Speaker 1: Longtime listeners of Stuff You Should Know are well aware
Speaker 1: that I've come a long way with my feelings on squirrels.
Speaker 1: Time was I saw them as a common pest who
Speaker 1: invaded my.
Speaker 2: Bird feeders at Baby se Red.
Speaker 1: But then along came my precious four legged daughter, Momo,
Speaker 1: who taught me to appreciate squirrels and ways I never
Speaker 1: thought possible. Now Momo takes me and her mom to
Speaker 1: feed the squirrels in the park every morning, and now
Speaker 1: a day goes back and I don't lift my gaze
Speaker 1: to the skies and thank Mother Earth for our squirrel friends.
Speaker 1: Squirrels are great squirrel's.
Speaker 3: Ahoy, Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Josh, and there's Chuck and Jerry is here, and
Speaker 1: this is one of the greatest episodes we'll ever do
Speaker 1: as far as I'm concerned.
Speaker 2: Squirrels.
Speaker 4: Oh, I really want to squirrels. I've been seeing that
Speaker 4: all day.
Speaker 2: It's so wonderful. That is so wonderful.
Speaker 4: It is that song isn't But you.
Speaker 2: Know, uh yeah yeah.
Speaker 1: If you go back and listen to BC Boys, you're.
Speaker 4: Like, Wow, they come a long way. Though, and renouncing
Speaker 4: that stuff.
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. So we're talking not about the BC Boys, surprising,
Speaker 1: and we're talking about squirrels in the morning. It's squirrels
Speaker 1: there evening, it's squirrels.
Speaker 4: Squirrels two syllables, right.
Speaker 1: I don't care however you want to say it the
Speaker 1: squirrel sure or Boston I guess probably they say it
Speaker 1: similarly as well. Yeah, but if you want to get fancy,
Speaker 1: you can bust out their Latin name. They're members of
Speaker 1: the rodent Order. But for their family, their squore a day,
Speaker 1: scure a day, Nope, secury day.
Speaker 4: I look this one up, all right, Sierrade.
Speaker 2: Like mine more?
Speaker 4: Okay? Did you just toot on my renvation?
Speaker 2: Yeah, even though it was correct.
Speaker 4: Did you give me a bronx cheer?
Speaker 2: How? How is it? Suride?
Speaker 4: Well, let me do the person online? Sierra diye?
Speaker 2: Okay? Is that Emma who said that?
Speaker 4: Or at Sierra Day was another? But I think we've
Speaker 4: heard from people that Dae is die.
Speaker 1: Okay, And that's fine if that's what it's called. I'm
Speaker 1: just gonna call them squirrels from now on.
Speaker 2: But there's actually.
Speaker 1: Exactly like three hundred species of squirrels and it's it's
Speaker 1: kind of hard to wrap your head around because usually
Speaker 1: if you live in a place with squirrels, meaning you
Speaker 1: live on a continent outside of Antarctica.
Speaker 4: Yeah, like everywhere.
Speaker 1: Basically, they're probably a lot of squirrels living around you,
Speaker 1: and they probably all look basically exactly alike. Because it
Speaker 1: seems seems like when they fill an ecological niche, brother,
Speaker 1: they fill it, and there's not much room for competing species,
Speaker 1: it seems like from my experience.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, there are enough who helped us with this.
Speaker 2: This this is a grabster.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so Grabster points out that you know, you can
Speaker 4: find mountain squirrels and city squirrels, and forest squirrels and
Speaker 4: jungle squirrels and desert squirrels. You can find squirrels and
Speaker 4: Alaska that hibernate with the lowest body temperature of any mammal,
Speaker 4: that have body temperatures below freezing at times.
Speaker 2: That's so cool.
Speaker 4: You can go to Africa and find one of the
Speaker 4: cutest squirrels, the African pigmy squirrel, which is as small
Speaker 4: as a tiny little mouse. Where you can go to
Speaker 4: Buttan and find the giant flying squirrel of Button that
Speaker 4: with their head and body and is over two feet
Speaker 4: long with that tail, they're huge.
Speaker 1: No, two feet long without the tail, oh, without stressing, Yes,
Speaker 1: they're distressingly large.
Speaker 4: Yeah, because the squirrel tail will get into this. But
Speaker 4: that's one of their signature features generally, although depending on
Speaker 4: the species, because there are three hundred species, like you said,
Speaker 4: more than or almost three hundred, some of those tails
Speaker 4: are a little diminished. But usually when you think squirrel,
Speaker 4: you think of that big, bushy tail.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and not only when you think of squirrel you
Speaker 1: think of the tail. But the Greeks themselves, right, somebody
Speaker 1: decided that a Greek term would make sense. But scurios
Speaker 1: or scourios, which roughly means something like shadow tail ed,
Speaker 1: says shady Butt. I also saw shadowtail, which is a
Speaker 1: reference to how squirrels sometimes hide in the shadow cast
Speaker 1: by their own tail.
Speaker 2: It's pretty clever, but.
Speaker 1: The squirrel is usually kind of The bushy tail of
Speaker 1: the squirrel is what makes a squirrel a squirrel. One
Speaker 1: of the other things that really differentiates it from other
Speaker 1: rodents is the way that it's jaw and muscle are
Speaker 1: attached to its skull. There's actually a name for it,
Speaker 1: seriomorphous zygomasoteric system. They look at you hooked on phonics
Speaker 1: works for me.
Speaker 4: You even recorded the new pronunciation. That's right, you worked
Speaker 4: it right in there with a syria dye.
Speaker 1: I adapted, yeah, because you should have heard it before
Speaker 1: when I was workshopping it.
Speaker 4: That was the first take. Everybody, we're not lying.
Speaker 1: So so those are two things that really kind of
Speaker 1: differentiate squirrels. But as we've really gotten better and better
Speaker 1: at taxonomy with the introduction of geno mapping, sure we
Speaker 1: can see, like, oh, this animal that doesn't look anything
Speaker 1: like this animal is actually really closely related. And as
Speaker 1: with just about every other animal we've studied using modern
Speaker 1: genetic taxonomy, squirrels are Our understanding of squirrels has really
Speaker 1: kind of changed shape of who's related to whom, who's
Speaker 1: descended from who. But there's there We're kind of going
Speaker 1: to go the old school way, which is differentiating them
Speaker 1: based on their habitat and their behavior. So there's three
Speaker 1: groups of squirrels that we're going to cover, even though
Speaker 1: there's technically five subfamilies now, ground squirrels, tree squirrels, and
Speaker 1: flying squirrels. And before we go any further, I officially
Speaker 1: dedicate this episode to Momo, one of the great lovers
Speaker 1: of squirrels of all time, who changed changed me in
Speaker 1: my heart towards squirrels.
Speaker 2: I used to be a squirrel hater. Chuck, do you
Speaker 2: remember squirrels? You remember?
Speaker 1: Oh? Yeah, the bird feeder Momo pointed out to me, said, Dad,
Speaker 1: squirrels are great. I'm going to teach you to love them.
Speaker 2: And she did.
Speaker 4: Yeah, dogs and squirrels. It's what was the Disney It
Speaker 4: was either Pixar Disney had an animated movie where the
Speaker 4: dog would just stop and go squirrel anytime there's a squirrel.
Speaker 4: I can't remember which one was.
