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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuffworks

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Speaker 1: dot com. Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.

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Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. And boy,

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Speaker 1: we got a treat for you today. It is time

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Speaker 1: to jump into a listener Maile episode purely about squirrels.

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Speaker 1: That's right. We put out the two parter right about

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Speaker 1: squirrels and they're they're they're bloody secrets and the mystery

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Speaker 1: surrounding them and some of the the folkloric ideas that

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Speaker 1: have risen up around them, and uh and what the

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Speaker 1: science actually has to say. I like how you were like, oh,

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Speaker 1: a two parter, right, as if you don't remember, and

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Speaker 1: as if you haven't been thinking about squirrels in those

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Speaker 1: two episodes every day since then. It's It's true. In

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Speaker 1: my own house, it's been quite a squirrel odyssey since

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Speaker 1: those episodes came out, because, uh the first episode I

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Speaker 1: had my family listened to, and I think I I

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Speaker 1: mentioned how we were watching a lot of squirrel activity

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Speaker 1: at our bird feeders, and uh so a few different

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Speaker 1: things occurred. So for starters, I was talking about about

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Speaker 1: the scugs and was referring to the squirrels uh as

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Speaker 1: an entire species as skugs. Yes, And in doing so

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Speaker 1: I managed to get the words scug kind of like

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Speaker 1: partially banned from my household. Well, me and my son

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Speaker 1: were using it, and my wife she was like, I

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Speaker 1: don't know this. This doesn't sound like a friendly term

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Speaker 1: to use for squirrels, and and and you eventually convinced me.

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Speaker 1: I still think of them as scugs, but I I

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Speaker 1: catch myself and uh, and find myself referring to them

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Speaker 1: as squirrels more often. So that term comes from we

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Speaker 1: started using it in the episode because of that letter,

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Speaker 1: but from Benjamin Franklin, uh, describing the squirrel, his pet squirrel, Mungo.

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Speaker 1: I think that got killed by a dog, and he

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Speaker 1: referred to squirrels in the letter as scugs. I think

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Speaker 1: with if I'd stand the reasoning correctly, it seems to

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Speaker 1: be that Franklin thought skug was like a common name

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Speaker 1: applied to pet squirrels, the same way you might look

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Speaker 1: at a bunch of dogs and say, look at all

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Speaker 1: those rovers. Yeah. Yeah, so really we're we're It's like

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Speaker 1: we've taken it upon ourselves, and our listeners have taken

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Speaker 1: upon themselves themselves. Too to rebrand squirrels as skugs and

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Speaker 1: uh And I guess part of it too for me

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Speaker 1: is like realizing, like, Okay, this first grader, do I

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Speaker 1: really want to to have him grow up and be

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Speaker 1: the sort of person who refers to squirrels as scugs

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Speaker 1: and nobody around him knows what he's talking about. I

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Speaker 1: think people will know because of us. Possibly. Yeah. I

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Speaker 1: also have found that in response to those episodes, I've

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Speaker 1: actually grown um more affectionate for the squirrels that feeded

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Speaker 1: our bird feeder. I've I've made sure to put out

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Speaker 1: water for them a lot because the bird fountain we have,

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Speaker 1: the birds don't really mess with it all that much,

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Speaker 1: but the squirrels will delicately, uh like lower themselves down

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Speaker 1: to it and drink water from it. And it's so

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Speaker 1: delightful to watch because you know, normally squirrels are just

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Speaker 1: scurrying about, fighting with each other, you know, looking up

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Speaker 1: for for predators, and they're just constant motion. But when

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Speaker 1: they drink the water, there's something uh something precious about them.

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Speaker 1: You appreciate them more because you know more about the

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Speaker 1: violence and the predation and all that. Because it's because

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Speaker 1: you can see the shadow. Now. Yeah, it's like when

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Speaker 1: you when you see somebody's dark side. Uh, it's the

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Speaker 1: anti hero effect in the movies, you know, where you

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Speaker 1: suddenly by seeing the dark side, you actually care more

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Speaker 1: about them. I should also say that our bird feed

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Speaker 1: are eventually attracted a rat and I got to see

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Speaker 1: or I got to It's not not like it's a

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Speaker 1: special treat. But I witnessed a scuffle between a squirrel

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Speaker 1: and a rat. Who won, Oh the squirrel. The squirrel

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Speaker 1: drove the rat away, And I think part of that

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Speaker 1: just comes down to like squirrel nature versus rat nature.

