 1:57:27.120 --> 1:57:31.280 telemetry or you know, with with observations in a real 1:57:31.520 --> 1:57:34.800 natural woodland with you know, lots of different layers to 1:57:34.880 --> 1:57:38.600 the canopy and uh, you know, it just would be 1:57:38.720 --> 1:57:44.320 very difficult to see. Uh. But but we can learn 1:57:44.480 --> 1:57:47.200 a great deal in those kind of open areas. And 1:57:47.320 --> 1:57:51.480 we can also by comparing the you know, an urban 1:57:51.600 --> 1:57:56.440 area and urban park land and a more wild natural situation, 1:57:56.560 --> 1:57:59.120 we can also learn something what might change and how 1:58:00.320 --> 1:58:04.840 habitat might be influential, how human impacts, you know, might work. 1:58:05.640 --> 1:58:08.640 Squirrels are just to me, there are a great indicator 1:58:08.800 --> 1:58:11.520 of change, uh, you know, things that we might not 1:58:11.680 --> 1:58:15.280 even yet see. Squirrels are able to pick up on 1:58:15.400 --> 1:58:19.880 those things, and and uh, because they're common enough, we 1:58:19.960 --> 1:58:23.040 can see changes in density, we can see changes in behavior. 1:58:24.280 --> 1:58:26.680 I've mentioned a couple of times, things like the size 1:58:26.720 --> 1:58:29.200 of the home range changes based on the quality of 1:58:29.280 --> 1:58:31.160 the forest. We go in and we look at a 1:58:31.200 --> 1:58:33.960 forest and say, yeah, maybe, you know, maybe not enough 1:58:34.080 --> 1:58:37.120 mature seed producing trees here, but it looks pretty similar 1:58:37.200 --> 1:58:41.959 structurally to other places. But squirrels, you know, that require 1:58:43.200 --> 1:58:49.400 enough food energy, enough of those seed producing trees will 1:58:49.560 --> 1:58:52.480 let us know that there's a problem. You know, beetle kill, 1:58:52.600 --> 1:58:55.360 huge problem in many of the forests here in the West. 1:58:55.680 --> 1:58:58.920 By the time we often even notice beetle kill, we've 1:58:58.960 --> 1:59:03.880 seen squirrel decreases and squirrel numbers in those areas that 1:59:04.200 --> 1:59:07.360 they're already responding to those changes. So in some ways, 1:59:07.560 --> 1:59:09.960 you know, a lot like the canary in a coal 1:59:10.040 --> 1:59:12.720 mine that you know coal miners would take in. Uh, 1:59:13.000 --> 1:59:16.040 they're kind of an early warning system, and they're common 1:59:16.200 --> 1:59:20.760 enough that they can that we can learn relatively quickly, 1:59:21.120 --> 1:59:24.240 and because they don't live that long, they respond pretty quickly. 1:59:24.280 --> 1:59:28.080 Their numbers respond quickly. You have in your notes that uh, 1:59:28.440 --> 1:59:32.320 noise can impact them. Yeah. One of the things that 1:59:32.560 --> 1:59:35.480 we've all been down, you know, dirt roads with lots 1:59:35.520 --> 1:59:39.240 of red squirrels on each side of the road and thought, ah, 1:59:39.400 --> 1:59:42.040 you know, not many people go down this this road, 1:59:42.600 --> 1:59:46.000 probably very little impact. We've actually done some studies where 1:59:46.040 --> 1:59:49.480 we've mapped the noise in so we we've gone out 1:59:49.520 --> 1:59:52.440 in the forest with a bunch of noise detectors and mapped, 1:59:52.640 --> 1:59:54.920 you know, had a map of the amount of noise, 1:59:55.480 --> 1:59:59.720 and then we've just driven a single truck through there 1:59:59.800 --> 2:00:03.560 and looked at how that noise level changes and and uh, 2:00:04.040 --> 2:00:08.760 there's enough of a change that that squirrels can avoid 2:00:08.840 --> 2:00:13.120 those roads a little bit. And uh, and and red 2:00:13.160 --> 2:00:16.960 squirrels in particular, they won't build middens near the near roads. 