Speaker 2: I don't remember.
Speaker 4: It wasn't that long ago. But before we move on
Speaker 4: to ground squirrels, it is kind of fun to learn
Speaker 4: that because of that DNA analysis that we now have
Speaker 4: at our fingertips and fossil evidence, we know that squirrels
Speaker 4: went to western North America thirty five to forty million
Speaker 4: years ago because squirrels like to get around. As we
Speaker 4: will see, they crossed a land bridge to Eurasia about
Speaker 4: ten million years after that, and then as soon as
Speaker 4: they could as soon as Eurasia met up with Africa
Speaker 4: about twenty million years ago, they went, all right, we're
Speaker 4: in Africa now too. Because squirrels like to get around.
Speaker 4: They as you will see, Well, we'll just tease that
Speaker 4: and say, squirrels like to get around.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, you put one tree next to another,
Speaker 1: squirrel's going to go from tree to tree. Put another tree,
Speaker 1: squirrel's going to go the next tree. And if you
Speaker 1: put trees all the way across one continent to another,
Speaker 1: they're going to migrate. That's just what they do, and
Speaker 1: that's what they did. But if I thought I loved
Speaker 1: squirrels before, now that I know that they're actually native
Speaker 1: from plenty five million years back to North America, I
Speaker 1: just think that's that's just the tops.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and we talked about it before when you were
Speaker 4: having your bird feeder issue. But you know, Atlanta is
Speaker 4: a city in the forest, and we have tons and
Speaker 4: tons and tons of squirrels. Kind of everywhere along the
Speaker 4: East Coast does, but Atlanta just has a lot of squirrels.
Speaker 4: And as I was reading, you know, from my upstairs office,
Speaker 4: there's a window not right in front of my face
Speaker 4: but sort of above me and our huge, big, beautiful
Speaker 4: oak in our front yard. I'm doing this on squirrels.
Speaker 4: I just look up for a second and I see
Speaker 4: four squirrels running around that tree together, playing like circling
Speaker 4: it like a barber pole.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I take my daughter to school this morning, and I
Speaker 4: count the squirrels that I see on the way. I
Speaker 4: counted twenty two squirrels that I just saw on a
Speaker 4: you know, twelve minute car ride.
Speaker 2: You hit one of them there.
Speaker 4: I have before. It's the worst thing ever. It is,
Speaker 4: But they're everywhere in Atlanta, And it hit me a
Speaker 4: while ago about how easy it is living here or
Speaker 4: anywhere where there's a lot of squirrels, just to sort
Speaker 4: of be like, yeah, the squirrels. But it kind of
Speaker 4: hit me like how crazy it is that there are
Speaker 4: these little mammals. They're not hiding in holes generally like
Speaker 4: mice and stuff like that. Like they're just out all
Speaker 4: over the place at all times. We're surrounded by these
Speaker 4: little mammals.
Speaker 2: Yeah, out and proud.
Speaker 1: And if you come close too close to one of
Speaker 1: their trees when you're walking by and the squirrel doesn't
Speaker 1: like it, he's gonna sit there or she and chatter
Speaker 1: at you and basically tell you to beat it. You
Speaker 1: punk get away from my tree. That's how. That's one
Speaker 1: of the great lovable things about squirrels. They have such
Speaker 1: huge personalities. They're just so great.
Speaker 2: Chuck.
Speaker 4: Remember my famous squirrel attack not too long ago, and
Speaker 4: when I went outside, I got it on my doorbell
Speaker 4: camera and that squirrel leaped through the air and hit
Speaker 4: me in the leg. It was a complete accident. Of course,
Speaker 4: I don't think the squirrel was trying to kill me, But.
Speaker 2: You don't know.
Speaker 4: They're just they're all over the place. We're gonna get
Speaker 4: to all the fun stuff about the black squirrels of
Speaker 4: New York and why squirrels stop in the middle of
Speaker 4: the road when they go to across the street. Like
Speaker 4: there we found reasons for all this stuff, which I love.
Speaker 4: It's not that squirrels are dumb, and we're gonna reveal
Speaker 4: all that in this episode.
Speaker 1: Okay, I'm a little excited. I'm a little worked up.
Speaker 1: I know it's a ted early, but first break. Okay,
Speaker 1: we're so squirrel positive that, I mean, that's a great
Speaker 1: way to put.
Speaker 4: It, Chuck, all right, so are we taking a break?
Speaker 4: I say, all right, I need to calm down to
Speaker 4: and I guarantee you I'm gonna go like blow my
Speaker 4: nose in the other room. I'm gonna see a squirrel.
Speaker 2: I'll be right back, all right, Chuck.
Speaker 1: So, as promised, we're gonna break squirrels down into three groups, crown, tree, flying,
Speaker 1: or aerial. And I propose that we start with the
Speaker 1: ground squirrel. Sure, many species of which you probably not you,
Speaker 1: but I mean you, dear listener, and may all include
Speaker 1: two I didn't realize were actual squirrels, like groundhog.
Speaker 4: Chuck did not know that was a squirrel.
Speaker 2: Chipmunk.
Speaker 4: I had a feeling that might be a squirrel.
Speaker 1: Gosh, they're so great too, Yeah, chipmunks. What about a groundhog?
Speaker 4: You already said groundhog?
Speaker 1: Did I yeah, okay, I'm swirling. I'm swirling still. And
Speaker 1: my love squirrel prairie dog. Yeah, well that's what was
Speaker 1: coming out of my mouth next.
Speaker 2: To Patty Dog.
Speaker 4: Yeah, prairie dog didn't know it.
Speaker 2: What about that meerkat?
Speaker 4: I didn't know that.
Speaker 2: Well, that's because.
Speaker 1: They're not but okay, prairie dogs, chipmunks, and what's the
Speaker 1: other one, marmots? Yeah, marmots and brought them in groundhogs.
Speaker 1: Those are all ground squirrels. They're squirrels friends, and that
Speaker 1: makes them pretty awesome. But one of the reasons why
Speaker 1: they you wouldn't think they're squirrels is because in a
Speaker 1: lot of those species they lack that characteristic bushy tail. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but then also they live almost a totally different life
Speaker 1: from their tree dwelling more famous cousins.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, they might climb a tree, but generally
Speaker 4: you're not going to see a groundhogger prairie dog up
Speaker 4: in the tree. If they need to, you know, for
Speaker 4: a brief time, if they're trying to find food or
Speaker 4: something or like on the run from something trying to
Speaker 4: kill it, they might go up in a tree, but
Speaker 4: they generally hang out on the ground, hence the name
Speaker 4: they love their rocky terrain chipmunks for just speaking for them,
Speaker 4: are pretty solitary unless they're trying to reproduce. But I
Speaker 4: know that you've found some stuff, was it on the
Speaker 4: prairie dog that have their big families and colonies.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean that's one of the main characteristics of
Speaker 1: ground squirrels in general, aside from a couple, but that
Speaker 1: they're much more communal than tree squirrels, and in particular,
Speaker 1: the largest town a prairie dog town, is what they're
Speaker 1: called the largest prairie dog town on record is in Texas,
Speaker 1: because of course everything's bigger there, But it was a
Speaker 1: colony of black tailed prairie dogs. And this town, Chuck,
Speaker 1: stretched one hundred miles wide, wow, by two hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty miles long, and contain four hundred million prairie dogs.