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Speaker 1: Like the rat is gonna obviously gonna be A'm not

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Speaker 1: have to find it with me. I'll come back and

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Speaker 1: eat it during the night, and the squirrel. But the

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Speaker 1: squirrel is more like, no, I'm eating this now, you

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Speaker 1: will go away from me. So you didn't put them

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Speaker 1: in a box and make them fight like that guy

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Speaker 1: who wrote into Jama No, no, no no. I think

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Speaker 1: we're still what what is cannon? Now? Are we saying cannon?

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Speaker 1: Is that that didn't actually happen, and that was some

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Speaker 1: fourteen year old making things up. I want to believe that,

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Speaker 1: but who knows. Okay, Well, maybe we should get right

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Speaker 1: into some of your excellent, wonderful messages about squirrels. Robert,

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Speaker 1: would you like to read us this email from Diane

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Speaker 1: to start us off here? All right, let's do it. Well, first,

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Speaker 1: let's call the robot over here. I forgot Carney. Carney

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Speaker 1: just covered in squirrels. All right, here we go, Diane writes, Hi,

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Speaker 1: Robert and Joe, I just finished listening to The Bloody

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Speaker 1: Beasts Part one. You're a very interesting discussion about squirrels

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Speaker 1: that have been observed displaying carnivorous behavior. It brought to

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Speaker 1: mind an incident I witnessed in the summer of two

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Speaker 1: thousand four. I was on an archaeological excavation in the

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Speaker 1: Orkney Islands and Archipelago between Scotland and Norway. At the moment,

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Speaker 1: I can't recall which island my fellow archaeologist and I

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Speaker 1: were on, but I think it was Papa Westry. As

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Speaker 1: we were walking up a hill looking towards the sea,

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Speaker 1: we saw a sheep nibbling on the flipper of a

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Speaker 1: dead seal. What they washed up on the shore a

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Speaker 1: bit odd, I grant you, but animals that live in

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Speaker 1: environments that offer minimal resources such as many of the

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Speaker 1: islands that make up the Orkneys, will find ways to

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Speaker 1: supplement whatever their diet is lacking. I'm certain the sheep

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Speaker 1: will never adapt to actually heading out to sea to

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Speaker 1: hunt for a seal meal, but they have no qualms

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Speaker 1: about eating those unfortunate enough to have died of other causes.

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Speaker 1: I'm not sure what the meat eating squirrels are compensating for,

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Speaker 1: but I look forward to hearing a part two. Thank

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Speaker 1: you for consistently informative and entertaining shows, Dr Diane, And

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Speaker 1: then she includes her last name, which we tend to

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Speaker 1: edit out of the show, but I include that just

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Speaker 1: because she's a doctor. It's worth noting. Yeah, I love

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Speaker 1: the story about the opportunistic carnivory of of sheep, but

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Speaker 1: it doesn't make me wonder. Okay, so we believe that

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Speaker 1: whales came from a former terrestrial tetrapod mammal that slowly

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Speaker 1: over time adapted itself to a more and more aquatic

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Speaker 1: lifestyle until until they just became fully water dwelling organisms.

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Speaker 1: Could sheep do the same thing? And what would the

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Speaker 1: cetacean equivalence of future sheep descendants be. What also makes

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Speaker 1: me think back to our episode on on Cambrian life

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Speaker 1: forms and getting into the idea of essentially the invention

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Speaker 1: of predation. The the and that I put invention in

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Speaker 1: quotation marks here because obviously simple organisms are not consciously

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Speaker 1: inventing anything, but a trend emerges where one organism is

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Speaker 1: simply consuming another. Yeah, and this is a hypothesis about

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Speaker 1: what caused what's known as the Cambrian explosion. And there

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Speaker 1: are some people who I think dispute to what extent

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Speaker 1: it actually should be considered an explosion or not. But basically,

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Speaker 1: during the Cambrian period, about five million years ago, we

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Speaker 1: suddenly see this proliferation speciation events, many different animal body

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Speaker 1: forms arising from previously out of you know, not much.

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Speaker 1: So where does all of this sudden animal diversity come from?

