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Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. It is Saturday,

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Speaker 1: so we have a vault episode for you. This is

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Speaker 1: going to be more squirrels eating meat than I think.

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Speaker 1: The original publishing publication title was Squirrels the Return. This

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Speaker 1: originally published one to twenty twenty five. This is where

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Speaker 1: we're picking up on a topic we discussed in past

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Speaker 1: episodes about research into to what degree squirrels eat meat

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Speaker 1: and do they hunt well?

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Speaker 2: Find out.

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

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Speaker 1: welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.

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

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

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Speaker 3: of Squirrels to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. Are newer

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Speaker 3: to the show and your memory does not go back

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Speaker 3: this far? What year was it? Was it in twenty

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Speaker 3: eighteen that we did a pair of episodes on squirrels

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Speaker 3: that turned out to be real fan favorites, and I'll

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Speaker 3: say host favorites too. We think about squirrels quite often,

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Speaker 3: and I've never really thought about them the same way

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Speaker 3: ever since we did those shows.

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Speaker 1: That's right, they were quite popular talking about squirrels, their history,

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Speaker 1: human and squirrel interactions and what exactly squirrels eat.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 3: squirrels eating of the flesh.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, And a lot of this breaks down just

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Speaker 1: to the basic idea that squirrels are more complex then

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Speaker 1: a lot of people give them credit for. You know,

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Speaker 1: they it's easy to look at a squirrel and think, oh,

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Speaker 1: that's cute, without of course realizing that this is a

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Speaker 1: wild animal. And yeah, they're not pure herbivores either, as

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Speaker 1: we discussed in those episodes. But the thing about those

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Speaker 1: episodes is that I think for many of us, they

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Speaker 1: made squirrels a lot cooler because if you did kind

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Speaker 1: of dismiss squirrels as just Oh, well, they're the these

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Speaker 1: pre We see them every day. They're mundane, you know,

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Speaker 1: they're out there trying to eat the bird seed. They're annoying,

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Speaker 1: but that's it. You know. It gave us maybe a

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Speaker 1: little more room to appreciate them, and a part of

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Speaker 1: our appreciation that grew out of that is we busted

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Speaker 1: out I think two different T shirt designs for our

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Speaker 1: T shirt store. We don't promote our T shirts store

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Speaker 1: or as much as our T shirt store would like

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Speaker 1: us to, in part because we don't depend upon it.

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Speaker 1: It's just for fun. But if you go to our

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Speaker 1: tea public store, you can find a link at stuff

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Speaker 1: to Blow Yourmind dot com or check out the link

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Speaker 1: tree on our Instagram. At STBYM podcast, you'll see I

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Speaker 1: moved them up to the top so you can see

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Speaker 1: them rather easily. We have one that is the Squirrels

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Speaker 1: are Not what they seem and the other one is

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Speaker 1: scug King of Rats. These are both squirrel shirts. They're

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Speaker 1: both kind of metal looking. They're pretty good designs. I

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Speaker 1: think people had some fun with.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 3: carnivorous squirrels observed for the first time. Love the show.

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Speaker 3: Ps there's a Mountain Goats album called Beat the champ

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

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 3: way here we are talking about it.

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Speaker 1: We may have heard from a few other listeners over

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Speaker 1: the years too, occasionally sending in Some squirrel news I

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Speaker 1: have found in combing through the squirrel news since twenty

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Speaker 1: eighteen is that generally squirrels make headlines when there is

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Speaker 1: blood involved. Yeah, so we'll be touching on a few

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Speaker 1: different shades of this.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 3: Joey E. Ingbritson, Mackenzie, M. Minor, LC oh Striker, Mari L. Podas,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 3: called the ecology of fear, and this is a bit

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 3: still greatly impact the availability of rabbit prey for the foxes. Now,

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

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

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Speaker 3: predator prey systems are behaviorally sophisticated games of stealth and fear.

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Speaker 3: So what they're saying here is that prey mammals are

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Speaker 3: not inert resources that are consumed like cookies from a jar.

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Speaker 3: These are cookies that react. You know, they react to

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Speaker 3: the fact that they are being eaten, and they are

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Speaker 3: two varying degrees depending on the species adaptable. They can

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Speaker 3: change their behavior in response to a threat. So the

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Speaker 3: authors say that when studying predator prey interactions in nature,

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Speaker 3: there's actually a spectrum of different kinds of systems. So

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Speaker 3: at one end of the spectrum you would have what

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Speaker 3: the authors call population driven systems, and then at the

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Speaker 3: other end of the spectrum you have what the authors

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Speaker 3: call fear driven systems. In population driven systems, the main

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Speaker 3: dynamic is predators killing prey, So the main variables are

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Speaker 3: going to be like the number of predators and the

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Speaker 3: number of prey, how many prey animals the predators eat,

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Speaker 3: Whereas in fear driven systems, the presence of predators creates

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Speaker 3: a condition of fear among prey, which causes prey to

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Speaker 3: become harder to catch. So, to go back to our example,

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Speaker 3: if you have a cougar suddenly show up in this park,

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Speaker 3: it could cause the rabbits to become significantly less available

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Speaker 3: as prey, not just because they're literally disappearing from the

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Speaker 3: population by being eaten, but because the rabbits are becoming

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Speaker 3: more vigilant and more cautious. They're venturing out of shelter less.

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Speaker 3: They might change what times of day they do things.

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Speaker 3: They might change their foraging strategies. They might hide more

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Speaker 3: or move away from any suspected predator more earlier, earlier

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Speaker 3: in possible detection. So, in reality, a predator can functionally

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Speaker 3: deplete the supply of prey animals in an area, not

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Speaker 3: just by eating them, but by frightening them.

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Speaker 2: Huh.

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Speaker 1: I can't help but imagine a scenario where it's Gotham City, right, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and maybe you're the local police force, and you you

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Speaker 1: have various stakeouts in place, you have various pending cases

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Speaker 1: and so forth, and then there's a batman, essentially a

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Speaker 1: new super predator preying on the criminal population of the city.

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Speaker 1: And yeah, it's going to potentially interfere with everything that

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Speaker 1: was going on. It's going to change the local criminal ecology.

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Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, it'll change. Like police joker interactions, not just

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 3: But they are increasingly expensive to a qui because they

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Speaker 3: adjusted their behavior in response to a predator, and so

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 3: machines or as like a you know, just an innert

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 3: only change their behavior in response to the threat of

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Speaker 3: a predator. They also alter their behavior in response to

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Speaker 3: changes in the availability of food. So from here the

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Speaker 3: authors go into a big catalog of let's talk about

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

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Speaker 3: the California ground squirrel eating meat. That's where they're going

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Speaker 3: from here. And so they end up citing a paper

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Speaker 3: that we talked about extensively in our older series on

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Speaker 3: squirrels from twenty eighteen. The paper is called Squirrels as

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Speaker 3: Predators by J. R. Callahan, published in The Great Basin

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Speaker 3: Naturalist nineteen ninety three. You remember this one, Rob, Oh, absolutely, yeah.

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Speaker 1: And of course if you're reading any subsequent papers about

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Speaker 1: squirrels as predators, they all cited this one. Yeah, this

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Speaker 1: seemed to be a major publication in the world of

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Speaker 1: squirrel predator research.

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Speaker 3: Really seem to do the legworking cataloging all these different

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 3: behavior across its geographic range.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, especially in the case of obligate carnivores. You know

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Speaker 1: where it has this creature has to hunt. Meat is

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Speaker 1: what it eats.

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 3: if the circumstances are right. And that's what we're looking

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

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 3: but many of them will shift strategies to eat foraged

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Speaker 3: meat and sometimes even actively catch and kill live prey

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Speaker 3: on an as needed or as available basis. Now this

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Speaker 3: came up in our older episodes, but Callahan lists a

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Speaker 3: bunch of different squirrel prey animals from the literature just

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 3: first of all insects or invertebrates. And then if you're

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

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

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Speaker 3: hatchlings in the nest.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, so memory serves this paper and also a paper

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Speaker 1: that I'll be referring to later, looked at the fact

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Speaker 1: that when you're studying all this, Yeah, you do have

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Speaker 1: reports of squirrel predation and squirrels eating meat and so forth,

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Speaker 1: But then also you have a lot of data that

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Speaker 1: has arrived at via analyzing the stomach contents of harvest squirrels,

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Speaker 1: and of course that data doesn't all provide a lot

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Speaker 1: of context, Like you can look at it and say, well,

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Speaker 1: they still mostly eat seeds or plants or whatever, but

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Speaker 1: there's a amount of meat. As to how that meat

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Speaker 1: was obtained, you have to draw conclusions sometimes because yeah,

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Speaker 1: there's there there. Of course, you can scavenge, you can

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Speaker 1: take out prey that are just weak or helpless, juvenile

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Speaker 1: and so forth. But then there is that threshold, right

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Speaker 1: that you cross into potentially actively hunting prey, actively hunting

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Speaker 1: something that is that is not like wounded or dying,

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Speaker 1: but is to some degree like a like a valid,

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Speaker 1: healthy prey creature.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 3: the killing of heterospecifics in captive settings e g. Zoos

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Speaker 3: or traps. This makes it challenging to distinguish between scavenging

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Speaker 3: and direct predation. So this is what you're saying, Rob.

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Speaker 3: We're in this situation where you can find squirrels and

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Speaker 3: like cut open their stomachs and say, oh, there's some

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Speaker 3: meat in there, but we can't tell did it actually

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Speaker 3: kill something, or did it just find something dead and

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Speaker 3: eat part of it, or in these other cases, you

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Speaker 3: might have evidence that the squirrel did kill and eat

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Speaker 3: an animal, but it was an animal that was like

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Speaker 3: caught in a trap or something.