2:00:17.480 --> 2:00:20.440 And it's not the structure of the forest, it's actually 2:00:20.520 --> 2:00:23.680 the noise that's there. So they are really sensitive. And 2:00:23.880 --> 2:00:25.720 I guess you know that makes sense. We're talking about 2:00:25.720 --> 2:00:29.200 all these vocalizations and if you're trying to listen for 2:00:29.320 --> 2:00:31.480 predators all the time, you know, you're kind of a 2:00:31.560 --> 2:00:35.320 bite sized morsel for lots of things. Then you know 2:00:35.640 --> 2:00:40.080 your ability to uh to detect predators has probably decreased 2:00:40.080 --> 2:00:42.080 a little bit. So they're they're kind of a good 2:00:43.040 --> 2:00:45.360 they're a good indicator. You know, if you have the 2:00:45.400 --> 2:00:50.440 occasional vehicle moving down the road, that's not problematic, you know, 2:00:50.720 --> 2:00:53.160 but if you've got if you're hitting a point where 2:00:53.200 --> 2:00:56.760 there's so much traffic now that's going down down these areas, 2:00:57.440 --> 2:01:00.360 squirrels are kind of an early warning system that, Okay, 2:01:00.560 --> 2:01:03.360 something's changed, traffic levels are getting a little bit too 2:01:03.480 --> 2:01:05.880 much here, So you know, maybe we need to to 2:01:06.000 --> 2:01:08.200 look at how we're using the forest, how we're using 2:01:08.240 --> 2:01:12.640 those roads. If if you google squirrel expert, your name 2:01:12.720 --> 2:01:18.080 comes up right, like, that's that's how we's That's what 2:01:18.120 --> 2:01:21.040 I'm gonna get at here. That's like how we tracked 2:01:21.080 --> 2:01:24.400 you down right like you are North America regretting that 2:01:24.560 --> 2:01:27.680 right authority on squirrels. Okay, this this is gonna be 2:01:27.680 --> 2:01:30.040 an ignorant question, but like, how how does someone like 2:01:30.120 --> 2:01:34.040 yourself the squirrel expert, end up at Arizona and Wyoming 2:01:34.160 --> 2:01:37.200 That that seems to me like the nation's elk expert 2:01:37.520 --> 2:01:40.240 being in Nebraska, or like the white tail expert being 2:01:40.280 --> 2:01:44.240 in Washington State. It just doesn't really fit in my mind. Uh, 2:01:44.520 --> 2:01:48.560 And I think many people would say that initially. Uh, 2:01:49.000 --> 2:01:53.160 But for instance, the greatest diversity of squirrels in the 2:01:53.320 --> 2:01:57.240 US is in Arizona. So you know, we we've talked 2:01:57.240 --> 2:01:59.800 about when you think of that kind of basin and 2:02:00.080 --> 2:02:04.080 range landscape where you've got you know, mountaintops that are 2:02:04.200 --> 2:02:07.040 forested where you're gonna find squirrels, and then you've got 2:02:07.320 --> 2:02:10.480 ground squirrels first of all, in the you know, open grasslands, 2:02:10.880 --> 2:02:14.640 the kind of seas in between the these mountains. Uh. 2:02:15.200 --> 2:02:18.480 In many places in the West, you may have different 2:02:18.560 --> 2:02:21.160 species and this is the case in Arizona. When you 2:02:21.400 --> 2:02:25.680 just move move fifty miles between two different mountains, you've 2:02:25.680 --> 2:02:28.080 got a couple of different species. You know, they've been 2:02:28.320 --> 2:02:32.000 most of those mountains in Arizona been isolated since the 2:02:32.080 --> 2:02:35.520 Ice Age and uh, you know, from a squirrels perspective. 