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Speaker 1: One hypothesis is, well, it was the introduction of predation

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Speaker 1: that suddenly set off these evolutionary arms races and drove

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Speaker 1: animals to evolve defenses in the different kinds of defenses

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Speaker 1: they evolved, or predation tactics they evolved, Uh, gave rise

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Speaker 1: to all this diversity of life. Hey, and speaking of

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Speaker 1: Cambrian life forms, our store has a new T shirt

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Speaker 1: slash sticker slash wherever you want to put this image. Uh,

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Speaker 1: it's our logo. Uh. You know that abstract symbol that

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Speaker 1: we have surrounded by Cambrian life forms in some agency. Robert,

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Speaker 1: I love your dedication to plugging merch and that that

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Speaker 1: is right. Remember that we've got merch. If you've got

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Speaker 1: money and you want to spend it on some of

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Speaker 1: our org go go merch up, go to our store.

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Speaker 1: It's fun stuff. We wouldn't but we would not have

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Speaker 1: it in the store if if we didn't think it

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Speaker 1: was fun. Okay, here's another message we got. This one

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Speaker 1: is from our listener, Victoria. Victoria rights, Hi, Robert and Joe.

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Speaker 1: One of my first jobs, about fifteen years ago, was

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Speaker 1: as an animal care attendant at the Toronto Wildlife Center,

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Speaker 1: a nonprofit organization that treats and rehabilitates sick and injured wildlife.

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Speaker 1: I learned a healthy fear of squirrels while I was there.

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Speaker 1: Whenever we were handling squirrels, we would wear thick leather gloves,

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Speaker 1: often layered over chain mail gloves. I once got bit

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Speaker 1: through the gloves. Thankfully, they did their job pretty well,

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Speaker 1: but I could still sometimes feel the bite years later,

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Speaker 1: I wasn't there for this particular incident, and so my

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Speaker 1: second hand memory of the story may be exaggerated, but

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Speaker 1: I don't think so. But I remember a story of

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Speaker 1: a time when a sparrow got loose in the room

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Speaker 1: where the squirrels cages were. The staff member working in

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Speaker 1: their grabbed a net to recapture the loose bird, but

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Speaker 1: before they were able to catch the fugitive, it landed

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Speaker 1: on the outside of a squirrel cage. The squirrel inside

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Speaker 1: managed to grab the sparrow through the cage bars and

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Speaker 1: eat its face. Another interesting observation about unexpected carnivores from

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Speaker 1: that job. At one point we noticed that all of

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Speaker 1: the edmun staff at the organization were vegetarian or vegan,

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Speaker 1: while all of the animal care staff were meat eaters.

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Speaker 1: The prevailing theory is that when you work closely with

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Speaker 1: the animals, you realize that they'd eat you if they

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Speaker 1: had a chance, so you don't feel bad about eating

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Speaker 1: their brethren. Looking forward to your next episode, Victoria, well

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Speaker 1: that's a wonderful story. I mean, it does also make

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Speaker 1: me think back to some of the the differences between

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Speaker 1: wild squirrels and squirrels and captivity. So conceivably, and I'm

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Speaker 1: kind of reading into I have no idea how long

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Speaker 1: these squirrels had been in uh, in their cages, but

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Speaker 1: if they had been deprived of any you know, natural

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Speaker 1: ways to take in certain nutrients, they may have been

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Speaker 1: essentially starved for them. So of wish you would talk

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Speaker 1: into a bird face that is so metal it ate

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Speaker 1: the bird's face. Well, you know, we're attached to faces

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Speaker 1: as as humans, but we have to kind of strip

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Speaker 1: away our our our human complications here and realize the

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Speaker 1: face is delicious. Yeah, yeah, all right, here's another one.

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Speaker 1: This one comes to us from Nathan. Nathan writes and says,

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Speaker 1: love the show, guys, keep up the great work. I'm

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Speaker 1: a local pharmacist here in Atlanta and had to show

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Speaker 1: you the squirrel video I took at my house in

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Speaker 1: Grant Park. My favorite episodes are the Squirrel double part

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Speaker 1: and the two thousand one episode. Also really like the

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Speaker 1: salamander interview. Since I'm a biology lover, uh, feel free

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Speaker 1: to hit me up if you have any drug questions.