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Speaker 1: Right, And I want to add an important caveat here

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Speaker 1: about predation. I don't want to make it sound like

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Speaker 1: true predation is a fair fight. We've covered enough examples

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Speaker 1: of predation in the past to know that there are

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Speaker 1: plenty of obligate carnivores, obligate predators who are still They're

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Speaker 1: obviously not going to go out and say all right,

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Speaker 1: show me the strongest of the pack. No, the one

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Speaker 1: I shall fight today. No no, no, there's still they're

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Speaker 1: still going after off weekend, young old and so forth,

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Speaker 1: because they are inherent increased risks involved in going after

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Speaker 1: stronger prey.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 3: who are these California ground squirrels the Odospermophylis BEACHYI. First

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

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Speaker 3: that's my opinion, Rob, I don't know if you share it,

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

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

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Speaker 1: I feel like i'm you know, I'm not used to

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Speaker 1: being around these California squirrels. But the squirrels i'm around

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Speaker 1: here in Georgia, I think of them as I just

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Speaker 1: know too much about them and I see them too often.

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Speaker 1: I think of them as like, it's hard for me

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Speaker 1: to imagine someone thinking they're straight up adorable, because like

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Speaker 1: I hear them on the fence, I see the effects

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Speaker 1: of their claws on the fence. They're like furry grappling hooks,

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Speaker 1: you know, like they're clearly tough creatures. I saw one

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Speaker 1: fight off a hawk once in my backyard. Oh yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's they're rough and tumble. So yes, cute, but with

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Speaker 1: a number of caveats as far as my opinion of

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Speaker 1: them goes.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I have a real visceral reaction to this. It

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Speaker 1: is something heartbreaking about it. Potentially wasted avocada. I feel

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Speaker 1: this one, like this one is saveable.

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Speaker 2: I think I could get in.

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Speaker 1: There with a with a with a with a knife,

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Speaker 1: cut off the part that's been fouled by the squirrel

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Speaker 1: and you know, have plenty leftover for sandwiches and whatnot.

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

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

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Speaker 1: Well, I think it's only going to seep in so far,

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Speaker 1: and I'm going to cut that part off and spread

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Speaker 1: the rest.

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Speaker 3: So these California ground squirrels. The adults typically grow to

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

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Speaker 3: another you know, half body length or so again with

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Speaker 3: the tail. They have a modeled gray and brown fur

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Speaker 3: on their backs and on the flanks, with usually lighter

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Speaker 3: colored fur on the underside. They have a bushy tail.

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Speaker 3: A couple of the sources I looked at mentioned that

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Speaker 3: the tail is not as bushy as the common tree

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Speaker 3: squirrels that you see, but it is bushy. Nonetheless, I

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Speaker 3: don't know medium bushy.

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Speaker 2: Maybe.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

429
00:25:05,119 --> 00:25:09,280
Speaker 3: flexible foragers, as the avocado art we just talked about

430
00:25:09,280 --> 00:25:13,159
Speaker 3: would indicate they are a common agricultural pest within their range.

431
00:25:13,200 --> 00:25:15,080
Speaker 3: If farmers have to deal with these things a lot,

432
00:25:15,160 --> 00:25:17,760
Speaker 3: especially if you're growing I think, like fruits or nuts.

433
00:25:18,200 --> 00:25:21,119
Speaker 3: But while those foraging strategies are the rule, we also

434
00:25:21,160 --> 00:25:24,199
Speaker 3: get the exceptions, and quite a number of exceptions have

435
00:25:24,320 --> 00:25:27,600
Speaker 3: been observed, maybe to the point where we should question

436
00:25:27,680 --> 00:25:31,360
Speaker 3: whether they become a rule of their own. These observations

437
00:25:31,400 --> 00:25:36,520
Speaker 3: include occasional carnivory, and while the reports are more isolated

438
00:25:36,640 --> 00:25:39,600
Speaker 3: and sporadic, the authors found published accounts of the ground

439
00:25:39,640 --> 00:25:42,480
Speaker 3: squirrels eating invertebrates. Of course, they're going to be eaten,

440
00:25:42,560 --> 00:25:46,879
Speaker 3: you know, insects and other invertebrates, and eggs and nestlings

441
00:25:46,880 --> 00:25:51,560
Speaker 3: of numerous birds including kill deer, California quail, bob white quail,

442
00:25:51,920 --> 00:25:57,240
Speaker 3: ring necked pheasant, mourning dove, dark eyed junco, and American robin.

443
00:25:57,920 --> 00:26:01,720
Speaker 3: Continuing the agricultural pest thing, they have been documented chomping

444
00:26:01,800 --> 00:26:06,080
Speaker 3: ride on into domestic chicken eggs. They have been documented

445
00:26:06,119 --> 00:26:09,439
Speaker 3: to eat fish. I think there's just one occasion of this,

446
00:26:09,600 --> 00:26:13,000
Speaker 3: but eating a small silvery fish called the California grunion.

447
00:26:14,080 --> 00:26:17,920
Speaker 3: And then finally the author's note quote Fitch nineteen forty

448
00:26:17,920 --> 00:26:21,959
Speaker 3: eight observed the California ground squirrel consuming but not directly killing,

449
00:26:22,400 --> 00:26:27,479
Speaker 3: young desert cottontails, adult pocket gophers, and kangaroo rats, so

450
00:26:27,520 --> 00:26:31,800
Speaker 3: eating several of its cousins here. But again to emphasize,

451
00:26:31,840 --> 00:26:34,359
Speaker 3: just because a squirrel is eating a rabbit, that doesn't

452
00:26:34,359 --> 00:26:36,639
Speaker 3: mean it caught and killed a rabbit. It might have

453
00:26:36,800 --> 00:26:41,120
Speaker 3: found a dead one free meal. And there have been,

454
00:26:41,160 --> 00:26:44,520
Speaker 3: as we alluded to earlier, observations of the California ground

455
00:26:44,520 --> 00:26:48,840
Speaker 3: squirrel eating meat in non natural conditions, for example, scavenging

456
00:26:49,000 --> 00:26:53,600
Speaker 3: on human trapped fish and rodents, songbirds, and on other

457
00:26:53,760 --> 00:26:58,200
Speaker 3: California ground squirrels. And there have also sometimes been observed

458
00:26:58,800 --> 00:27:02,879
Speaker 3: instances of these ground squirrels cannibalizing juveniles of their own species.

459
00:27:03,680 --> 00:27:07,240
Speaker 3: But again, what has long been elusive is much evidence,

460
00:27:08,200 --> 00:27:12,680
Speaker 3: extensive evidence of these animals actively hunting and killing adult

461
00:27:12,880 --> 00:27:16,960
Speaker 3: vertebrate prey. Well, this study found, oh yeah, under the

462
00:27:17,000 --> 00:27:21,480
Speaker 3: right conditions, they will absolutely do plenty of that. The

463
00:27:21,520 --> 00:27:27,240
Speaker 3: specific prey here was the California vole or microtus Ce californicus.

464
00:27:27,240 --> 00:27:29,960
Speaker 3: And if you look up this paper, it provides links

465
00:27:29,960 --> 00:27:32,760
Speaker 3: to video that you can watch of these attacks of

466
00:27:32,800 --> 00:27:36,800
Speaker 3: the squirrel just ruthlessly snatching a vole behind the base

467
00:27:36,840 --> 00:27:40,600
Speaker 3: of its skull in its jaws. And I thought in

468
00:27:40,840 --> 00:27:44,600
Speaker 3: this one particular video I saw it was fascinating how

469
00:27:44,720 --> 00:27:49,200
Speaker 3: much it resembled traditional predator behavior, like what you would

470
00:27:49,240 --> 00:27:52,360
Speaker 3: see with a wolf or a dog grabbing a squirrel,

471
00:27:52,720 --> 00:27:54,639
Speaker 3: so like clamp the jaws at the back of the

472
00:27:54,720 --> 00:27:57,679
Speaker 3: neck and shake. But while this did show up in

473
00:27:58,080 --> 00:28:00,639
Speaker 3: the video I was looking at, the authors say that

474
00:28:00,720 --> 00:28:02,960
Speaker 3: this was not the most common type of attack with

475
00:28:03,359 --> 00:28:07,360
Speaker 3: the shaking like this. They characterized the squirrel on vole

476
00:28:07,440 --> 00:28:13,640
Speaker 3: attacks as follows. In three documented hunting attempts from this study,

477
00:28:13,960 --> 00:28:18,600
Speaker 3: squirrels engaged in typical predator stalking behavior, meaning that they

478
00:28:18,680 --> 00:28:21,320
Speaker 3: flattened out their bodies low to the ground, and then

479
00:28:21,440 --> 00:28:25,840
Speaker 3: attempted to minimize the sound produced as they approached prey

480
00:28:25,920 --> 00:28:28,800
Speaker 3: before leaping into a sudden attack. That was the minority

481
00:28:28,840 --> 00:28:33,640
Speaker 3: of cases. Nineteen of the documented hunting attempts involved chasing

482
00:28:33,880 --> 00:28:37,440
Speaker 3: just a squirrel flat out run, chasing a single vole

483
00:28:37,560 --> 00:28:41,120
Speaker 3: across the ground. When the squirrel was able to come

484
00:28:41,160 --> 00:28:43,960
Speaker 3: within range, it would pounce on top of the vole

485
00:28:44,280 --> 00:28:47,160
Speaker 3: and then hold it down with its front paws and jaws.