Speaker 1: My gos again, crownd squirrels all living in this kind
Speaker 1: of large community. Jeez, I mean that's it's like a
Speaker 1: Chinese megacity or something like that times ten.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So are these the ones that tend to stay
Speaker 4: grouped with their own sex?
Speaker 1: No, those tend to be either tree squirrels or flying squirrels.
Speaker 1: These are more the because they live in communal groups
Speaker 1: and kinship is a big deal. Ground squirrels, like prairie dogs,
Speaker 1: tend to have a really good ability to smell the
Speaker 1: scent of other ground squirrels, so they can tell like
Speaker 1: who's a blood relation who's not. They've done studies to see,
Speaker 1: you know, like if a ground squirrel. They have a
Speaker 1: lot of really sophisticated calls too, because they're alerting others
Speaker 1: to the presence of a rattlesnake or a hawk or something.
Speaker 1: So they're really talkative and they have a lot of
Speaker 1: sophisticated different communication and they found that like a prairie
Speaker 1: dog that will stand up and take the time to
Speaker 1: risk its own life to alert others, it's actually alerting.
Speaker 1: The others that it's alerting are actually related by blood.
Speaker 1: And the groundhog or the prairie dog knows this because
Speaker 1: it can smell its blood relations among all these other
Speaker 1: you know, extended family members in the town.
Speaker 4: There's not much cuter than a squirrel up on its
Speaker 4: hot rear haunches. Yeah, whether it's I mean, obviously those
Speaker 4: prairie dogs, you know, they do it for a living.
Speaker 4: But even our eastern gray squirrels sit upon those back
Speaker 4: legs if they want to work a nut with their
Speaker 4: little front pop ads.
Speaker 1: Yeah, or a chipmunk on its back legs. It's doesn't
Speaker 1: get much cute.
Speaker 4: It's little busy hands. Goodness me. Yeah, all right, So
Speaker 4: we can move on to our tree squirrel. This is
Speaker 4: they're known as arboreal squirrels obviously because they are tree squirrels.
Speaker 4: And this is when you're talking your eastern gray squirrel.
Speaker 4: This is not a groundhog, this is not a prairie dog.
Speaker 4: This is your dyed in the wool. Cute, little fluffy
Speaker 4: tailed sort of you know, they're called gray, but there's
Speaker 4: sort of a light brownish color generally, although the colors
Speaker 4: do range, as we'll see. And these are the ones
Speaker 4: that you're gonna find all over Atlanta, jumping around, climbing around,
Speaker 4: leaping it podcasters in their front lawn. Yeah, they spend
Speaker 4: most of the time. I mean, you see them on
Speaker 4: the ground plenty, but they live in trees. They nest
Speaker 4: in trees called drays or drays or Drey's spelled with
Speaker 4: a year an a right.
Speaker 1: And you probably if you've ever looked up and seen
Speaker 1: a mass of like sticks and twigs and a leafless
Speaker 1: tree in the middle of winter, you're looking at a
Speaker 1: squirrel's nest called a dre And this is where you
Speaker 1: were you were asking about them staying in like same
Speaker 1: sex groups apparently in the winter. Even though the tree
Speaker 1: squirrel does not live in a communal society like a
Speaker 1: ground squirrel does, they're still social. They still interact with
Speaker 1: one another. They play, they chase, they chase one another off.
Speaker 2: They like mate. But when it.
Speaker 1: Gets really cold, tree squirrels will kind of group their
Speaker 1: heat together by staying in a dre communally up to
Speaker 1: like thirty members. It's able, Yeah, it is very adorable.
Speaker 1: I want to do a little exercise here real quick, Chuck.
Speaker 1: I want you to use your imagination.
Speaker 2: Close.
Speaker 1: Imagine a very cold winter day. The wind's blowing, snow's
Speaker 1: being carried on the wind, and it's passing by just
Speaker 1: outside a woodpecker hole, and we're inside that woodpecker hole's dark.
Speaker 1: The light is very very faint because it's it's kind
Speaker 1: of an overcast, snowy day to begin with. But we're
Speaker 1: also inside a tree, in an old woodpecker hole, and
Speaker 1: it's lined with a bunch of different leaves, and there's
Speaker 1: half a dozen or so squirrels, all kind of snuggled together, sleeping,
Speaker 1: sharing their warmth as the winter day passes by outside
Speaker 1: and they snooze an afternoon away fat on acorns that
Speaker 1: they all just ate. Oh boy, isn't that amazing?
Speaker 4: I almost fell asleep. You're real, Robert Fross, my friend,
Speaker 4: Thank you.
Speaker 2: Thank you. I like to think Robert Redford crossed with
Speaker 2: Robert Cross.
Speaker 4: But sure, well you know Robert Redford if you look
Speaker 4: in the mirror, but Robert Frost when you pick a.
Speaker 1: Bent up with the touch of Robert Goolay if.
Speaker 4: You say it surely, Oh man, that really did almost
Speaker 4: put me to sleep. That's quite nice. I love that scene.
Speaker 4: So here's a little fun adaptation that squirrels have. If
Speaker 4: you see a tree squirrel running down a tree face
Speaker 4: first with little resistance, it's just like it was made
Speaker 4: to do it. It's because it is. And they have
Speaker 4: those little claws of course that really helps. But if
Speaker 4: you look closely, or if you look up a picture
Speaker 4: rather and you see like a still image, you will
Speaker 4: notice that they have the ability to and Ed says
Speaker 4: they can turn their feet around. They really kind of
Speaker 4: just turn their whole back legs around backwards to where
Speaker 4: those claws are gripping on the way down. And that's
Speaker 4: why they're you know, it's like the perfect adaptation to
Speaker 4: be able to run up and down a tree.
Speaker 1: So if you ever watched one do that up close, sure,
Speaker 1: so anytime I've seen that there, if you look their
Speaker 1: legs because they're turned around and it kicks kind of
Speaker 1: their elbows out a little bit, uh huh, and they
Speaker 1: climb down, it looks a little different. And I've noticed
Speaker 1: that it triggers the part of my lizard brain. That's
Speaker 1: like a spider alert. It's like that's triggered by that.
Speaker 1: So it's like a giant, furry spider is coming down
Speaker 1: to some little part of my brain that sends off
Speaker 1: an alarm, and it's really off putting sometimes until you
Speaker 1: know the larger part, the executive functioning part of my
Speaker 1: brain is like, it's a squirrel, don't worry, But there's
Speaker 1: that one just zap of Like this is weird and
Speaker 1: scary for a second, but it happens to me from
Speaker 1: time to time when they come down the tree like that.
Speaker 4: Well, it can be a little startling, you know, if
Speaker 4: you're going to take out the trash or something and
Speaker 4: your trash can is next to a big live oak
Speaker 4: like ours is, and there are two or more squirrels
Speaker 4: that are they seem I don't know what they're doing.
Speaker 4: It seem like I have a beef with one another.
Speaker 4: But maybe they're just playing chase. But when they're really
Speaker 4: boogying up and down and around a tree right as
Speaker 4: you walk upon it is it can be a little
Speaker 4: bit like, oh okay, I.
Speaker 1: Read that when one was chasing the other. It's a
Speaker 1: part of the mating ritual.
Speaker 4: Oh Okay, so that's embarrassing for them, right.