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Speaker 1: Thanks Nate. And then Nate attaches a video that appears

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Speaker 1: to be a squirrel going to town on a barbecue

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Speaker 1: rib bone. Now one thing that's true. I think there

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Speaker 1: was a blog for a while that was just like

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Speaker 1: Bones of Atlanta that was like just images discarded bones

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Speaker 1: of discarded barbecue bones on the sidewalk. So I mean,

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Speaker 1: there's good barbecue restaurants here, so people often will walk

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Speaker 1: around with a clamshell full of barbecue and just throw

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Speaker 1: the bones down. Well, let's see Grant Park. Which which

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Speaker 1: barbecue restaurant would it have been? I don't know, but

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Speaker 1: uh no, I don't know the answer. But they're they're like,

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Speaker 1: there's barbecue restaurants near you know, my walking the dog

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Speaker 1: can sometimes be perilous because like there's just barbecue rib

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Speaker 1: bones and chicken bones and stuff like that hanging out.

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Speaker 1: And this appears to be a video of a squirrel

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Speaker 1: that got its hands on a rib bone and it's

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Speaker 1: just gnawing like there's no tomorrow. This is This reminds

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Speaker 1: me again of what we're talking about with squirrels eating

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Speaker 1: the flesh of road kill and the artificial, uh nature

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Speaker 1: of that situation. This is a very This is a

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Speaker 1: similar situation like due to human civilization, we not only

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Speaker 1: have dead animals killed in the road, we also have

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Speaker 1: lots of roadside bones with flesh still hanging off the

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Speaker 1: bone and some delicious you know, red sauce as well. Okay,

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Speaker 1: next message. This is actually one of a genre of

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Speaker 1: messages that we got from listeners who wanted to correct

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Speaker 1: something I said. So I said, uh, squirrels are now

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Speaker 1: found pretty much everywhere except Antarctica. And some of our

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Speaker 1: New Zealander listeners disagreed, they said. For example, Liam writes

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Speaker 1: in saying I love your show so much and all

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Speaker 1: the shows on the How Stuff Works Network, but I

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Speaker 1: absolutely had to let you know that there are no

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Speaker 1: squirrels here in little old New Zealand, and I myself

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Speaker 1: have never seen one. So jealous you see them every day.

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Speaker 1: Keep up the great work, and thanks for giving me

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Speaker 1: great podcast to fall asleep to every night. I hope

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Speaker 1: you did not fall asleep during the squirrel Castration myth episode. Uh,

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Speaker 1: because man, what kind of dreams would that produce? Oh?

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Speaker 1: Now here's a question for everybody. If there are no

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Speaker 1: squirrels in New Zealand, that also means there are no

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Speaker 1: squirrels in Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings and Hobbit movie.

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Speaker 1: Oh no, but I'm trying to think back. I recently

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Speaker 1: reread The Hobbit with my son. I can't remember if

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Speaker 1: Tolkien ever mentioned squirrels, Like there are a lot of

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Speaker 1: scenes of you know, our characters traveling through woodland areas.

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Speaker 1: I'm thinking surely he mentioned squirrels at some point or another.

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Speaker 1: Surely he did. I'd love to hear from anyone out

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Speaker 1: there who can who can answer that question for me?

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Speaker 1: And if there are no, then what does that mean

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Speaker 1: for those movies? Don't we need to go back in

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Speaker 1: like the next big wave of c g I that

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Speaker 1: is applied to those films that've got to add some

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Speaker 1: c g I squirrels to make it right. What is

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Speaker 1: the Elfish word for squirrel? Scooky doo or something. Probably

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Speaker 1: school Doc should take a break, Robert, let's do. Let's

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Speaker 1: take a quick break, and we'll come back with more

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Speaker 1: squirrel emails. That's all this episode is going to be. Alright,

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Speaker 1: We're back, Okay. We got an amazing message, a couple

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Speaker 1: of messages from our listener Bevy uh Betty. Betty really

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Speaker 1: brought it. So she writes, Hi, guys, I'm writing with

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Speaker 1: some thoughts about your episode on squirrels. However, let me

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Speaker 1: start off by saying I'm a huge fan of your show.

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Speaker 1: I listened to an absolutely adore a whole bunch of

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Speaker 1: pod casts in the house stuff Works family, but you

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Speaker 1: guys are definitely one of my faves. All thank you.