486
00:28:47,560 --> 00:28:50,120
Speaker 3: Then it would begin biting, most often at the neck,

487
00:28:50,200 --> 00:28:54,000
Speaker 3: but also at other body parts. A bite shaking was

488
00:28:54,040 --> 00:28:58,960
Speaker 3: observed in one attack, and squirrels occasionally but did not

489
00:28:59,280 --> 00:29:03,360
Speaker 3: usually in age in sit and wait ambush strategies, hiding

490
00:29:03,400 --> 00:29:08,120
Speaker 3: behind tall grass. Quote Instead, hunting attempts were best characterized

491
00:29:08,120 --> 00:29:12,000
Speaker 3: by squirrels opportunistically chasing a single vole over a short

492
00:29:12,040 --> 00:29:17,280
Speaker 3: distance in open areas, across dirt substrate. And I thought

493
00:29:17,280 --> 00:29:21,240
Speaker 3: that was interesting that, like, perhaps I'm taking the wrong

494
00:29:21,360 --> 00:29:23,080
Speaker 3: thing away from this, but that just read to me

495
00:29:23,120 --> 00:29:26,680
Speaker 3: as like, huh, you know, they don't maybe they don't

496
00:29:26,680 --> 00:29:30,560
Speaker 3: have a super refined strategy like a lot of obligate

497
00:29:30,600 --> 00:29:33,320
Speaker 3: predators would. They're just sort of winging it.

498
00:29:35,120 --> 00:29:37,480
Speaker 1: But on another level, you could say it's like they

499
00:29:37,520 --> 00:29:39,960
Speaker 1: also kind of know how to do it as well.

500
00:29:40,040 --> 00:29:42,840
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, they do know. I mean they know

501
00:29:42,920 --> 00:29:45,480
Speaker 3: how to bite, to like bite and subdue the prey

502
00:29:45,520 --> 00:29:48,840
Speaker 3: with the four paws and the jaws. Where does that

503
00:29:48,920 --> 00:29:50,720
Speaker 3: knowledge come from? Interesting question?

504
00:29:51,080 --> 00:29:51,280
Speaker 2: Yeah.

505
00:29:52,520 --> 00:29:56,800
Speaker 3: The authors summarized saying, quote, hunters successfully captured and killed

506
00:29:56,800 --> 00:30:01,080
Speaker 3: a vole in seventeen of the thirty one observed hunting attempts,

507
00:30:01,120 --> 00:30:04,720
Speaker 3: which is fifty five percent. So they observed thirty one

508
00:30:04,760 --> 00:30:08,520
Speaker 3: cases of a squirrel trying to kill a vole. Seventeen

509
00:30:08,560 --> 00:30:12,080
Speaker 3: of the thirty one worked. The other fourteen attempts failed.

510
00:30:12,160 --> 00:30:15,400
Speaker 3: Pray either got away during pursuit, or escaped after being

511
00:30:15,440 --> 00:30:20,520
Speaker 3: initially captured by a squirrel close quote. Another interesting thing

512
00:30:20,680 --> 00:30:24,560
Speaker 3: is that in seventy percent of these kills, the squirrel

513
00:30:24,720 --> 00:30:28,120
Speaker 3: would not eat the vole directly at the kill site,

514
00:30:28,160 --> 00:30:32,000
Speaker 3: but instead carry it away to a second location, sometimes

515
00:30:32,040 --> 00:30:35,240
Speaker 3: even into its burrow or out of view, but other

516
00:30:35,280 --> 00:30:38,120
Speaker 3: times just carrying it away to some different place. And

517
00:30:38,440 --> 00:30:40,560
Speaker 3: I don't know for sure the reason for this, but

518
00:30:40,680 --> 00:30:44,240
Speaker 3: I wonder if this is because the squirrel is prey

519
00:30:44,360 --> 00:30:47,560
Speaker 3: itself and it might not be comfortable being out in

520
00:30:47,640 --> 00:30:50,800
Speaker 3: the open. If this is If this place is the

521
00:30:50,800 --> 00:30:54,320
Speaker 3: place where the vole was vulnerable to the squirrel, that's

522
00:30:54,400 --> 00:30:57,440
Speaker 3: also probably a place where the squirrel is vulnerable to

523
00:30:57,520 --> 00:30:58,640
Speaker 3: one of its predators.

524
00:30:58,960 --> 00:31:02,000
Speaker 1: Right, and now you're presenting two for one deal, So

525
00:31:02,640 --> 00:31:03,720
Speaker 1: you got to get out of there.

526
00:31:04,000 --> 00:31:06,400
Speaker 3: Oh man, if you're like a hawk right here or something,

527
00:31:06,400 --> 00:31:08,880
Speaker 3: and you can get two animals out of a single catch.

528
00:31:09,640 --> 00:31:11,840
Speaker 3: Oh and one more detail from this part about the

529
00:31:11,840 --> 00:31:14,480
Speaker 3: attacks is apparently these ground squirrels, you know what, they

530
00:31:14,520 --> 00:31:17,880
Speaker 3: love to rip off the head quote in eleven. Of

531
00:31:17,920 --> 00:31:21,400
Speaker 3: the events for which consumption of an intact carcass was observed,

532
00:31:21,640 --> 00:31:25,960
Speaker 3: squirrels first removed the head of the vole, so that's

533
00:31:26,000 --> 00:31:30,800
Speaker 3: just procedure. Head remove head first. Next, they either directly

534
00:31:30,800 --> 00:31:33,560
Speaker 3: pulled meat out of the torso or first stripped fur

535
00:31:33,680 --> 00:31:38,160
Speaker 3: from each of these body parts before consuming the exposed meat, organs,

536
00:31:38,280 --> 00:31:43,320
Speaker 3: and cartilage. So an interesting thing about these gory observations

537
00:31:43,600 --> 00:31:46,400
Speaker 3: is that is the context that came in. Because these

538
00:31:46,680 --> 00:31:50,719
Speaker 3: observations were made within the context of a larger project

539
00:31:51,160 --> 00:31:55,440
Speaker 3: known as the Long Term Behavioral Ecology of California Ground

540
00:31:55,520 --> 00:31:59,280
Speaker 3: Squirrels Project. Which had been going on for years. This

541
00:31:59,320 --> 00:32:02,120
Speaker 3: has been carried out at a place called I'm not

542
00:32:02,160 --> 00:32:05,440
Speaker 3: sure I'm pronouncing this correctly, but I think it's Brionas

543
00:32:05,480 --> 00:32:11,880
Speaker 3: Regional Park in California, Briones Regional Park, sort of northeast

544
00:32:11,880 --> 00:32:16,720
Speaker 3: of Oakland and Berkeley. Interestingly, the project was in its

545
00:32:16,880 --> 00:32:20,960
Speaker 3: twelfth year before these instances of squirrels killing and eating

546
00:32:21,040 --> 00:32:24,360
Speaker 3: voles were first observed. And that doesn't mean it never

547
00:32:24,520 --> 00:32:29,640
Speaker 3: happened before, but these squirrels have been studied intensely for

548
00:32:29,720 --> 00:32:33,120
Speaker 3: twelve years in this region before anybody observed them doing this,

549
00:32:33,880 --> 00:32:36,600
Speaker 3: and then once it was observed, they were observed doing

550
00:32:36,600 --> 00:32:40,000
Speaker 3: it all the time, basically every day after the first observation,

551
00:32:40,200 --> 00:32:43,400
Speaker 3: for a period of a couple of months. I was

552
00:32:43,440 --> 00:32:47,080
Speaker 3: reading a press release about this paper that was giving

553
00:32:47,120 --> 00:32:50,400
Speaker 3: some narrative about how the scientists came to these observations,

554
00:32:50,520 --> 00:32:53,560
Speaker 3: and they interview the lead author, Jennifer E. Smith, who

555
00:32:53,720 --> 00:32:56,720
Speaker 3: is an associate professor of biology at University of Wisconsin

556
00:32:56,840 --> 00:33:01,480
Speaker 3: eau Claire, who ends up saying in this press release quote,

557
00:33:01,520 --> 00:33:05,080
Speaker 3: this was shocking. We had never seen this behavior before,

558
00:33:05,920 --> 00:33:09,200
Speaker 3: and emphasize she emphasizes how strange it is that like

559
00:33:09,280 --> 00:33:13,000
Speaker 3: squirrels are. They're just such a familiar animal to people.

560
00:33:13,040 --> 00:33:15,000
Speaker 3: People just see them in their yards in the park

561
00:33:15,080 --> 00:33:18,840
Speaker 3: all the time. And here suddenly, after twelve years of

562
00:33:18,880 --> 00:33:23,440
Speaker 3: intensive observation, we're seeing this this predation behavior happening all

563
00:33:23,480 --> 00:33:28,120
Speaker 3: over the place within the range of this particular study,

564
00:33:28,560 --> 00:33:31,680
Speaker 3: and it's it's like what it's like out of nowhere.

565
00:33:31,840 --> 00:33:36,320
Speaker 3: Apparently there were some undergraduate researchers who had been doing

566
00:33:36,320 --> 00:33:38,640
Speaker 3: field work for this study and they came in one

567
00:33:38,720 --> 00:33:41,200
Speaker 3: day and just you know, ask one of the professors

568
00:33:41,200 --> 00:33:43,560
Speaker 3: on the project about it. They're like, yeah, we saw

569
00:33:43,640 --> 00:33:47,320
Speaker 3: squirrels hunting and killing voles. And the professor was like

570
00:33:47,400 --> 00:33:50,840
Speaker 3: what no, no, no, no, But then saw the footage and

571
00:33:50,880 --> 00:33:51,640
Speaker 3: it's right there.