Speaker 1: I don't know if that's across the board, but I
Speaker 1: saw that in at least one.
Speaker 2: Place, all right.
Speaker 4: I like knowing that. Here's another cool thing about squirrels.
Speaker 4: All kinds of squirrels have scent glands, and it depends
Speaker 4: on the species where that scent gland is located. It
Speaker 4: can be near their little bum hole. It can be
Speaker 4: near their mouth in the corners of their mouth, can
Speaker 4: be on their back. But in the case of the
Speaker 4: tree squirrel, they have their scent glands on their feet
Speaker 4: and sweat glands on the bottom of their feet. And
Speaker 4: they are a squirrel that buries their food over large.
Speaker 4: Large areas sometimes like up to twenty five acres can
Speaker 4: be their habitat where they're bearing and hiding food, and
Speaker 4: they are literally every time they walk to bury something,
Speaker 4: they're leaving a little scent trail that they can go
Speaker 4: back and pick up. Ideally, but it's not a perfect system.
Speaker 4: Sometimes they will lose stuff and not be able to
Speaker 4: go back. But what they have then done is planted
Speaker 4: a tree.
Speaker 1: Yeah, which brings up their huge ecological role, which is
Speaker 1: like planting new forests, like keeping forests healthy by forgetting
Speaker 1: about nuts. And the nut is actually a seed and
Speaker 1: it grows into a new tree that the squirrel helped
Speaker 1: move away from the tree.
Speaker 2: It's amazing its range.
Speaker 4: They're known as the gardeners of the forest.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and we taught we did a whole short stuff
Speaker 1: on squirrels bearing nuts, and I remember one of the
Speaker 1: things that came up was there was a study that
Speaker 1: found that they if they know they're being watched by another.
Speaker 2: Squirrel, they'll fake dig a hole.
Speaker 1: And then won't drop the nut in it, And then
Speaker 1: we'll go somewhere else and mislead a squirrel.
Speaker 2: It's that they think is watching them.
Speaker 4: Yeah, they'll look around first and be like, did anyone
Speaker 4: see that? Yeah, I think I'm good.
Speaker 2: Tod was watching. I better not drop the nut in
Speaker 2: this hole. He'll come along.
Speaker 4: So that's what the the I'm sorry, not flying, but
Speaker 4: the tree squirrels. That's how they use their scent. The
Speaker 4: ground squirrels, we should say, mainly use the scent glands
Speaker 4: to mark their territory. And you know, because they're all
Speaker 4: about their clan and their colony, to sort of mark
Speaker 4: their territory and find out if someone is a part
Speaker 4: of their clan.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And then also as far as sense go, I saw
Speaker 1: some somewhere that some kinds of ground squirrels that are
Speaker 1: prey to rattlesnakes will actually find shed rattlesnake skin rub
Speaker 1: it on themselves. Oh wow, chew it up and rub
Speaker 1: it on themselves to give themselves a rattlesnake scent to
Speaker 1: throw off rattlesnakes.
Speaker 2: They camouflage their scent.
Speaker 4: That's pretty cool.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I wonder if they ever wear it and just like
Speaker 4: fashion a couple of holes and stick their arms through.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and they bragged that they killed it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, have you man? I shouldn't even mention this. Yeah,
Speaker 4: I'm gonna mention it.
Speaker 2: Have you?
Speaker 4: Because it is granted it is roadkill. But have you
Speaker 4: ever seen the pictures of the squirrel roadkill with the
Speaker 4: little G I Joe action figures? No, just look it up,
Speaker 4: I can. They aren't squirrels at some one killed. It's
Speaker 4: someone will take a roadkill picture of a squirrel and
Speaker 4: they'll take the little G I Joe figures as if
Speaker 4: they were big game hunters, and they'll have their guns
Speaker 4: and they'll have like one leg up on the squirrel's head.
Speaker 4: As if it was their trophy. And the squirrel looks
Speaker 4: positively giant next to the little action figures, and it's
Speaker 4: kind of funny.
Speaker 2: I'll have to check that one out.
Speaker 4: I don't want to encourage people. Maybe I shouldn't have
Speaker 4: even said anything.
Speaker 1: Well, I don't know if you're encouraging people to like
Speaker 1: swerve onto a squirrel, you know, one guy or.
Speaker 4: Kill a squirrel to do that. But maybe just took
Speaker 4: it up on the internet. If you want to see that,
Speaker 4: don't recreate it.
Speaker 1: If you kill a squirrel and we find out about it,
Speaker 1: we're coming to your house.
Speaker 4: I know. Okay with a ghost of that squirrel. Yeah,
Speaker 4: that will introduce to your attic you go.
Speaker 2: So have we moved on to flying squirrels.
Speaker 4: Yet, Yeah, let's do it. Those are you know the
Speaker 4: old story when we had one growing up for a
Speaker 4: little while. You probably don't remember, but my uncle gave
Speaker 4: us his flying squirrel to watch for a while, and
Speaker 4: he would leap from the curtains on the other side
Speaker 4: of the room onto my shoulder. And then when we
Speaker 4: went out of town, apparently they said the squirrel got out.
Speaker 4: But now that I'm an adult, I realized that the cat
Speaker 4: ate the squirrel. Oh man, yeah, just to recap that
Speaker 4: childhood trauma. That's well okay, But for a little while,
Speaker 4: we had a flying squirrel in our home.
Speaker 2: For a brief shining moment.
Speaker 4: That's the upshot.
Speaker 1: So a flying squirrel, and I thought this. I thought
Speaker 1: they were fairly rare. Apparently they're as common as tree
Speaker 1: squirrels in some places. The reason that you think they're
Speaker 1: rare is because they're nocturnal, so we're usually sleeping when
Speaker 1: they're out and about.
Speaker 4: I love thinking about those things just flying around all night.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and flying is right, man, I saw Ed says
Speaker 1: the thing glide up to one hundred and fifty feet.
Speaker 1: I saw three hundred in some cases.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: And that's what they're doing. They're gliding. They're not flying.
Speaker 1: They have no means of like propulsion. But they have
Speaker 1: a skin flap. They've evolved a skin flap that is
Speaker 1: you know the batsuit that people like you know, skydive with.
Speaker 2: That's that is based basically one.
Speaker 1: Hundred percent on the flying squirrel's membranes between its front
Speaker 1: legs and hind legs that it can you know, spread
Speaker 1: out when it jumps and it just catches the air.
Speaker 1: And they can move it this way and that and
Speaker 1: use their tail as a rudder and go one hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty feet in a pretty purposeful direction too.
Speaker 4: Did you say what the name of the flap was?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 4: Do you want to?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 2: I probably screwed it.
Speaker 4: I'm gonna go with potagium.
Speaker 2: That's great. What do they call that? Pada gayum?
Speaker 4: I wonder what they call that in the in the
Speaker 4: Flying Suit Bizz Extreme Flying Suit Biz. I don't know, and.
Speaker 1: I think they call them batsuits, but that's that's a misnomer.
Speaker 4: If you ask me those I gotta say. I mean,
Speaker 4: I'm not into any of that stuff. I would never
Speaker 4: do it, but those videos are amazing and it's oh,
Speaker 4: I know, as humans have come I think to flying
Speaker 4: it feels like agreed.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I would have to have.