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Speaker 1: That's some high praise because the house stuff Works network

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Speaker 1: has so many wonderful shows. Well, thank you, Betty, Betty Rights.

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Speaker 1: I volunteer at a wildlife shelter for about eight hours

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Speaker 1: a week and right now in the Pacific Northwest at least,

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Speaker 1: it is the height of baby season for Eastern gray

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Speaker 1: and Douglas squirrels. In fact, now that our baby possums

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Speaker 1: are all grown up, our nursery is currently exclusively filled

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Speaker 1: with baby squirrels and one chip month, most of the

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Speaker 1: babies ended up with us because they were orphaned, though

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Speaker 1: in some unfortunate cases they were brought in by well

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Speaker 1: meaning folks who didn't realize the parents were likely just

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Speaker 1: off gathering food. Yeah, this is a common Uh. This

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Speaker 1: is a common thing that comes up with with wildlife

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Speaker 1: rescue groups. Is that a lot of times you people

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Speaker 1: think they're doing the right thing by bringing the animal in,

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Speaker 1: while in reality they should have perhaps just waited for

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Speaker 1: the the the parent to to do its thing. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: so I guess don't do that. Uh so. Picking up

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Speaker 1: with Betty's message, I have some theory about why squirrels

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Speaker 1: are sometimes mistakenly thought to be castrated, although the fact

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Speaker 1: that their testicles only descenduring mating season is probably a

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Speaker 1: larger factor in the myth than what's contained in my hypotheses. However,

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Speaker 1: the following may help outline some contributing factors that can

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Speaker 1: help explain why some hunters claim to have observed fresh

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Speaker 1: castration wounds on juvenile males. Basically, I have four ideas,

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Speaker 1: which are as follows man four ideas about squirrel castration.

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Speaker 1: This is rich number one, at least in juveniles. The

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Speaker 1: anuses of both sexes don't really look like anuses. Instead,

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Speaker 1: they look like small red dots and are located directly

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Speaker 1: beneath the genitals, right near where one might expect the

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Speaker 1: testicles to be. Though it would be a strange mistake

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Speaker 1: to make, I suppose it would be possible that the

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Speaker 1: untrained eye could mistake the anus for a small scab

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Speaker 1: resulting from a recent castration, especially if you were already

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Speaker 1: expecting to find such a wound. The fact that the

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Speaker 1: alleged castration wounds have and described as being remarkably cleanly cut.

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Speaker 1: Makes it even more likely that the surprisingly unanosy appearance

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Speaker 1: of the anus could be misinterpreted as the remains of

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Speaker 1: a juvenile's testicles. That sounds reasonable, I'd say, uh, point

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Speaker 1: number one already a home run. Number two. Why am

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Speaker 1: I so intimately acquainted with the appearance of squirrel butts,

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Speaker 1: you might ask, Well, when caring for baby squirrels, you

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Speaker 1: have to be sure to regularly stimulate each baby's anus

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Speaker 1: slash genitals in order to help them poop slash p

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Speaker 1: We typically do this using a wet cotton ball to

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Speaker 1: gently wipe the squirrels bellies, but in the wild the

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Speaker 1: mother uses her tongue to achieve the same result. In fact,

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Speaker 1: it's even possible, although probably a bit of a stretch,

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Speaker 1: that some misinterpreted castration wounds were the result of accidental

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Speaker 1: biting on the mother's part. This makes sense as well.

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Speaker 1: This is a solid there. And both of these really

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Speaker 1: drive home the fact that if you are watching any

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Speaker 1: wild animal, or even a domestic animal, and you are

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Speaker 1: just expecting very anthropomorphic or sort of beatrics Potter story

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Speaker 1: book um behavior, you're going to be disappointed because these

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Speaker 1: are animals, and they're going to behave as such. They're

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Speaker 1: then they're not going to behave necessarily like you expect

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Speaker 1: them too. Well. Also like charging animal behaviors with associations

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Speaker 1: to human taboos, because like the idea of a mother

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Speaker 1: licking that their offsprings anus, that that's like so weird

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Speaker 1: in the human context that you see an animal doing

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Speaker 1: that and you think like there must be something sinister

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Speaker 1: going on. Yeah, yeah, indeed. Um, speaking of which, I'm