572
00:33:52,040 --> 00:33:54,920
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, you can't argue with this footage, some of

573
00:33:55,000 --> 00:33:56,120
Speaker 1: these grizzly photos.

574
00:33:56,600 --> 00:33:59,160
Speaker 3: And as I said, after the first instance, they began

575
00:33:59,200 --> 00:34:02,640
Speaker 3: to see this behavior basically every day, so they observed

576
00:34:02,680 --> 00:34:05,840
Speaker 3: it as a summer behavior throughout June and July twenty

577
00:34:05,880 --> 00:34:10,720
Speaker 3: twenty four, and the researchers did not during this period

578
00:34:10,760 --> 00:34:15,440
Speaker 3: observe the ground squirrels hunting and killing other animals, only voles.

579
00:34:15,600 --> 00:34:20,400
Speaker 3: That's kind of interesting. So it's previously unobserved behavior suddenly

580
00:34:20,600 --> 00:34:22,799
Speaker 3: seems to be happening all over the place at least

581
00:34:22,840 --> 00:34:26,880
Speaker 3: that they're noticing, and it's only targeting one prey species.

582
00:34:26,920 --> 00:34:31,760
Speaker 3: They don't generally become predators. Why would this be Well,

583
00:34:32,480 --> 00:34:35,880
Speaker 3: they ended up pairing this with a with an interesting observation,

584
00:34:36,520 --> 00:34:41,880
Speaker 3: which was a massive increase in a documentation of voles

585
00:34:42,200 --> 00:34:46,439
Speaker 3: logged by local citizen scientists in the area on an

586
00:34:46,480 --> 00:34:49,800
Speaker 3: app called eye Naturalist, which is sort of a biological

587
00:34:49,840 --> 00:34:53,040
Speaker 3: and wildlife social media platform kind of a place being

588
00:34:53,160 --> 00:34:57,399
Speaker 3: log wildlife and the citizen science app. Yeah. Yeah, and

589
00:34:57,520 --> 00:35:01,800
Speaker 3: so they noticed, h that's interesting. So we're seeing suddenly

590
00:35:01,880 --> 00:35:05,360
Speaker 3: ground squirrels showing this thing we've never noticed before where

591
00:35:05,120 --> 00:35:09,319
Speaker 3: they're hunting and killing voles. And also people are saying, whoa,

592
00:35:09,320 --> 00:35:11,480
Speaker 3: there's tons of voles out here. Where did all these

593
00:35:11,560 --> 00:35:15,640
Speaker 3: voles come from? And the authors compare the number of

594
00:35:15,719 --> 00:35:18,359
Speaker 3: vole sidings reported on this app to the ten year

595
00:35:18,440 --> 00:35:22,560
Speaker 3: average from before and found that the peak of vole

596
00:35:22,640 --> 00:35:25,399
Speaker 3: sidings in the summer of twenty twenty four there were

597
00:35:25,480 --> 00:35:30,000
Speaker 3: roughly seven times more vole observations than the previous ten

598
00:35:30,080 --> 00:35:33,880
Speaker 3: year average. So suddenly all these voles coming out of nowhere.

599
00:35:34,160 --> 00:35:36,359
Speaker 1: Yeah, and what are you going to do? Right, what

600
00:35:36,400 --> 00:35:38,320
Speaker 1: are you going to do when there's that many voles around?

601
00:35:38,600 --> 00:35:42,759
Speaker 3: Exactly? So, according to the authors, it is normal for

602
00:35:42,840 --> 00:35:45,480
Speaker 3: some vole populations to kind of boom and bust. They

603
00:35:45,520 --> 00:35:51,840
Speaker 3: cycle through these population density patterns and they tend to

604
00:35:52,320 --> 00:35:54,759
Speaker 3: kind of peak every three to five years. But the

605
00:35:54,800 --> 00:35:57,520
Speaker 3: peak achieved in the summer of twenty twenty four, rob

606
00:35:57,560 --> 00:35:59,680
Speaker 3: you can see from a chart I've included, was like,

607
00:35:59,800 --> 00:36:03,120
Speaker 3: what way more than the normal peaks, even the previous

608
00:36:03,160 --> 00:36:05,840
Speaker 3: peaks from like you can see kind of twenty twenty

609
00:36:05,960 --> 00:36:06,319
Speaker 3: or so.

610
00:36:06,880 --> 00:36:09,400
Speaker 1: It's such a peak that it doesn't make you judge

611
00:36:09,400 --> 00:36:11,840
Speaker 1: the squirrel the squirrels at all. You're like, maybe we

612
00:36:11,960 --> 00:36:15,719
Speaker 1: should have been eating vols as well. Clearly it's out

613
00:36:15,760 --> 00:36:16,240
Speaker 1: of control.

614
00:36:16,600 --> 00:36:16,799
Speaker 2: Right.

615
00:36:17,160 --> 00:36:19,720
Speaker 3: This brings us back to the idea from earlier about

616
00:36:19,800 --> 00:36:23,640
Speaker 3: behavioral flexibility in response to changes in the environment. So,

617
00:36:23,920 --> 00:36:26,759
Speaker 3: like the ecology of fear, there can also be an

618
00:36:26,760 --> 00:36:31,320
Speaker 3: ecology of food abundance. So these two patterns are observed

619
00:36:31,320 --> 00:36:33,759
Speaker 3: and they seem to line up in time. One of

620
00:36:33,800 --> 00:36:37,520
Speaker 3: them is suddenly a big surge in vole populations, and

621
00:36:37,600 --> 00:36:41,960
Speaker 3: the second one is squirrels shift their foraging strategy from

622
00:36:42,400 --> 00:36:45,320
Speaker 3: let's mostly focus on grains and other plant matter to

623
00:36:46,040 --> 00:36:48,000
Speaker 3: if you see a vole, chase it and kill it.

624
00:36:49,440 --> 00:36:51,600
Speaker 3: I mean it's in season exactly.

625
00:36:51,680 --> 00:36:51,879
Speaker 2: Yeah.

626
00:36:52,200 --> 00:36:53,960
Speaker 3: So, to come back to kind of the crude human

627
00:36:54,000 --> 00:36:56,920
Speaker 3: economics analogy I used earlier, you can think of this like,

628
00:36:57,080 --> 00:36:59,680
Speaker 3: you know, I don't normally buy vole meat at the store,

629
00:36:59,719 --> 00:37:01,759
Speaker 3: but you go to the store and vole meat is

630
00:37:01,960 --> 00:37:05,640
Speaker 3: so so cheap they're practically giving it away, So why not.

631
00:37:06,160 --> 00:37:06,359
Speaker 2: Yeah.

632
00:37:07,080 --> 00:37:09,440
Speaker 3: One of the authors of the paper, Sonia Wilde of

633
00:37:09,560 --> 00:37:14,360
Speaker 3: UC Davis, gave a quote to that press release I mentioned, saying, quote,

634
00:37:14,560 --> 00:37:18,040
Speaker 3: the fact that California ground squirrels are behaviorally flexible and

635
00:37:18,200 --> 00:37:21,399
Speaker 3: can respond to changes in food availability might help them

636
00:37:21,440 --> 00:37:26,360
Speaker 3: persist in environments rapidly changing due to the presence of humans.

637
00:37:26,960 --> 00:37:28,920
Speaker 3: Oh And I thought that was kind of interesting because

638
00:37:28,920 --> 00:37:31,080
Speaker 3: on one hand, you could just say, well, you know,

639
00:37:31,719 --> 00:37:34,960
Speaker 3: these squirrels, this squirrel species has a certain amount of

640
00:37:35,000 --> 00:37:38,920
Speaker 3: behavioral flexibility. That's part of its natural repertoire. You know,

641
00:37:38,960 --> 00:37:41,319
Speaker 3: it can adapt and that's just part of what kind

642
00:37:41,360 --> 00:37:44,279
Speaker 3: of animal it is, And that's totally possible. But I

643
00:37:44,360 --> 00:37:49,800
Speaker 3: also wonder if humans could have, inadvertently by our presence,

644
00:37:50,200 --> 00:37:55,759
Speaker 3: helped create populations of more behaviorally flexible squirrels. You know,

645
00:37:55,800 --> 00:37:59,160
Speaker 3: if we're going around wherever we go, changing the nature

646
00:37:59,239 --> 00:38:03,040
Speaker 3: of the environment, changing the you know, the very topography

647
00:38:03,080 --> 00:38:06,000
Speaker 3: of the landscape, or changing what kind of food is available,

648
00:38:06,040 --> 00:38:09,239
Speaker 3: we're changing all sorts of things wherever we go. Does

649
00:38:09,320 --> 00:38:12,560
Speaker 3: that sort of in our wake cause these secondary effects

650
00:38:12,600 --> 00:38:18,120
Speaker 3: where we select for more behaviorally flexible populations of animals

651
00:38:18,160 --> 00:38:21,360
Speaker 3: in the areas with proximity to human civilization.

652
00:38:22,800 --> 00:38:26,719
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, absolutely, Yeah, we even changes that we might

653
00:38:26,760 --> 00:38:29,800
Speaker 1: not think of being that drastic. They have these ripple

654
00:38:29,800 --> 00:38:32,800
Speaker 1: effects in the environment, and yeah, next thing you know,

655
00:38:33,000 --> 00:38:34,960
Speaker 1: it's it's squirrels ripping heads off.