2:02:35.920 --> 2:02:40.280 So it's just it's really fascinating for diversity Wyoming. Uh, 2:02:40.680 --> 2:02:45.400 you know, just the the wonderful, wide open kind of 2:02:45.480 --> 2:02:48.400 wild and working lands that so many of us value 2:02:48.400 --> 2:02:51.600 about the West. Same here in Montana. Uh. You know, 2:02:51.680 --> 2:02:55.320 the ability to have species like this that are great 2:02:55.400 --> 2:02:59.600 indicators of change, ability to go in and you know, uh, 2:03:00.000 --> 2:03:05.200 really helped manage these these natural areas really really is 2:03:05.240 --> 2:03:08.120 critical when you have you know, a species like this 2:03:08.320 --> 2:03:11.640 that can be wonderful indicators, be an early warning system. 2:03:12.080 --> 2:03:14.840 You know. The opportunity to make a difference here, you know, 2:03:15.080 --> 2:03:18.480 is is really wonderful. So I've I've enjoyed living in 2:03:18.560 --> 2:03:21.320 the West and and having moved to the hobb School 2:03:21.400 --> 2:03:24.080 of Environment and Natural Resources, you know, just in the 2:03:24.160 --> 2:03:27.960 last few months for exactly that same opportunity to have 2:03:28.040 --> 2:03:30.760 an impact. And that's why you guys are as much 2:03:30.800 --> 2:03:32.840 fun as you have in these kinds of shows. You know, 2:03:33.000 --> 2:03:35.320 you want to make sure that we have these opportunities 2:03:35.920 --> 2:03:38.920 in the future. And and that's that's the same for me. 2:03:39.120 --> 2:03:41.400 So that's that's what's brought me here. I can't speak 2:03:41.440 --> 2:03:45.760 for the elk biologist in Nebraska, though, Clay, what you got? 2:03:45.800 --> 2:03:49.240 You got your final, final questions, final thoughts. Man. You know, 2:03:49.400 --> 2:03:53.040 my only question was about squirrel meat. Just real quick. 2:03:53.680 --> 2:03:55.920 I'm trying to fuel this narrative that we all have 2:03:56.120 --> 2:03:58.560 that squirrel meat is like rocket fuel and like this 2:03:58.800 --> 2:04:04.520 great meat. Um, do you have any info on protein 2:04:04.560 --> 2:04:09.520 and nutrient content and squirrel meat as compared to other meats? No, 2:04:09.760 --> 2:04:14.000 I don't, Clay. Um, you know it is very tasty. Yeah, 2:04:14.480 --> 2:04:16.880 you know, I I've enjoyed squirrel but I don't I 2:04:16.960 --> 2:04:22.800 don't have a comparison. Um. Sorry, yeah, you know, most people, 2:04:22.800 --> 2:04:24.760 a lot of people have the have kind of a 2:04:24.840 --> 2:04:27.400 stigma with squirrel meat. You know. I was just thinking, 2:04:27.400 --> 2:04:30.440 you know, their diet is just so much plants, fruits 2:04:30.480 --> 2:04:33.040 and nuts. I mean, they're that's a really clean animal. 2:04:33.160 --> 2:04:35.120 I mean when you skin them and eat them, it's 2:04:35.280 --> 2:04:39.600 it's it's really a lot of just mental stigma. But well, 2:04:39.720 --> 2:04:41.600 since you don't have that data, I'm gonna go ahead 2:04:41.600 --> 2:04:43.960 and just keep telling my story that it's like the 2:04:44.040 --> 2:04:47.240 most healthy meat in the world. That's all Steve Well 2:04:47.320 --> 2:04:50.320 I Clay, I will say that. You know, I think 2:04:50.400 --> 2:04:53.400 I think you're right that that squirrels get a bad rap. 2:04:53.440 --> 2:04:55.680 It's probably back to the tree rat kinds of things 2:04:55.720 --> 2:04:58.400 where we started today. Uh. You know, there's a bit 2:04:58.440 --> 2:05:01.760 of a stigma. But they are they're they're omnivorous, they're 2:05:01.800 --> 2:05:05.680 eating a variety of different foods. Uh, and so in 2:05:05.840 --> 2:05:08.560 that sense, you know, they