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Speaker 1: definitely hoping that we get to do a Thanksgiving episode

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Speaker 1: on poop eating and animals, because this is another example

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Speaker 1: of something that is certainly a taboo and human circles,

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Speaker 1: but there's some wonderful examples from the animal world in

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Speaker 1: which it is regularly practiced and is a part of

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Speaker 1: being a healthy young member of that species. We already

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Speaker 1: smash the cuteness of squirrels into oblivion. We're about to

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Speaker 1: take bunnies from you as well. No, no, no, I

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Speaker 1: take that back. Squirrels are still cute. They're still cute,

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Speaker 1: even though they sometimes the flesh and brains and whatever. Alright,

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Speaker 1: So back to Bevy's email number three point number three.

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Speaker 1: In the episode, I believe that you expressed doubt at

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Speaker 1: the theory that some of the misinterpreted wounds were the

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Speaker 1: result of other baby squirrels trying to suckle on the

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Speaker 1: mail's mistaking their privates for mother's nipples. It's possible that

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Speaker 1: I made that doubt up, though, no. I That was

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Speaker 1: what one one author wrote into jama when they were

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Speaker 1: having the big late nineteenth century squirrel castration debate. One

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Speaker 1: author wrote in with this as a hypothesis, and I

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Speaker 1: was trying I couldn't quite tell if the person who

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Speaker 1: wrote this was joking, because it sounded like it might

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Speaker 1: be a joke, but he was saying, like, well, maybe

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Speaker 1: it's other squirrels in the nest trying to get nutrition

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Speaker 1: and mistaking well, you know, so here picking up with

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Speaker 1: Bebby's email. It's possible that I made this doubt up,

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Speaker 1: though I was trying to clean up some particularly rank

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Speaker 1: possum poop while I was listening to the episode, so

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Speaker 1: I was understandably a bit distracted. However, I think that

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Speaker 1: it's actually a valid theory to consider. Although I haven't

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Speaker 1: observed it myself, I've heard from other volunteers at the

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Speaker 1: shelter that it's relatively common for possum infants to try

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Speaker 1: to suckle on each other if they have no mother present.

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Speaker 1: I've never heard or seen of this behavior in baby squirrels,

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Speaker 1: but it's definitely a possibility. Well that's interesting, so maybe

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Speaker 1: that that writer was not joking. Number four. My final

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Speaker 1: note regarding squirrel castration is that, at least in juveniles,

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Speaker 1: male and female squirrels look very similar. Interestingly to me

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Speaker 1: at least, though maybe I'm just weird. This does not

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Speaker 1: mean that a male's penis is hard to spot, but

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Speaker 1: actually the reverse females instead look a bit like they

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Speaker 1: have penises. I'm not quite sure why that is, since

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Speaker 1: it seems less likely that females would have volvas that

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Speaker 1: protrude from the body than it would be for males

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Speaker 1: to have penises that stayed close to the body. Well,

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Speaker 1: it wouldn't be that crazy. I mean, I think we've

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Speaker 1: talked about hyenas on this show before, and I have

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Speaker 1: a similar situation, with female hyenas being the larger of

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Speaker 1: the species and having some similar characteristics with their their

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Speaker 1: sex organs. Yeah uh so, she continues, I don't know

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Speaker 1: if the sexes remain difficult to differentiate once they reach adulthood.

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Speaker 1: Since adult squirrels are vicious little monsters whose butts I

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Speaker 1: luckily don't have to deal with on a regular basis.

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Speaker 1: But if they do, then in the very specific case

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Speaker 1: of Hunter kills a male squirrel with descended testicles and

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Speaker 1: then compares it side by side with a female, it

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Speaker 1: might be conceivable to maybe think that the female was

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Speaker 1: a male without testicles. Combine this with the possibility of

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Speaker 1: misinterpreting the appearance of the anus, and you've got yourself

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Speaker 1: an urban legend in the making. I apologize for such

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Speaker 1: a long email, but your episode was absolutely fascinating and

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Speaker 1: completely sparked my interest. Keep up the good work, Bevy.