656
00:38:36,160 --> 00:38:39,799
Speaker 3: Now, plenty of unanswered questions remain, like how common is this?

657
00:38:39,920 --> 00:38:45,440
Speaker 3: Really unclear fascinating question we don't fully have the answers to,

658
00:38:45,560 --> 00:38:49,880
Speaker 3: But how do the squirrels actually make this shift? Like

659
00:38:50,000 --> 00:38:53,239
Speaker 3: where does the hunting behavior come from? Is it a

660
00:38:53,440 --> 00:38:58,000
Speaker 3: learned behavior that's passed down from from parent offspring or

661
00:38:58,080 --> 00:39:00,880
Speaker 3: is it a kind of instinctual and great behavior, In

662
00:39:00,920 --> 00:39:03,920
Speaker 3: which case, what sort of instincts are harnessed from the

663
00:39:04,040 --> 00:39:08,839
Speaker 3: normal foraging strategies and repurposed for hunting if it is instinctual.

664
00:39:09,200 --> 00:39:11,640
Speaker 3: Another how like how does it get triggered? You know,

665
00:39:11,680 --> 00:39:15,480
Speaker 3: how does the squirrel know to shift? It's say like, okay,

666
00:39:15,520 --> 00:39:18,719
Speaker 3: it is time to hunt now. And another interesting thing

667
00:39:19,000 --> 00:39:21,560
Speaker 3: like what are the secondary dynamics that emerge We were

668
00:39:21,600 --> 00:39:24,840
Speaker 3: talking earlier about secondary dynamics that you might not always

669
00:39:24,960 --> 00:39:28,520
Speaker 3: envision that come out of animals changing their behavior. Does

670
00:39:28,560 --> 00:39:31,040
Speaker 3: this change what the voles do? And does that have

671
00:39:31,080 --> 00:39:32,120
Speaker 3: secondary effects?

672
00:39:32,920 --> 00:39:35,680
Speaker 1: You know, this I can't help but think about that, Like,

673
00:39:35,719 --> 00:39:39,000
Speaker 1: it's hard to really set aside this idea. The squirrels

674
00:39:39,040 --> 00:39:42,239
Speaker 1: are breaking bad here by eating meat, and it like

675
00:39:42,320 --> 00:39:45,640
Speaker 1: they have this really dramatic moment where they say, now

676
00:39:45,680 --> 00:39:49,239
Speaker 1: I embrace death or something. You know, But I maybe

677
00:39:49,560 --> 00:39:52,400
Speaker 1: the better way to think of it is to remind ourselves,

678
00:39:52,480 --> 00:39:57,880
Speaker 1: perhaps that the squirrel doesn't see a difference between ultimately

679
00:39:58,080 --> 00:40:02,440
Speaker 1: between the food that is a from seed or a

680
00:40:02,520 --> 00:40:05,760
Speaker 1: shoot from a plant and from the body of a vowel.

681
00:40:06,160 --> 00:40:06,360
Speaker 2: You know.

682
00:40:06,440 --> 00:40:10,040
Speaker 1: It's like these are all like distinctions of vegetation and

683
00:40:10,320 --> 00:40:14,400
Speaker 1: animal Like, yes, they're at present in the strategy that

684
00:40:14,480 --> 00:40:18,319
Speaker 1: is employed, the methodology of obtaining that food, but in

685
00:40:18,400 --> 00:40:22,920
Speaker 1: terms of like seeing this big divide between plant world

686
00:40:22,920 --> 00:40:27,200
Speaker 1: and animal world, between plant food and animal food is

687
00:40:27,280 --> 00:40:29,880
Speaker 1: maybe more of a human construct, and we bring that

688
00:40:29,960 --> 00:40:32,120
Speaker 1: baggage into examining these creatures.

689
00:40:32,239 --> 00:40:34,920
Speaker 3: What are these big furry nuts that run away from me?

690
00:40:35,080 --> 00:40:36,279
Speaker 3: They're sure are delicious?

691
00:40:36,480 --> 00:40:47,759
Speaker 2: Yeah, all right?

692
00:40:47,840 --> 00:40:50,560
Speaker 1: So I was looking around as well for some articles

693
00:40:50,920 --> 00:40:54,319
Speaker 1: from the past several years on squirrels in general, but

694
00:40:54,360 --> 00:40:58,439
Speaker 1: also squirrels eating meat. And yeah, another one that came

695
00:40:58,480 --> 00:41:01,640
Speaker 1: to light since we last recordar did the blood dripping

696
00:41:01,680 --> 00:41:04,880
Speaker 1: mos of squirrels. This is one that was published in

697
00:41:04,960 --> 00:41:07,400
Speaker 1: twenty twenty two. It was published in the journal Acta

698
00:41:07,400 --> 00:41:12,200
Speaker 1: Ethylogica and it's titled first Evidence for active carnivorous predation

699
00:41:12,360 --> 00:41:16,520
Speaker 1: in the European ground squirrel by Kachimakova. At all, So,

700
00:41:17,360 --> 00:41:22,360
Speaker 1: the European ground squirrel is Spermophilus setellus. Now, did we

701
00:41:22,400 --> 00:41:26,160
Speaker 1: already mention the genus Spermophilus close?

702
00:41:26,480 --> 00:41:29,840
Speaker 3: The California ground squirrels are in the genus oto Spermophilus.

703
00:41:30,120 --> 00:41:35,399
Speaker 1: Okay, so some similarities here in the naming. Anyway, some

704
00:41:35,440 --> 00:41:37,640
Speaker 1: of you might be wondering, what why are they thought

705
00:41:37,680 --> 00:41:40,560
Speaker 1: of as spermophiles? Well, the translation to fixate on here

706
00:41:40,640 --> 00:41:44,920
Speaker 1: is seed love. So they are seed lovers as in

707
00:41:45,200 --> 00:41:48,160
Speaker 1: European ground squirrels sure do love to eat plant seeds.

708
00:41:49,120 --> 00:41:49,400
Speaker 2: Yeah.

709
00:41:49,440 --> 00:41:52,360
Speaker 1: So the endangered squirrel species in question here is native

710
00:41:52,400 --> 00:41:55,839
Speaker 1: to Eastern and Central Europe, and indeed a huge part

711
00:41:55,840 --> 00:42:01,319
Speaker 1: of its diet consists of seeds, plant shoots, roots, and

712
00:42:01,640 --> 00:42:05,840
Speaker 1: flightless invertebrates or in the mix as well. But this

713
00:42:05,920 --> 00:42:09,640
Speaker 1: paper presented evidence for active predation by the European ground squirrel,

714
00:42:09,680 --> 00:42:14,000
Speaker 1: in particular the hunting, killing, and eating of active animals,

715
00:42:14,040 --> 00:42:16,600
Speaker 1: so not merely the weakend, the dead and the so forth,

716
00:42:16,640 --> 00:42:22,239
Speaker 1: as we've been discussing, but actually going after I don't know,

717
00:42:22,320 --> 00:42:24,200
Speaker 1: more formidable prey. You might say, I don't know with

718
00:42:24,239 --> 00:42:27,120
Speaker 1: all the caveats of predation that we mentioned earlier. Now,

719
00:42:27,160 --> 00:42:30,840
Speaker 1: to be sure, European ground squirrels are still mostly eating seeds,

720
00:42:31,400 --> 00:42:34,120
Speaker 1: but in the spring they supplement their diet with bugs

721
00:42:35,680 --> 00:42:40,320
Speaker 1: consisting of quote considerable amount of animal components, and researchers

722
00:42:40,320 --> 00:42:42,640
Speaker 1: have also known for a while that they'll eat voles,

723
00:42:42,960 --> 00:42:46,160
Speaker 1: they'll eat green lizards. These have been found in their

724
00:42:46,200 --> 00:42:49,960
Speaker 1: stomach contents, which is a lot of the previous findings

725
00:42:50,000 --> 00:42:53,719
Speaker 1: that we've had to go on. Ground nesting birds are

726
00:42:53,800 --> 00:42:57,919
Speaker 1: also seemed to be on the menu, and like many

727
00:42:58,040 --> 00:43:01,880
Speaker 1: other animals, European ground squirrels are also opportunistic cannibals. If

728
00:43:01,920 --> 00:43:06,160
Speaker 1: there is an opportunity to munch on a dead number

729
00:43:06,280 --> 00:43:09,440
Speaker 1: of your own species, or perhaps there's there also scenarios

730
00:43:09,440 --> 00:43:11,920
Speaker 1: where one might feast upon the young, that sort of

731
00:43:11,960 --> 00:43:13,759
Speaker 1: thing is totally on the table, you know, it comes

732
00:43:13,760 --> 00:43:16,680
Speaker 1: down to basic economy of energy.

733
00:43:16,920 --> 00:43:19,480
Speaker 3: Yeah, and as we said, California ground squirrel does the

734
00:43:19,480 --> 00:43:22,759
Speaker 3: same thing occasionally, if the opportunity presents itself, they'll eat

735
00:43:22,800 --> 00:43:24,320
Speaker 3: their own kind, right.