Speaker 1: Probably a lobotomy to to actually try that. It would
Speaker 1: take that radical of a personality change for me to
Speaker 1: try it.
Speaker 4: Well, And I mean sure that kind of thing that's
Speaker 4: the most extreme, like years and years of training, yes,
Speaker 4: skydiving training and stuff like that. You know, like run
Speaker 4: jump into a batsuit?
Speaker 2: No, no, no, definitely not.
Speaker 1: But even if you do, you know, once you get
Speaker 1: to that point, like, I can't imagine how dangerous that is.
Speaker 1: You know, if you smack into something you're going really fast.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, your toast. Yeah, and that happens sadly.
Speaker 1: But I get the impression that it's the rush is
Speaker 1: worth the risk.
Speaker 4: That's right. And speaking of risk, there are endangered flying squirrels,
Speaker 4: the Carolina Northern flying squirrel. And we talked a little
Speaker 4: bit about these little land bridges that are starting to
Speaker 4: pop up in the United States over overpasses and freeway crossings.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I just read today there's one in LA that's opening
Speaker 4: up that's like one hundred and sixty feet wide. I
Speaker 4: can't remember the name of it. It's named after someone
Speaker 4: and to allow cougars and you know, mountain lions to
Speaker 4: pass and all kinds of animals, and they're using you know,
Speaker 4: they have done studies for squirrels in that they found
Speaker 4: tagged like radio tagged squirrels are foraging and building on
Speaker 4: the other side of these massive freeways thanks to these bridges,
Speaker 4: Like it's been proven to work.
Speaker 1: Yeah for sure. I think it's called the Robert Evans
Speaker 1: Memorial Animal Land Bridge.
Speaker 4: Baby. Yeah, if only.
Speaker 3: So.
Speaker 1: That actually kind of leads us to a quote I
Speaker 1: ran across Chuck because if you put like I was saying,
Speaker 1: if you can kind of connect a tree to another tree,
Speaker 1: which really ties into that rewilding episode because you're you're
Speaker 1: using you're connecting core to core via corridor basically is
Speaker 1: what they're doing with that. That there was an old
Speaker 1: saying that before, well not too long ago, I think
Speaker 1: into the eighteenth century, maybe even early nineteenth century, that
Speaker 1: there was so many chestnut trees in North America that
Speaker 1: a squirrel could make it from Maine to Georgia without
Speaker 1: ever touching the ground.
Speaker 4: Yeah, where did we cover that in?
Speaker 3: Was it?
Speaker 1: I don't remember?
Speaker 4: I remember that Factoi. That's a great one.
Speaker 1: So it really kind of goes to show like there
Speaker 1: used to be a lot more forests in the United States,
Speaker 1: but there were also a lot more squirrels because there's
Speaker 1: a there's a positive correlation between mass producing trees, which
Speaker 1: are chestnut, beech oak trees that produce nuts that squirrels
Speaker 1: and other forest animals eat, and the number and population
Speaker 1: density of squirrels in an area. You have a lot
Speaker 1: of mass producing trees, you're going to have a lot
Speaker 1: of squirrels because again, they fill their ecological niche to
Speaker 1: base bursting.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and they you know, bursting with food because they
Speaker 4: are opportunistic eaters, is what Ed says. And that's a
Speaker 4: pretty good way to say it. Because while they well,
Speaker 4: obviously if they can get fruit or nuts and seeds,
Speaker 4: that's the stock of their diet. But they will eat
Speaker 4: whatever keeps them alive. They will eat insects and fungus,
Speaker 4: and they actually spread fungus, which is great. Yeah, they
Speaker 4: eat roots. They have they have found little tiny eggs
Speaker 4: and little tiny birds and little tiny lizards in the
Speaker 4: guts of squirrels, so they you know, technically are omnivores,
Speaker 4: which is just to say squirrels are remarkable. That's staying alive,
Speaker 4: and they will eat your garbage. They will eat whatever
Speaker 4: they need to, but that's only if they're not finding
Speaker 4: the nuts and the seeds and stuff like that, which
Speaker 4: there are generally plenty plenty of in the United States.
Speaker 1: And one reason that they're they're suited for nuts, or
Speaker 1: that nuts are suited for them, is because they have
Speaker 1: two sets of incisors. I believe it up and a
Speaker 1: down is the technical term, and they grow constantly throughout
Speaker 1: their lifetime. I think they grow something like, is this
Speaker 1: even possible that I'm seeing it six inches a year?
Speaker 4: Well, I mean they're constantly grinding them down, so I
Speaker 4: think if a squirrel was in a coma, they could
Speaker 4: have six inch fang.
Speaker 2: That's crazy.
Speaker 1: And then apparently if they don't continuously grind them down
Speaker 1: and they kept growing, they would grow through the top
Speaker 1: and the bottom of their face all a Lisa Simpson
Speaker 1: that time she needed braces.
Speaker 2: But that's crazy.
Speaker 1: So they use these very very hard nuts, like a
Speaker 1: chestnut or pecan or walnut shell to impart. It's a
Speaker 1: food source. But as they're getting to the food source,
Speaker 1: they're keeping their teeth ground down, which apparently they have
Speaker 1: to do all the time.
Speaker 4: That's pretty amazing. Squirrels also like a little sweet treat
Speaker 4: every now and then. They have found red squirrels in
Speaker 4: Maine that will tap sugar maple trees. They make little
Speaker 4: bite marks in the tree and then and they just say,
Speaker 4: all right, do your thing, and they come back a
Speaker 4: few days later and that trap has hardened up and
Speaker 4: run out a little bit. And that is just a little,
Speaker 4: tiny sweet treat for a squirrel.
Speaker 1: That's right, It's pretty awesome. They also found that Squirrels
Speaker 1: can learn by observing other squirrels doing something, particularly finding
Speaker 1: new ways to get food. Their adept at that.
Speaker 4: Oh okay, so they see Todd doing something, they say,
Speaker 4: not a bad idea, let's give that a shot.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that Todd really came around.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and if you'll notice, I think we kind of
Speaker 4: skipped over this if we didn't mention Australia squirrels I
Speaker 4: think used to be in Australia but aren't so much now.
Speaker 4: And is it a mystery or is it just the
Speaker 4: obvious that the Australians were like SIPs on mate.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: I didn't see that anywhere, but I know that they
Speaker 1: introduced the Eastern gray and then in Perth they introduced
Speaker 1: the Indian palm, which is like if you mashed together
Speaker 1: an Eastern gray squirrel in a chipmunk, that it would
Speaker 1: be an Indian palm.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, but apparently they both died out. I don't know
Speaker 1: if it's a mystery or not, like you're saying, but
Speaker 1: supposedly there's some feral colonies that escape from zoos, at
Speaker 1: least in Perth. So there are wild squirrels in Australia,
Speaker 1: but they were introduced in the nineteenth century, which is
Speaker 1: actually a trend, as we'll see. But I say before
Speaker 1: we tackle all that, we take a break. How about that?
Speaker 4: All right, Well we'll take the break and we'll talk
Speaker 4: about squirrel migration right after this.