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Speaker 1: Oh and then Betty also shared some photos from the

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Speaker 1: shelter with us, and then another follow up from Bevy quote,

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Speaker 1: I have an update on my email. I asked some

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Speaker 1: of my fellow volunteers about squirrels suckling on each other,

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Speaker 1: and it turns out it's quite common. In fact, we

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Speaker 1: had to split a group of siblings up yesterday for

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Speaker 1: that very reason. Well, I don't think the suckling would

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Speaker 1: create raised areas on the skin, it could definitely explain

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Speaker 1: scabs and other injuries. On the genitals of juveniles. And

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Speaker 1: that concludes Bevy's massive dissertation on squirrel anuses and genitals. Uh,

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Speaker 1: that's great, That's exactly the kind of field report we

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Speaker 1: were looking for. This was an awesome listener, Male Bevy,

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Speaker 1: Thank you so much. Now I just have to go

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Speaker 1: back to our discussion of of barbecue bones for a second.

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Speaker 1: And isn't it interesting that you know that that some

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Speaker 1: humans might be thinking, Oh, I'm so creeped out because

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Speaker 1: squirrels are actually eating meat. We the species that have

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Speaker 1: streets literally littered with the bones of the creatures that

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Speaker 1: we consume, as as sometimes it's just mere snacks. You know,

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00:21:55,440 --> 00:21:58,520
Speaker 1: it seems a little absurd, doesn't it. Well, Yeah, so

403
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Speaker 1: like I'm waiting to get on the bus and I

404
00:22:00,840 --> 00:22:04,000
Speaker 1: throw my barbecue bones on the sidewalk, and that's normal,

405
00:22:04,160 --> 00:22:06,720
Speaker 1: but if a squirrel comes and picks it up, that's weird.

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Speaker 1: All right? I have one I want to read here

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Speaker 1: from Tony. Tony says I was very pleasantly surprised to

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Speaker 1: see two recent episodes dealing slowly with squirrels. I've only

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Speaker 1: listened to the first at the time I am writing this,

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Speaker 1: but I had to immediately send up this email. My

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Speaker 1: girlfriend and I recently moved into a new home to

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Speaker 1: the horror music and discovered a fair amount of squirrels

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Speaker 1: roaming the property. Thinking they were adorable, we begin feeding them,

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Speaker 1: much to the chagrin of my family members, who told

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Speaker 1: us we'd regret it. We ignore there weren't in warnings

416
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Speaker 1: and continued to put out a buffet of choices each day,

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Speaker 1: corn seeds and unsalted in the shell peanuts. We bought

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Speaker 1: it just for them. To make a long story short,

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Speaker 1: the squirrels have become very demanding, and on some mornings

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Speaker 1: there will be no fewer than six or seven on

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Speaker 1: our deck begging for food. They'll run along the window

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00:22:54,600 --> 00:22:57,080
Speaker 1: sill or sit on our lawn chairs. In some cases

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Speaker 1: of particularly aggressive squirrel will scratch at the door or

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Speaker 1: even jump onto the screen and climb around until we

425
00:23:03,119 --> 00:23:07,080
Speaker 1: provide nourishment. In the first attacked attached picture, you will

426
00:23:07,080 --> 00:23:10,280
Speaker 1: see a black squirrel on its hind legs begging, and

427
00:23:10,280 --> 00:23:13,120
Speaker 1: in the second a squirrel is on the screen which

428
00:23:13,160 --> 00:23:17,000
Speaker 1: you can't really see, making for a fascinating image. Thanks

429
00:23:17,040 --> 00:23:19,879
Speaker 1: for the informative and entertaining shows. I'm off to listen

430
00:23:19,920 --> 00:23:23,600
Speaker 1: to part two now, uh, and that was Tony from

431
00:23:23,600 --> 00:23:27,680
Speaker 1: a suburb of Chicago. We never heard from Tony again too,

432
00:23:27,760 --> 00:23:30,919
Speaker 1: so I did not know if the squirrels eventually just

433
00:23:31,280 --> 00:23:33,800
Speaker 1: burst into the house like Night of a Living Dead

434
00:23:33,920 --> 00:23:37,200
Speaker 1: and just consumed everybody they got him. Now he mentioned

435
00:23:37,200 --> 00:23:40,200
Speaker 1: this photo. This is a photo of a squirrel climbing

436
00:23:40,280 --> 00:23:42,680
Speaker 1: on the outside of a screen door. But you can't

437
00:23:42,720 --> 00:23:45,520
Speaker 1: see the screen in the photo, so it just looks

438
00:23:45,560 --> 00:23:48,560
Speaker 1: like a squirrel hovering upside down in the hair with

439
00:23:48,640 --> 00:23:52,520
Speaker 1: its belly exposed. This is pretty good. Yeah, I like it. Uh.