736
00:43:24,800 --> 00:43:27,800
Speaker 1: So as this has been the case with these other studies,

737
00:43:28,160 --> 00:43:30,040
Speaker 1: a lot of the past evidence was based on stomach

738
00:43:30,040 --> 00:43:35,160
Speaker 1: contents and observations of squirrels feeding on carcasses. But questions remain,

739
00:43:35,200 --> 00:43:38,439
Speaker 1: did they actively pursue live prey hunting and killing them

740
00:43:38,880 --> 00:43:44,600
Speaker 1: or would they mirror you know, basically scavengers and at

741
00:43:44,640 --> 00:43:49,000
Speaker 1: times very opportunistic carnivores. Well, the authors point out that

742
00:43:49,040 --> 00:43:53,360
Speaker 1: there was no previous evidence of the European ground squirrels

743
00:43:53,480 --> 00:43:57,040
Speaker 1: killing prey, hunting and killing prey until now, and that

744
00:43:57,120 --> 00:44:00,439
Speaker 1: was the that's the big finding of this paper, and

745
00:44:00,880 --> 00:44:04,080
Speaker 1: getting into the observation portion of the study. They share

746
00:44:04,120 --> 00:44:08,320
Speaker 1: the following on two six, twenty twenty at nineteen twenty seven,

747
00:44:09,239 --> 00:44:13,040
Speaker 1: that's the time in the area of the town of Schumann,

748
00:44:13,080 --> 00:44:18,239
Speaker 1: and they include of very detailed information about exactly where

749
00:44:18,239 --> 00:44:22,440
Speaker 1: this occurs. A young learning to fly Eurasian tree sparrow

750
00:44:22,880 --> 00:44:26,720
Speaker 1: passer montanas was caught by an adult European ground squirrel.

751
00:44:27,080 --> 00:44:30,640
Speaker 1: The ground squirrel ripped out the sparrow's abdominal cavity and

752
00:44:30,719 --> 00:44:33,879
Speaker 1: started to feed on the bird's internal organs while still

753
00:44:33,920 --> 00:44:35,800
Speaker 1: alive and waving its wings.

754
00:44:35,960 --> 00:44:39,000
Speaker 3: Oh, and they got a photo.

755
00:44:39,560 --> 00:44:42,719
Speaker 1: Yes, this is the photographic evidence of what they refer

756
00:44:42,800 --> 00:44:46,399
Speaker 1: to as the predation event. And yeah, you can see

757
00:44:46,400 --> 00:44:51,239
Speaker 1: this little guy again very arguably cute creature. And you

758
00:44:51,239 --> 00:44:53,760
Speaker 1: can also see that it is munching on the body

759
00:44:53,840 --> 00:44:57,840
Speaker 1: of a bird and there is blood flowing from the

760
00:44:57,880 --> 00:44:59,759
Speaker 1: mouth or look, I'm getting the sense of blood flowing

761
00:44:59,800 --> 00:45:01,000
Speaker 1: from the mouth of the squirrel.

762
00:45:01,280 --> 00:45:03,439
Speaker 3: I have to share you included in the outline here

763
00:45:03,480 --> 00:45:06,640
Speaker 3: at the painting by Goya of Saturn devouring his son,

764
00:45:06,719 --> 00:45:12,680
Speaker 3: and the resemblance is striking. Yes, this is absolutely a

765
00:45:12,719 --> 00:45:14,160
Speaker 3: prelude to the witch's Sabbath.

766
00:45:16,360 --> 00:45:20,280
Speaker 1: Now as to why this particular European ground squirrel turned

767
00:45:20,400 --> 00:45:24,480
Speaker 1: to the meat of the living. They suspect that it

768
00:45:24,560 --> 00:45:27,320
Speaker 1: is a quote seasonal increase in the energetic needs of

769
00:45:27,680 --> 00:45:31,160
Speaker 1: the European ground squirrel. So again, this photo was taken

770
00:45:31,160 --> 00:45:34,319
Speaker 1: on June second. Interesting that our previous example was also

771
00:45:34,719 --> 00:45:39,160
Speaker 1: more or less in the same window with the voles June, yeah, July.

772
00:45:39,880 --> 00:45:42,200
Speaker 1: So the June second and the author's site that this

773
00:45:42,320 --> 00:45:45,640
Speaker 1: is a crucial and delicate time for the European ground squirrel.

774
00:45:46,000 --> 00:45:48,560
Speaker 1: So what's been happening in the European ground squirrel world

775
00:45:48,640 --> 00:45:51,560
Speaker 1: at this point is the males have just finished fiercely

776
00:45:51,600 --> 00:45:54,400
Speaker 1: competing with each other for mates, and so many of

777
00:45:54,400 --> 00:45:58,000
Speaker 1: them are weakened or even injured from those ensuing battles

778
00:45:58,000 --> 00:46:02,960
Speaker 1: and just also just the energy expenditure of the whole endeavor. Meanwhile,

779
00:46:03,000 --> 00:46:06,120
Speaker 1: the females have already given birth and they are nursing

780
00:46:06,160 --> 00:46:09,040
Speaker 1: their young all right, which of course also requires a

781
00:46:09,040 --> 00:46:12,280
Speaker 1: lot of energy. On top of all of this, highly

782
00:46:12,360 --> 00:46:16,359
Speaker 1: nutritious seeds are not yet numerous in the environment, and

783
00:46:16,440 --> 00:46:21,840
Speaker 1: what is available is ravaged by overgrazing. Meanwhile, in the

784
00:46:21,880 --> 00:46:26,880
Speaker 1: bird world, juvenile birds have left their nests, so they're vulnerable,

785
00:46:27,000 --> 00:46:29,719
Speaker 1: they're not ready for this cruel world, and so these

786
00:46:29,719 --> 00:46:33,640
Speaker 1: seed loving rodents turn their ravenous attention to these available

787
00:46:33,719 --> 00:46:37,279
Speaker 1: riches of the flesh. So the way they're analyzing it

788
00:46:37,320 --> 00:46:39,160
Speaker 1: and writing about it in the paper, we have part

789
00:46:39,160 --> 00:46:42,279
Speaker 1: of it is the fact that there is suddenly this,

790
00:46:43,040 --> 00:46:46,920
Speaker 1: in this case, a feathered fruit or nut that is available,

791
00:46:47,000 --> 00:46:49,680
Speaker 1: that is presenting itself, is on the menu. But also

792
00:46:49,760 --> 00:46:52,160
Speaker 1: on top of that, some of the seeds they really

793
00:46:52,200 --> 00:46:57,040
Speaker 1: depend upon are not yet available, and they're worn out

794
00:46:57,280 --> 00:47:01,680
Speaker 1: and have increased nutritional needs, and so it just leads

795
00:47:01,880 --> 00:47:03,640
Speaker 1: right to the blood feast.

796
00:47:03,960 --> 00:47:07,040
Speaker 3: So the situation is, we just finished some strenuous activity,

797
00:47:07,080 --> 00:47:11,400
Speaker 3: were ravenously hungry, all the restaurants are closed. What are

798
00:47:11,440 --> 00:47:14,800
Speaker 3: we going to do. Here's something, here's something with feathers

799
00:47:14,800 --> 00:47:17,920
Speaker 3: on it. It keeps flapping its wings. I'm just trying to

800
00:47:17,920 --> 00:47:20,960
Speaker 3: eat the seeds. Yeah, yeah, the sick seeds out of

801
00:47:21,000 --> 00:47:24,040
Speaker 3: its belly. So another example here. And then you know

802
00:47:24,080 --> 00:47:26,719
Speaker 3: there's the added importance that they discussed in the paper too,

803
00:47:26,719 --> 00:47:29,600
Speaker 3: that this is an endangered species, and so you know

804
00:47:29,640 --> 00:47:33,880
Speaker 3: there's even added there's added incentive to understand it and

805
00:47:33,920 --> 00:47:37,640
Speaker 3: help us figure out how to protect it now. In

806
00:47:37,719 --> 00:47:41,120
Speaker 3: looking I was looking through various squirrel related news items

807
00:47:41,120 --> 00:47:44,480
Speaker 3: from the past several years. Inevitably, there have been a

808
00:47:44,560 --> 00:47:48,839
Speaker 3: number of news stories dealing with squirrels, generally in urban environments,

809
00:47:48,920 --> 00:47:52,200
Speaker 3: behaving aggressively or even attacking human beings. I may be

810
00:47:52,320 --> 00:47:55,080
Speaker 3: remembering this wrong, but I sort of think like they

811
00:47:55,120 --> 00:47:56,680
Speaker 3: were the kind of reports that were, like, you couldn't

812
00:47:56,719 --> 00:47:59,280
Speaker 3: totally discount them, but you also weren't sure you should

813
00:47:59,280 --> 00:47:59,919
Speaker 3: believe them either.

814
00:48:00,920 --> 00:48:01,120
Speaker 2: Yeah.

815
00:48:01,239 --> 00:48:03,560
Speaker 1: Yeah, a lot of these are, you know, anecdotal, and

816
00:48:04,600 --> 00:48:06,080
Speaker 1: I don't know. It's one of those things where when

817
00:48:06,080 --> 00:48:09,360
Speaker 1: squirrels are going about their normal business, nobody is writing

818
00:48:09,400 --> 00:48:12,640
Speaker 1: about it in the local newspaper, but there's one attack

819
00:48:13,560 --> 00:48:16,279
Speaker 1: and it gets written up. So I don't want to

820
00:48:16,280 --> 00:48:21,279
Speaker 1: present the idea that these attacks are common, but they

821
00:48:21,640 --> 00:48:25,879
Speaker 1: apparently did occur. So just a brief example of some

822
00:48:25,960 --> 00:48:28,840
Speaker 1: of the headlines I ran across, here's one from The

823
00:48:28,880 --> 00:48:34,200
Speaker 1: Guardian from January twenty twenty one. It was angry vicious

824
00:48:34,480 --> 00:48:37,840
Speaker 1: spate of squirrel attacks leaves New York City neighborhood in fear.