Speaker 1: Okay, Chuck, so as I was saying, like back before
Speaker 1: pre colonial days in particular, but also even into the
Speaker 1: nineteenth century, I think even the nineteen sixties, there were
Speaker 1: reports of a massive numbers of squirrels basically stampeding. Yea,
Speaker 1: they call them squirrel migrations, and they have been documented
Speaker 1: enough times that it's not an anomaly, but they are
Speaker 1: fairly rare. And today they've kind of figured out that
Speaker 1: there aren't dense enough populations of squirrels to ever have
Speaker 1: a genuine like squirrel stampede like they had before. But
Speaker 1: there used to be so many of them that every
Speaker 1: once in a while, thousands to tens of thousands to
Speaker 1: tends to tens of thousands of squirrels would pass generally
Speaker 1: in like a big wave over an area. And apparently
Speaker 1: it was quite a thing to see.
Speaker 4: I imagine it was. And this happened because there would
Speaker 4: just be a really big fruitful year for squirrel food
Speaker 4: tons of availability, and they would you know, they would
Speaker 4: boom in numbers because they go to where the food is.
Speaker 4: And usually if that is followed by or I guess historically,
Speaker 4: when that was followed by a really bad year like
Speaker 4: the rain you know, didn't work out so great for
Speaker 4: producing nuts and seeds and stuff and fruit, that all
Speaker 4: of a sudden, you've got a ton of squirrels in
Speaker 4: an area that are all looking around, going, oh, what's
Speaker 4: the deal. And they're opportunitists, so they said, all right,
Speaker 4: we're getting out of here. We're going to where the
Speaker 4: food is. Let's go everybody. And they would do it
Speaker 4: all at.
Speaker 1: Once, yeah, all at once for some reason. And so
Speaker 1: there's migrations. They would be they'd be running through the forest,
Speaker 1: they'd be running across fields, they'd be swimming across rivers,
Speaker 1: and apparently, in at least one account, I saw they
Speaker 1: would be gulped up by bass in the rivers. And
Speaker 1: I can't imagine seeing anything worse than a squirrel being
Speaker 1: eaten by a fish.
Speaker 4: That seems unnatural.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but there were so many of them. And this
Speaker 1: is also at a time where squirrels were roundly among
Speaker 1: basically everyone living in America viewed as vermin as invaders,
Speaker 1: as things that were unwanted, but also a tasty food
Speaker 1: source too. Yeah, So anytime there was a squirrel stamp,
Speaker 1: the yokels would run out with their sticks and bags
Speaker 1: and beat squirrels to death and then cook them and
Speaker 1: sell their pelts and do all sorts of things with them.
Speaker 1: And one of the reasons why they were viewed as
Speaker 1: vermin chuck is because on these squirrel migrations and other
Speaker 1: times where they were just you know, if you were
Speaker 1: unlucky with your planting, those squirrels might see as a
Speaker 1: food source the crops you just planted all those seeds
Speaker 1: and would dig them up and ruin your year's crops
Speaker 1: in a day or so. So people didn't like squirrels
Speaker 1: for a very long time. And this idea of squirrels
Speaker 1: being everywhere, these little mammals living among us, like you
Speaker 1: were talking about earlier, that's fairly new, and that's actually
Speaker 1: very deliberate and purposeful, because squirrels were basically gone up
Speaker 1: until about the mid to late nineteenth century in America.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, between being hunted because people hated them
Speaker 4: on their farms, like you said, people and people still
Speaker 4: and like generally in certain parts of like Appalachia, still
Speaker 4: eat squirrel on the menu. It is a little gamey
Speaker 4: from what I'm told, I'm never going to eat a squirrel,
Speaker 4: but they still use pelts. But that kind of, you know,
Speaker 4: just like they would eat any larger mammal and use
Speaker 4: their pelts. They would just get crafty with you know,
Speaker 4: as small as a squirrel. And certainly in times of
Speaker 4: you know, real need, you know, small rodents would come
Speaker 4: in handy on the menu back then. But they were
Speaker 4: almost gone. We started growing more urban in the eighteen hundreds, obviously,
Speaker 4: and they were killing squirrels as fast as they could.
Speaker 4: And in the eighteen forties and fifties there were so
Speaker 4: few squirrels that they were introduced to city parks, but
Speaker 4: not many. At first. They were just like this weird
Speaker 4: curiosity where you would go out kind of like bird
Speaker 4: watching and you would like try to spot a squirrel
Speaker 4: running around because it was such a novel thing. But
Speaker 4: then by the time Frederick law Olmsted, who by the way,
Speaker 4: deserves his own podcasts, came along and really introduced the
Speaker 4: idea of these really large city parks and urban parks.
Speaker 4: They introduced a lot of squirrels to these parks and
Speaker 4: they really really like that. That's kind of why we
Speaker 4: have the squirrels we have today, was from this movement
Speaker 4: to reintroduce them in a big way to urban parks.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I mean we talked kind of a lot
Speaker 1: about that whole idea in our Central Park episode, This
Speaker 1: idea that you know, they just kept building the city
Speaker 1: and building the city and building the city, and people
Speaker 1: started going crazy because there weren't green spaces. So that
Speaker 1: brought the parks in, and then the idea of adding
Speaker 1: animals to the park just to kind of naturalize it
Speaker 1: even more. That squirrels played a huge role in that.
Speaker 1: And not only you know, in Central Park, but also
Speaker 1: it started out and I believe Philadelphia and then followed
Speaker 1: by Boston, and so by the mid to late nineteenth century,
Speaker 1: that's when squirrels started to re establish themselves and the
Speaker 1: way that people saw squirrels started to change too, And
Speaker 1: there was this idea that they weren't vermin anymore. Don't
Speaker 1: you them, Please try not to hit them with a stick. Instead,
Speaker 1: let's go to the park, spend some time outside and
Speaker 1: bring some nuts with you and maybe feed the squirrels,
Speaker 1: and not only you feed the squirrels, but you got
Speaker 1: a little kid. That little kid wants to hit that
Speaker 1: squirrel with a stick so bad because kids are awful
Speaker 1: like that.
Speaker 4: Good luck.
Speaker 1: You can actually use squirrels feeding squirrels as a way
Speaker 1: to teach kids to have compassion, to be upstanding morally,
Speaker 1: to have charity. And that was kind of how the
Speaker 1: whole interaction between humans and squirrels was kind of framed
Speaker 1: around that time, like the late nineteenth early twentieth century.
Speaker 4: Yeah, the Boy Scout co founder Ernest Thompson's Seaton said
Speaker 4: that squirrels, in introducing them to boys in general, would say,
Speaker 4: would cure them of their tendency toward cruelty. But I said,
Speaker 4: good luck a second ago. How do you hit it?
Speaker 4: I mean, I guess if there's a stampede. But you
Speaker 4: show me a kid that can get a squirrel and
Speaker 4: hit it with a stick, and that's a future OLYMPI
Speaker 4: In sure, there's no way. Those things are so fast.
Speaker 4: But don't try to do it, kids, definitely.
Speaker 1: No, don't even practice that. Don't try to qualify for
Speaker 1: the Olympics. And that because you'll show up to the
Speaker 1: Olympics and'll be like, we don't have that, that's not
Speaker 1: one of our sports is what.