are a good meat. The 2:05:08.640 --> 2:05:11.880 other thing that I think, you know, from a hunting perspective, 2:05:11.920 --> 2:05:15.080 it's a great way to get kids involved. Um, you 2:05:15.160 --> 2:05:18.600 know early it's one of those species they see enough of. Uh, 2:05:18.920 --> 2:05:21.800 and you know you may not you may not have 2:05:21.960 --> 2:05:24.160 to have great luck in the day, but you're out, 2:05:24.320 --> 2:05:28.040 you know, moving through the woods, appreciating the forest. Lots 2:05:28.080 --> 2:05:30.440 of sign to teach, you know, kids about You can 2:05:30.520 --> 2:05:33.040 see those, you know, the hull nuts, you can see 2:05:33.160 --> 2:05:36.040 some of the diggings, you can see these scent marks. 2:05:36.160 --> 2:05:39.240 It's just a great way to teach, you know, teach 2:05:39.680 --> 2:05:44.080 folks how to how to really enjoy those natural areas. Okay, 2:05:44.120 --> 2:05:47.200 what do you got, Yanni, wrap it up. I don't 2:05:47.240 --> 2:05:49.040 have anything else. I'm just gonna throw to John and 2:05:49.080 --> 2:05:51.480 see if there's anything that we uh, that you wanted 2:05:51.480 --> 2:05:54.520 to add that you feel like we missed a big 2:05:54.640 --> 2:05:59.440 squirrel conversation. I've thoroughly enjoyed this time and and and 2:05:59.640 --> 2:06:03.600 hope hopefully everyone's learned a little bit about things. Uh, 2:06:03.920 --> 2:06:07.640 we're filming this on the twenties. We're taping this on 2:06:07.720 --> 2:06:12.120 the twenty second of January, the day after Squirrel Appreciation Day, 2:06:12.520 --> 2:06:14.280 so I know it's probably hard for any of you 2:06:14.440 --> 2:06:18.280 to pull yourself out of bed. And Appreciation Day. That's 2:06:18.320 --> 2:06:22.959 my brother's birthday, so so it is every year January 2:06:23.040 --> 2:06:27.240 twenty one. It's it was just designated as Squirrel Appreciation Day. 2:06:27.280 --> 2:06:28.960 So we're kind of in the high holy days of 2:06:29.040 --> 2:06:33.360 squirrel biology because I'm very second Groundhog Day coming up. 2:06:33.720 --> 2:06:36.880 So this is you know, you're lucky that that I 2:06:37.040 --> 2:06:45.920 was willing to drive here on squirrel appreciation because appreciation day. Appreciate, right, 2:06:46.400 --> 2:06:50.920 and so I really have appreciated the discussion. But uh, 2:06:51.320 --> 2:06:54.800 you know, it's it's just, uh, I really feel that 2:06:56.280 --> 2:06:58.880 that squirrels. We've talked about them, you know, as a 2:06:59.080 --> 2:07:02.200 as a resource for us to enjoy, uh, you know, 2:07:02.360 --> 2:07:06.120 as hunters. You've got folks in urban environments like me 2:07:06.280 --> 2:07:08.640 growing up, really the only mammal that I could, you know, 2:07:08.720 --> 2:07:12.000 could see and enjoy. You know, their teachers use them 2:07:12.120 --> 2:07:16.480 for you know, for projects and biology early on, and 2:07:16.560 --> 2:07:20.320 then their their indicator species of you know, of forest change. 2:07:20.520 --> 2:07:25.080 So to me, I really appreciate. You know, anyone can 2:07:25.120 --> 2:07:28.080 appreciate the beauty of an elk moving across you know, 2:07:29.040 --> 2:07:34.800 a meadow, but to have the finer level of apprecia, 2:07:35.920 --> 2:07:38.440 it takes that special level of appreciation. How does someone 2:07:38.480 --> 2:07:43.000 find your books on squirrels? Uh, They're they're all on Amazon. Uh, 2:07:43.840 --> 2:07:47.600 you've got Squirrels of the World. Is the is the 2:07:47.760 --> 2:07:50.360 one that we uh that we're most