825
00:48:38,080 --> 00:48:40,480
Speaker 1: At least three people in Rego Park and Queens have

826
00:48:40,560 --> 00:48:44,080
Speaker 1: been jumped upon and bitten by a possibly deranged squirrel.

827
00:48:44,400 --> 00:48:47,680
Speaker 3: Okay, I apologize for laughing. Squirrel attacks are in one

828
00:48:47,760 --> 00:48:50,120
Speaker 3: sense inherently funny, but now I'm thinking about it like

829
00:48:50,200 --> 00:48:52,400
Speaker 3: if a squirrel did jump on you and start biting you,

830
00:48:52,440 --> 00:48:53,200
Speaker 3: that would be scary.

831
00:48:53,200 --> 00:48:53,960
Speaker 2: It would be terrifying.

832
00:48:54,080 --> 00:48:56,600
Speaker 3: Okay, sorry, sorry, sorry for laughing.

833
00:48:56,520 --> 00:48:58,520
Speaker 1: But still it just drives home the fact that we

834
00:48:58,600 --> 00:49:01,480
Speaker 1: often just totally disregard them or think they're cute and amusing,

835
00:49:01,800 --> 00:49:04,200
Speaker 1: and then when we encounter the savage side of the squirrel,

836
00:49:04,719 --> 00:49:07,560
Speaker 1: it is shocking and terrified. Here's another one. This was

837
00:49:07,600 --> 00:49:13,160
Speaker 1: from BBC News, December twenty twenty one. Squirrel injures eighteen

838
00:49:13,160 --> 00:49:15,640
Speaker 1: people in two days of attacks in Buckley. A gray

839
00:49:15,680 --> 00:49:18,360
Speaker 1: squirrel which attacked and injured eighteen people has been captured

840
00:49:18,400 --> 00:49:19,040
Speaker 1: and put down.

841
00:49:19,320 --> 00:49:21,840
Speaker 3: I'm gonna flag that one for later and go see

842
00:49:21,920 --> 00:49:24,840
Speaker 3: how the eighteen people were chained together here.

843
00:49:25,160 --> 00:49:30,320
Speaker 1: Yeah, apologies, but I'm not going to respond to individual articles.

844
00:49:30,320 --> 00:49:31,480
Speaker 1: You were going to do more generally.

845
00:49:32,080 --> 00:49:34,440
Speaker 3: I'm not taking questions on these squirrel attacks.

846
00:49:34,760 --> 00:49:38,560
Speaker 1: Yeah. And here's another one. This was from NBC fifteen News,

847
00:49:38,640 --> 00:49:41,839
Speaker 1: September eighteenth, twenty twenty four. Squirrels on a train. Train

848
00:49:41,960 --> 00:49:46,520
Speaker 1: ride canceled due to attacking squirrels, Gomshall Surrey. So these

849
00:49:46,560 --> 00:49:47,840
Speaker 1: are just a taste of some of the headlines it

850
00:49:47,920 --> 00:49:51,440
Speaker 1: ran across. Many more squirrel attacks stories regarding isolated incidents

851
00:49:51,719 --> 00:49:54,120
Speaker 1: which seemed to regularly get picked up by the media

852
00:49:54,160 --> 00:50:07,200
Speaker 1: and sort of passed up the media chain. Now, these

853
00:50:07,360 --> 00:50:10,120
Speaker 1: incidents don't necessarily represent anything new. I don't want to

854
00:50:10,280 --> 00:50:14,600
Speaker 1: suggest that. That Guardian article, for example, by Oliver Millman

855
00:50:14,760 --> 00:50:17,719
Speaker 1: points out that the two most likely causes for this

856
00:50:17,800 --> 00:50:21,960
Speaker 1: sort of behavior are unsurprisingly disease on one hand, and

857
00:50:22,040 --> 00:50:25,160
Speaker 1: on the other hand, becoming overly accustomed to feeding by humans.

858
00:50:25,360 --> 00:50:29,600
Speaker 1: Ah yes, yeah, So on the disease front, of course, rabies,

859
00:50:29,640 --> 00:50:32,640
Speaker 1: which we've talked about on the show before. It's apparently

860
00:50:32,760 --> 00:50:35,560
Speaker 1: rare in squirrels, but it does happen according to d

861
00:50:35,680 --> 00:50:40,239
Speaker 1: C Health, and that source, which is undated on the

862
00:50:40,280 --> 00:50:43,600
Speaker 1: DC Health website, claims that no person in the US

863
00:50:43,640 --> 00:50:46,440
Speaker 1: has ever contracted rabies from a squirrel. But it is

864
00:50:46,440 --> 00:50:50,000
Speaker 1: obviously possible for someone to contract rabies from a squirrel,

865
00:50:50,040 --> 00:50:55,279
Speaker 1: as they can carry rabies. Rabies concern, they point out,

866
00:50:55,680 --> 00:50:59,160
Speaker 1: is warranted, especially if the squirrel is behaving abnormally when

867
00:50:59,200 --> 00:51:02,560
Speaker 1: it bites you. And I did look up some of

868
00:51:02,560 --> 00:51:05,680
Speaker 1: this on the CDC website. Centers for Disease Control Prevention

869
00:51:05,719 --> 00:51:08,680
Speaker 1: says it's extremely rare for squirrels to have rabies or

870
00:51:08,719 --> 00:51:12,359
Speaker 1: to pass rabies to pets or humans in the United States. Now,

871
00:51:12,440 --> 00:51:15,000
Speaker 1: on the other end of the spectrum, the idea that

872
00:51:15,040 --> 00:51:18,520
Speaker 1: people are feeding squirrels that are getting close to squirrels,

873
00:51:19,000 --> 00:51:23,520
Speaker 1: and in doing so they are eroding the healthy fear

874
00:51:23,560 --> 00:51:28,480
Speaker 1: of humans that squirrels have. That is obviously a major issue. Squirrels,

875
00:51:29,040 --> 00:51:31,879
Speaker 1: no matter how cute they are in your eyes, they

876
00:51:31,880 --> 00:51:35,640
Speaker 1: should remain afraid of human beings and practices like feeding

877
00:51:35,719 --> 00:51:39,080
Speaker 1: them by hand is certainly just asking for a bite.

878
00:51:39,600 --> 00:51:41,520
Speaker 1: And also if they feel threatened at all, they will

879
00:51:41,520 --> 00:51:44,640
Speaker 1: also attack you, which it comes into the scenario as

880
00:51:44,640 --> 00:51:47,720
Speaker 1: well if you have already either you or other people

881
00:51:47,960 --> 00:51:51,840
Speaker 1: have done something to erode that distance between you and

882
00:51:51,880 --> 00:51:52,760
Speaker 1: the wild squirrel.

883
00:51:53,360 --> 00:51:57,080
Speaker 3: This is the sinister inverse of the ecology of fear.

884
00:51:57,280 --> 00:51:59,160
Speaker 3: This is the ecology of brazen This.

885
00:51:59,680 --> 00:52:04,400
Speaker 1: Yeah, I probably shared this story in the last Squirrel episode.

886
00:52:04,400 --> 00:52:06,640
Speaker 1: I'm gonna tell it again anyway. I only have so

887
00:52:06,640 --> 00:52:09,239
Speaker 1: many stories, folks, but years ago, my wife and I

888
00:52:09,360 --> 00:52:12,880
Speaker 1: encountered a very aggressive rock squirrel in Grand Canyon National Park.

889
00:52:13,400 --> 00:52:15,560
Speaker 1: Luckily no one was bitten or injured, but we were

890
00:52:15,560 --> 00:52:18,920
Speaker 1: out on a rocky hike along this like outcropping, and

891
00:52:18,960 --> 00:52:20,879
Speaker 1: we'd paused for a moment. My wife had pulled out

892
00:52:20,880 --> 00:52:23,560
Speaker 1: a snack bar, and that's when a rock squirrel appeared

893
00:52:23,800 --> 00:52:26,680
Speaker 1: and began to move in very close, ultimately jumping on

894
00:52:26,719 --> 00:52:29,880
Speaker 1: her leg. Luckily, I believe she was wearing jeans at

895
00:52:29,880 --> 00:52:32,440
Speaker 1: the time, and then we drove the squirrel away with

896
00:52:32,440 --> 00:52:35,640
Speaker 1: a hat. Luckily, again no one was hurt, but it

897
00:52:35,680 --> 00:52:38,480
Speaker 1: was always struck stuck with us as a great example

898
00:52:38,520 --> 00:52:41,520
Speaker 1: of why you don't feed wild animals, because again, you

899
00:52:41,960 --> 00:52:46,319
Speaker 1: erode that healthy gap between you and the wild, and

900
00:52:46,360 --> 00:52:48,759
Speaker 1: then that animal thinks you are a source of food

901
00:52:48,800 --> 00:52:50,960
Speaker 1: and it can come in closer. And you know, obviously

902
00:52:50,960 --> 00:52:53,480
Speaker 1: it gets even worse when you're dealing with larger animals,

903
00:52:53,600 --> 00:52:57,640
Speaker 1: more destructive animals, and potentially deadly animals. And you know,

904
00:52:58,360 --> 00:53:01,279
Speaker 1: mainly thinking of bears here, but even with something like

905
00:53:01,360 --> 00:53:05,279
Speaker 1: the squirrel, you're you are doing that squirrel a great

906
00:53:05,280 --> 00:53:08,960
Speaker 1: disservice and potentially doing a great disservice to anyone that's

907
00:53:09,000 --> 00:53:10,520
Speaker 1: going to be in contact with that animal.