Speaker 4: Do you think you says Australia.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 4: So these days, you know, we've kind of come full
Speaker 4: circle into just sort of letting squirrels be there. Are
Speaker 4: you know, if you're a hunter in the United States,
Speaker 4: and that may be the tradition in your family if
Speaker 4: you live out in the country, to start off your
Speaker 4: child with hunting squirrels with a little twenty two rifle
Speaker 4: or something as practice to teach young hunters. I'm certainly
Speaker 4: not into that, but I'm not going to judge you
Speaker 4: if that's your thing. And like I said, people still
Speaker 4: do eat squirrel in certain parts of the United States today.
Speaker 4: I guess we can talk. I mean, we found a
Speaker 4: lot of extra fun stuff.
Speaker 2: Let's talk about.
Speaker 1: So we were talking about how they're viewed in America.
Speaker 1: Depending on where you are in the world, depending on
Speaker 1: the squirrel you're talking about, they're actually they can be
Speaker 1: viewed quite negatively. I remember in our Rewilding episode we
Speaker 1: talked about how Eastern gray squirrels are considered an invasive
Speaker 1: species in Italy, where they call them Americans killer squirrels.
Speaker 1: And there's also an issue with Eastern gray squirrels in Europe,
Speaker 1: where they've killed off most of the Eurasian red squirrels
Speaker 1: over there. They've just out competed them. It's not like
Speaker 1: they've you know, choked them or anything like that. They
Speaker 1: just they're like almost twice as big, they're a lot
Speaker 1: more ornery, and they've just kind of diminished the number
Speaker 1: of Eurasian red squirrels in the UK so much so
Speaker 1: that three quarters of the population lives in Scotland. And
Speaker 1: I would just like to direct everybody to the Scottish
Speaker 1: Squirrel's website. Go to Scottish Squirrels dot org UK and
Speaker 1: this is very important. Slash about and on their about
Speaker 1: page the header image is maybe the cutest squirrel you'll
Speaker 1: ever see.
Speaker 2: In your entire life.
Speaker 4: Is that the one you sent me?
Speaker 2: And Jerry, Yes, isn't that the cutest squirrel ever?
Speaker 4: It's pretty cute. You also sent something else. If you
Speaker 4: go to RSPCA dot org dot UK, slash Advice and Welfare,
Speaker 4: slash wildlife, slash animals, slash gray squirrels, slash feeding, or
Speaker 4: you could just Google feeding squirrels and using nest boxes,
Speaker 4: you're gonna see a squirrel with a chicken wing in
Speaker 4: its mouth.
Speaker 2: That's pretty good.
Speaker 1: It's better than a bass eating a squirrel, I'll tell
Speaker 1: you that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's a good article you sent because it talks
Speaker 4: about if you like squirrels around, which I certainly do,
Speaker 4: creating a good habitat for them. Trees obviously it is
Speaker 4: a good thing to have. Not cutting down trees is
Speaker 4: a great thing to do if you can avoid it. Yeah,
Speaker 4: And then having squirrel safe bird feeders. And this means
Speaker 4: not that the squirrel can't get to that seed, because they,
Speaker 4: as you have attested, they will find a way. Life
Speaker 4: finds a way, but it don't won't trap the squirrel
Speaker 4: inside of it.
Speaker 1: No, that's a big one too. They also kind of
Speaker 1: get into they get all Macbeth or Hamlet, which one
Speaker 1: was to be or not to be?
Speaker 4: Why you asking me?
Speaker 1: Because they get all Hamlet or Macbeth on whether or
Speaker 1: not to feed squirrels. You go, so they're like, you
Speaker 1: could feed squirrels, but really you shouldn't. And the RSPCA
Speaker 1: takes I think a pretty sensible tact, which is build
Speaker 1: a habitat for the squirrels, and that you're planting the
Speaker 1: right kind of trees that provide a place for them
Speaker 1: to nest in a place for them to get food,
Speaker 1: and then just step back and enjoy them.
Speaker 2: That's right enough.
Speaker 1: If you're like you know, me and Moe and you
Speaker 1: go on walks or whatever and you want to feed
Speaker 1: the squirrels, there are some things that are better for
Speaker 1: squirrels than others, and it's basically you want to give
Speaker 1: them what they would naturally eat, which is masked, unshelled
Speaker 1: nuts like walnuts, chestnuts, acorns, hazel nuts, that kind of thing.
Speaker 4: Some seats probably, huh.
Speaker 1: Yes, but not black safflower seeds. I saw that if
Speaker 1: you were one of those people who can't stand squirrels
Speaker 1: raiding your bird feeder, black safflower seeds are. They'll eat them,
Speaker 1: but they're not crazy about them, and most birds like
Speaker 1: them instead. So that's one way to do it. But
Speaker 1: you can also feed them vegetables too, and chuck. They
Speaker 1: included this little tip that I didn't realize, but if
Speaker 1: you're feeding squirrels or leaving food out for squirrels in
Speaker 1: your yard and you have a garden that you care about,
Speaker 1: you don't really want the squirrel taking the food and
Speaker 1: them burying it. Elsewhere. So they said, if you're going
Speaker 1: to feed them fruits and vegetables shredded, because the squirrels
Speaker 1: is going to eat it there, it's not going to
Speaker 1: try to bury it.
Speaker 2: I thought that was smart.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And if you have the nuts, don't give them
Speaker 4: like honey roasted almonds, like unsweetened, unsalted stuff. I have
Speaker 4: set up, you know, have a campcam at the family
Speaker 4: camp trail cam, and it's it's keyed in on my
Speaker 4: deer feeder that I got, which is corn. And I've
Speaker 4: seen one deer, but almost every night I have scores
Speaker 4: of raccoons nice and almost every day, well every day
Speaker 4: I have squirrels, crows, and now daily turkeys visiting. Oh
Speaker 4: neat lots and lots of turkeys. So I don't care
Speaker 4: that the deer aren't visiting. It's all kinds of animals
Speaker 4: are coming around. It's always fun to watch on the
Speaker 4: camp cam.
Speaker 1: That is very cool. One thing you want to be
Speaker 1: careful with with peanuts too, is giving them raw peanuts
Speaker 1: because peanuts can carry an aff litoxin, which is very
Speaker 1: It's not good. It's not good for squirrels, it's not
Speaker 1: good for humans either. It's a type of fungus. I
Speaker 1: think that actually is not only carcin carcina just that
Speaker 1: can actually like just kill you on the spot neurologically speaking.
Speaker 1: So you actually want roasted peanuts but not salted or
Speaker 1: anything like that, sow like plain roasted peanuts or what's
Speaker 1: even better because it helps with their teeth, are mass
Speaker 1: nuts again like pecans, walnuts, that kind of stuff. But
Speaker 1: a lot of people say don't feed squirrels because you're
Speaker 1: actually what you're doing is, as we've seen, if squirrels
Speaker 1: know that there's a lot of food.
Speaker 2: They're going to mate mate mate mate, and.
Speaker 1: There's going to be a lot of squirrels, and they're
Speaker 1: going to become dependent on that additional food supply, and
Speaker 1: they might start showing up at your neighbor's house, they
Speaker 1: might start burrowing into your attic. There's just a lot
Speaker 1: of there's a lot of things that to take into consideration.
Speaker 4: I guess, yeah, well, the family camp, there's nothing but
Speaker 4: would so I hope we get overrun.
Speaker 1: So I agree with you. So you've found a couple
Speaker 1: of cool things, including why squirrels like seem to dash
Speaker 1: in front of your car when you're driving.