proud of and 2:07:50.400 --> 2:07:53.080 we're working on a new new edition of that. North 2:07:53.120 --> 2:07:56.880 American Tree Squirrels. Uh, there's a book on the College 2:07:56.880 --> 2:07:59.480 of Endangerment in Mount Crme Red Squirrels, and and most 2:07:59.560 --> 2:08:02.720 recently the book I shared with you is um International 2:08:02.800 --> 2:08:06.160 Wildlife Management that looks at things broadly, but there are 2:08:06.160 --> 2:08:09.120 a few squirrel mentions in there. I wouldn't mind getting 2:08:09.120 --> 2:08:12.120 me a signed copy of North American Tree Squirrels. We 2:08:12.200 --> 2:08:15.320 can make that happen. I just read that book, but 2:08:15.360 --> 2:08:17.240 I need to read that one. You think hunters can 2:08:17.360 --> 2:08:21.040 learn something from your squirrel books most definitely. I think 2:08:21.080 --> 2:08:23.160 Squirrels of the World is kind of a compendium that 2:08:23.240 --> 2:08:26.520 shows everything from chipmunks. So when we talked, we've talked 2:08:26.600 --> 2:08:29.560 mostly about tree squirrels, but you've got flying squirrels, which 2:08:29.600 --> 2:08:35.400 are mostly nocturnal. You've got prairie dogs, you know, groundhogs, marmots, chipmunks, 2:08:35.880 --> 2:08:38.600 all of those things are are squirrels as well. That 2:08:38.880 --> 2:08:41.760 covers all of them. North American tree Squirrels a lot 2:08:41.840 --> 2:08:44.960 of these uh topics we've talked about. One of the 2:08:45.000 --> 2:08:47.920 great things about writing a book like that is those 2:08:48.000 --> 2:08:50.400 few those observations where you only have a couple of 2:08:51.120 --> 2:08:53.480 cases of them, you can weave them into a book 2:08:53.680 --> 2:08:56.360 more than you get a scientific publication out of it. 2:08:56.480 --> 2:09:00.400 So North American Tree Squirrels has has a bunch of 2:09:00.440 --> 2:09:03.440 these kinds of things. Talks a lot about the scent 2:09:03.520 --> 2:09:07.800 marking sites and nesting behavior, social behavior. So it would 2:09:07.840 --> 2:09:10.160 be a good one to to learn a learn a 2:09:10.200 --> 2:09:16.400 fair amount from. All right, John, once again, John, lad 2:09:16.640 --> 2:09:19.600 you do the last name Kaprowski. That's not that, all right, 2:09:19.960 --> 2:09:25.480 John led Kaprowski, Dean and Wyoming Excellence Chair at the 2:09:25.600 --> 2:09:31.400 Hobb School of Environment and Natural Resources, and a squirrel man. 2:09:33.080 --> 2:09:36.160 I'm proud of all of this. Doctor. Thank you for 2:09:36.800 --> 2:09:39.680 doctor squirrel. Thank you very much for coming on. This 2:09:39.800 --> 2:09:42.880 is great. You answered a million questions for us. Uh 2:09:43.160 --> 2:09:45.640 thoroughly enjoyed it. Thanks. You know, hardly anyone wants to 2:09:45.640 --> 2:09:47.600 talk about squirrel, so when you have the chance, you 2:09:47.640 --> 2:09:51.080 guys are lucky. I'm not staying an extra day. I Uh, 2:09:51.840 --> 2:09:54.320 it's great. It answered a lot of lifelong questions. I'll 2:09:54.400 --> 2:09:57.160 look at him, um differently now and I can tell 2:09:57.200 --> 2:10:02.160 you that, um, I am going to start trying to 2:10:02.280 --> 2:10:05.840 find some of those uh, those buck rubs those squirrel rubs, 2:10:05.920 --> 2:10:08.080 which is fascinating. I can't believe I didn't know about it. 2:10:09.080 --> 2:10:11.520 So if you find some, send me some pictures everyone 2:10:11.560 --> 2:10:14.520 out there, of your buck rubs squirrel rubs. All right, 2:10:14.560 --> 2:10:16.880 thanks a lot, Thanks Sean, thank you,