908
00:53:10,840 --> 00:53:11,080
Speaker 2: Yeah.

909
00:53:11,320 --> 00:53:13,920
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is why they emphasize like the bearproof garbage

910
00:53:14,000 --> 00:53:16,120
Speaker 3: cans in relevant areas and things like that.

911
00:53:16,440 --> 00:53:19,520
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, and that's that's another big

912
00:53:19,520 --> 00:53:22,040
Speaker 1: thing too, Like you go through areas like Yosemite, and

913
00:53:22,360 --> 00:53:24,799
Speaker 1: you know, you frequently pass signs they show, well, a

914
00:53:24,800 --> 00:53:27,200
Speaker 1: bear died here because it was hit by a car, which,

915
00:53:27,239 --> 00:53:29,560
Speaker 1: on one hand, you know, cut down on speeding obviously.

916
00:53:29,960 --> 00:53:32,360
Speaker 1: But one thing that the Grand Canyon National Park points

917
00:53:32,360 --> 00:53:34,480
Speaker 1: out about squirrels in particular, but also the supplies to

918
00:53:34,520 --> 00:53:37,400
Speaker 1: other animals, is if you're feeding them from vehicles, this

919
00:53:37,640 --> 00:53:42,440
Speaker 1: too causes animals to congregate near roads and vehicles. So

920
00:53:43,320 --> 00:53:45,880
Speaker 1: Grand Canyon National Park sometimes goes as far as to

921
00:53:45,920 --> 00:53:48,360
Speaker 1: say the rock squirrel is the most dangerous animal in

922
00:53:48,360 --> 00:53:51,239
Speaker 1: the park. If you're not familiar with the environment of

923
00:53:51,280 --> 00:53:53,440
Speaker 1: the Grand Nation Grand Canyon National Park, you should know that.

924
00:53:53,520 --> 00:53:56,879
Speaker 1: Of course, they're much larger creatures, and some of those too,

925
00:53:57,560 --> 00:53:59,800
Speaker 1: you can make a strong argument that they're they're natural

926
00:54:00,280 --> 00:54:04,880
Speaker 1: to humans has been somewhat eroded, but squirrel incidents with

927
00:54:05,000 --> 00:54:08,879
Speaker 1: rock squirrels do occur due to humans feeding them, they

928
00:54:08,960 --> 00:54:13,520
Speaker 1: end up congregating near the places humans gather, including outside

929
00:54:13,520 --> 00:54:18,000
Speaker 1: gift shops and snack bars, and as Joshua Bowling reported

930
00:54:18,000 --> 00:54:21,440
Speaker 1: in an asy Central article from twenty eighteen, they've also

931
00:54:21,520 --> 00:54:25,040
Speaker 1: been reported to bite people just for pointing at them. So, again,

932
00:54:25,239 --> 00:54:27,120
Speaker 1: this is not something that's going to get you bitten

933
00:54:27,160 --> 00:54:30,600
Speaker 1: by a squirrel in the wild. That is like naturally

934
00:54:30,680 --> 00:54:36,040
Speaker 1: removed from your vicinity. But once you've eroded that healthy distance,

935
00:54:36,440 --> 00:54:40,680
Speaker 1: things like this apparently become possible. It feels threatened, it bites,

936
00:54:40,719 --> 00:54:41,360
Speaker 1: and so forth.

937
00:54:41,800 --> 00:54:44,040
Speaker 3: Yeah, so when parks and other places say don't feed

938
00:54:44,040 --> 00:54:46,960
Speaker 3: the animals, they mean it. They're not messing around. There's

939
00:54:46,960 --> 00:54:47,600
Speaker 3: a good reason.

940
00:54:47,880 --> 00:54:50,360
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, there's the old saying a fed animal

941
00:54:50,400 --> 00:54:54,720
Speaker 1: is a dead animal for many reasons. Roads, cars, contact

942
00:54:54,760 --> 00:54:59,160
Speaker 1: with humans, threats to humans, and so forth. Grand Cash

943
00:54:59,200 --> 00:55:01,720
Speaker 1: and the Canyon National Park advisors. You keep a distance

944
00:55:01,719 --> 00:55:06,000
Speaker 1: from wildlife, including their squirrels, don't approach the wildlife, including

945
00:55:06,000 --> 00:55:09,480
Speaker 1: the squirrels, and if the wildlife approaches you, you report it.

946
00:55:10,320 --> 00:55:13,919
Speaker 1: So yeah, I.

947
00:55:13,120 --> 00:55:14,320
Speaker 3: Tattle on those squirrels.

948
00:55:14,400 --> 00:55:16,920
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, squirrels are wild animals. I just want to

949
00:55:16,920 --> 00:55:20,359
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna There are other recent news items one

950
00:55:20,360 --> 00:55:23,040
Speaker 1: could get into and I'm not going to, but squirrels

951
00:55:23,080 --> 00:55:25,759
Speaker 1: are wild animals and they should remain wild, and we

952
00:55:25,800 --> 00:55:28,279
Speaker 1: should do whatever we can to keep them that way.

953
00:55:28,560 --> 00:55:31,800
Speaker 1: It's our responsibility to the environment that we have shifted

954
00:55:31,840 --> 00:55:34,560
Speaker 1: and changed, and not just because they might bite us,

955
00:55:34,880 --> 00:55:38,480
Speaker 1: but let that be the added a stick to the carrot.

956
00:55:38,880 --> 00:55:40,239
Speaker 3: Well, what do you think, Rob, Does that do it

957
00:55:40,239 --> 00:55:40,760
Speaker 3: for today?

958
00:55:41,320 --> 00:55:44,200
Speaker 1: I think so. We'll see what another five years this

959
00:55:44,280 --> 00:55:47,200
Speaker 1: full update the State of the Squirrel Kingdom.

960
00:55:47,080 --> 00:55:50,640
Speaker 2: To another squirrel sequel, Yeah, or sooner.

961
00:55:50,640 --> 00:55:54,520
Speaker 1: If they eat more interesting things, you never know, never

962
00:55:54,600 --> 00:55:55,520
Speaker 1: know what's going to come up.

963
00:55:55,840 --> 00:55:57,480
Speaker 3: How do they level up from this? I guess they

964
00:55:57,520 --> 00:55:59,719
Speaker 3: got to start eating things bigger than them and then

965
00:55:59,760 --> 00:56:01,840
Speaker 3: with that'd really get our attention once more.

966
00:56:02,160 --> 00:56:05,200
Speaker 1: Absolutely all right, we're going to go and close it out,

967
00:56:05,239 --> 00:56:07,279
Speaker 1: but we'd love to hear from everyone out there. Do

968
00:56:07,360 --> 00:56:12,759
Speaker 1: you have thoughts on squirrels, your encounters, your observations, how

969
00:56:12,800 --> 00:56:16,600
Speaker 1: this information that we've discussed here or this podcast itself

970
00:56:16,640 --> 00:56:20,520
Speaker 1: has changed your view of squirrels, or maybe you're like

971
00:56:20,800 --> 00:56:22,800
Speaker 1: just nodding your head and saying, yeah, this is squirrels

972
00:56:22,800 --> 00:56:23,040
Speaker 1: to a t.

973
00:56:23,239 --> 00:56:24,600
Speaker 2: This is what they do. This is who they are.

974
00:56:25,120 --> 00:56:29,120
Speaker 1: Whatever your thoughts off, yes, yeah, either way, rite in

975
00:56:29,239 --> 00:56:31,440
Speaker 1: let us know we'd love to hear from you. Just

976
00:56:31,480 --> 00:56:33,440
Speaker 1: a reminder that Stuff to Blow Your Mind is primarily

977
00:56:33,480 --> 00:56:36,000
Speaker 1: a science and culture podcast, with core episodes on Tuesdays

978
00:56:36,000 --> 00:56:39,319
Speaker 1: and Thursdays, short form episodes on Wednesdays. Let's see, we

979
00:56:39,360 --> 00:56:42,239
Speaker 1: have a weird house cinema on Fridays. That's our time

980
00:56:42,239 --> 00:56:44,560
Speaker 1: to set aside most serious concerns to just talk about

981
00:56:44,560 --> 00:56:48,160
Speaker 1: weird films, and then the rest of the days we

982
00:56:48,239 --> 00:56:51,600
Speaker 1: fill in with some classic content of Vault episodes and

983
00:56:51,640 --> 00:56:52,120
Speaker 1: so forth.

984
00:56:52,440 --> 00:56:56,280
Speaker 3: Huge thanks, as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway.

985
00:56:56,640 --> 00:56:58,080
Speaker 3: If you would like to get in touch with us

986
00:56:58,120 --> 00:57:00,520
Speaker 3: with feedback on this episode or any other, suggest a

987
00:57:00,560 --> 00:57:02,759
Speaker 3: topic for the future, or just to say hello, you

988
00:57:02,800 --> 00:57:05,480
Speaker 3: can email us at contact at stuff to Blow your

989
00:57:05,480 --> 00:57:15,520
Speaker 3: Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production

990
00:57:15,640 --> 00:57:16,480
Speaker 3: of iHeartRadio.

991
00:57:16,840 --> 00:57:20,840
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

992
00:57:20,920 --> 00:57:36,680
Speaker 1: or wherever you're listening to your favorite shows.