Speaker 4: Right, Yeah, So and again I love that we've just
Speaker 4: finally found answers for this stuff, because this is kind
Speaker 4: of a fun, non obnoxious fact to jump on to
Speaker 4: drop on someone. If you're driving around a neighborhood and
Speaker 4: the squirrel does that thing and people go, why do
Speaker 4: squirrels do that, we can say, well, it's actually an
Speaker 4: evolutionary instinct to get away from a predator. So if
Speaker 4: you run out and you initially freeze when there's a predator,
Speaker 4: the predator is sort of like a football player waiting
Speaker 4: for the defensive player to make their move, and then
Speaker 4: you go the opposite way with a little juke, And
Speaker 4: that's what the squirrel's doing. They go out, they freeze
Speaker 4: when they see that car, and if it was a predator,
Speaker 4: they would wait on the predator to sort of make
Speaker 4: a move and then they can quickly go in a
Speaker 4: direction that really comes in handy when it's a predator.
Speaker 4: When it's a car that's going, you know, generally in
Speaker 4: a big, hulking straight line, it's not the same thing.
Speaker 4: But a squirrel has a squirrel brain and it doesn't
Speaker 4: realize that. So that's why a squirrel will jump out
Speaker 4: in a street, see a car and just stop They're
Speaker 4: not dumb. They're waiting on you to make some hawk
Speaker 4: like move, which doesn't happen in the car. So what
Speaker 4: you do is you just slow down and check your
Speaker 4: rearview mirror. Don't see him on the brakes or anything.
Speaker 4: But you know, they're everywhere. And I've hit I think
Speaker 4: maybe two squirrels in my adult life, so it's not
Speaker 4: like the most common thing to run over a squirrel.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I ran over one once and my brother in
Speaker 1: law said that he was on his way to buy
Speaker 1: a birthday present for his young kid who was waiting
Speaker 1: forever for their dad to come back for his birthday
Speaker 1: present for his party.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was not helpful.
Speaker 4: And what about these black squirrels. Emily and I were
Speaker 4: taking a walk through Brooklyn one day and saw a black, black,
Speaker 4: black squirrel, not just a hint of black, and it
Speaker 4: was the coolest thing I've ever seen. And I've since
Speaker 4: seen a few more here and there in New York.
Speaker 4: And we had the answer there too, right.
Speaker 1: Yes, they seemed to be so they used to think
Speaker 1: that they were freaks of nature. I think, as one
Speaker 1: naturalist put it, like years and years ago, and somebody said,
Speaker 1: I don't know if that's true. I think these actually
Speaker 1: might have been the dominant version. They seem to be
Speaker 1: closely related to Eastern grays, if not just a type
Speaker 1: of Eastern gray, like a different breed of that species.
Speaker 1: But they were saying they used to possibly be the
Speaker 1: dominant version and they got edged out by the Eastern gray,
Speaker 1: and so's they're there, they're just kind of infrequently. They
Speaker 1: infrequently appear, but there are parts of North America where
Speaker 1: they seem to populate more than others, like New York.
Speaker 1: You mean, I used to see them in DC, Toronto.
Speaker 1: They're all over Toronto, in Ontario in general, from what
Speaker 1: I understand. So it seems like from what I could tell,
Speaker 1: that they think that they're they were there already and
Speaker 1: now we're just kind of seeing them in like this
Speaker 1: kind of moment in time where their numbers have diminished tremendously,
Speaker 1: where if we went back in time we might see
Speaker 1: a lot more. Is Does that seem accurate?
Speaker 4: Yeah? I mean, it's just genetics. It's a recessive gene
Speaker 4: that causes an ab normal pigmentation, and you will you know,
Speaker 4: you're you're only going to get more of that recessive gene.
Speaker 4: If these squirrels or any you know, creature is reproducing
Speaker 4: in a in a smaller area. So if you've got
Speaker 4: to contain population, like let's say an island like New
Speaker 4: York or apparently Roosevelt Island has a lot of them, Yeah,
Speaker 4: you're just gonna see more of them. So, uh, DC
Speaker 4: is a little not inexplicable, but it makes more sense
Speaker 4: in New York because you're just gonna get more, you know,
Speaker 4: more of this recessive gene happening in a area.
Speaker 2: So not at all my explanation.
Speaker 4: Then, no, it's your explanation. Now you nailed it. And
Speaker 4: this was an article the Mysterious Black Squirrels of NYC
Speaker 4: from what turns out to be a really good website
Speaker 4: called Untapped Cities dot com and writer Michelle Young. It's
Speaker 4: it's really cool read.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so you got anything else on squirrels?
Speaker 4: Nothing and hug a squirrel, Embrace the squirrel.
Speaker 1: But don't do that. Don't if you do feed them,
Speaker 1: don't don't let them.
Speaker 2: Meet out of your hand.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because they'll bite you. Even though they're grateful. There's
Speaker 1: still bidy. And since I said that, everybody, it's time
Speaker 1: for listener mail.
Speaker 4: That's right, And It's a great listener mail because we
Speaker 4: get to say hello to a kindergarten class, which is
Speaker 4: always fun. Hello, Hi, mister Chuck and mister Josh. My
Speaker 4: name is Katie. It's either Fink or Finky, and I'm
Speaker 4: emailing with my kindergarten class in Baltimore City. We sometimes
Speaker 4: listen to your show, and we were so excited when
Speaker 4: you heard you mentioned the Three Sisters in the recent
Speaker 4: watermelon episode. We actually spent a whole weekend learning about
Speaker 4: the three Sisters this fall and wanted to share with
Speaker 4: you our excitement. We hope you do a short stuff
Speaker 4: on them soon. We definitely will if you need some
Speaker 4: Three Sisters experts. We want to tell you these facts
Speaker 4: that we learned this year. Oh yes, and here's a
Speaker 4: little short list. Native Americans would plant fish first in
Speaker 4: the ground to prepare the soil and make it healthy
Speaker 4: and rich. Love that the corn grows so tall it
Speaker 4: holds up the beans, and the squash keeps the soil moist,
Speaker 4: so the other two sisters have enough water to stay hydrated.
Speaker 4: And finally, all three of the sisters are dried so
Speaker 4: that people can save them to eat later in the winter,
Speaker 4: which is a great benefit, So we really want to
Speaker 4: share our knowledge in case you do a short stuff
Speaker 4: thanks for reading, love Miss Finkies or Miss Fink's kindergarten class.
Speaker 4: And like I said, this is in Baltimore City.
Speaker 1: Man, that's really impressive. Like I remember in kindergarten, I
Speaker 1: was learning Red Red.
Speaker 2: Red.
Speaker 1: I wasn't learning about the three sisters and groundcovers like
Speaker 1: keeping them moisture in place for the other two. I mean,
Speaker 1: come on, that's really impressive this week. I think it
Speaker 1: was more like that month.
Speaker 4: February is red month. Right, Oh that's great.
Speaker 1: Well, thank you Miss fink or Finkey's class.
Speaker 2: Hats off to you guys.
Speaker 1: Keep it up, and yes, we will definitely do a
Speaker 1: Three Sisters episode someday dedicated to you guys, right.
Speaker 4: Chuck for sure.
Speaker 1: If you want to get in touch with us, you
Speaker 1: can too via email at stuff podcast at iHeartRadio dot com.
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