440
00:23:52,800 --> 00:23:55,520
Speaker 1: I feel sort of the same way with the squirrel

441
00:23:55,520 --> 00:23:57,760
Speaker 1: feedings that we're going on at our house up because

442
00:23:57,840 --> 00:23:59,720
Speaker 1: for a while I would when I would go to

443
00:23:59,760 --> 00:24:02,760
Speaker 1: put out the meal worms, I think all they would

444
00:24:02,760 --> 00:24:04,879
Speaker 1: have to hear is just the sound of the the

445
00:24:04,920 --> 00:24:08,439
Speaker 1: aluminum container that we keep them keep the food in.

446
00:24:08,960 --> 00:24:11,680
Speaker 1: And then six or seven would come and they would

447
00:24:11,680 --> 00:24:13,959
Speaker 1: and they would be like a scuffle, Like which squirrel

448
00:24:13,960 --> 00:24:16,720
Speaker 1: we'd even watched, you know, mused to see, like which

449
00:24:16,720 --> 00:24:18,800
Speaker 1: squirrel is kind of the alpha squirrel just able to

450
00:24:18,840 --> 00:24:21,520
Speaker 1: fight off all the others. So is it gonna be

451
00:24:21,560 --> 00:24:24,040
Speaker 1: the you know, the slightly red faced squirrel or the

452
00:24:24,080 --> 00:24:27,400
Speaker 1: blondie squirrel. It's certainly not going to be the warble

453
00:24:27,560 --> 00:24:30,800
Speaker 1: covered squirrel because we have gotten to see a couple

454
00:24:30,840 --> 00:24:33,760
Speaker 1: of those there. They we mentioned those in those episodes

455
00:24:33,800 --> 00:24:37,600
Speaker 1: about how the bot flies will affect them and they'll

456
00:24:37,600 --> 00:24:41,680
Speaker 1: have these warbles in which the larva are growing. Uh, yeah,

457
00:24:41,680 --> 00:24:43,280
Speaker 1: we've we've seen a couple of those. It was also

458
00:24:43,400 --> 00:24:47,159
Speaker 1: very interesting to observe them the week or two before

459
00:24:47,280 --> 00:24:49,800
Speaker 1: my family went on a trip to Costa Rica. Costa

460
00:24:49,880 --> 00:24:51,600
Speaker 1: Rica being one of the parts of the world where

461
00:24:51,640 --> 00:24:54,320
Speaker 1: you will encounter the human bot fly that we that

462
00:24:54,440 --> 00:24:56,679
Speaker 1: we discussed in the episode, So you know, you couldn't

463
00:24:56,680 --> 00:24:59,440
Speaker 1: help but think in the back of your mind, like like, oh, God,

464
00:24:59,520 --> 00:25:00,840
Speaker 1: is this gonna happened to me? Am I going to

465
00:25:00,880 --> 00:25:03,560
Speaker 1: come back from Costa Rica with with giant warbles in

466
00:25:03,600 --> 00:25:08,119
Speaker 1: my neck full of larval spawn. Fortunately didn't happen, Like

467
00:25:08,160 --> 00:25:10,600
Speaker 1: that would have made a good episode though, Yeah, I

468
00:25:10,960 --> 00:25:12,400
Speaker 1: figured it was like, well, it would probably be good

469
00:25:12,400 --> 00:25:14,359
Speaker 1: for the show if I got a bottle fly. Uh

470
00:25:14,480 --> 00:25:16,560
Speaker 1: you know, we could even bust out some video of it.

471
00:25:16,640 --> 00:25:19,199
Speaker 1: But thankfully I didn't have to make that. That choice. Well,

472
00:25:19,200 --> 00:25:24,440
Speaker 1: I'm a little sore at Nature for denying us hashtag content. Alright,

473
00:25:24,480 --> 00:25:27,120
Speaker 1: this next message comes to us from our listener, Emily.

474
00:25:27,440 --> 00:25:30,120
Speaker 1: She writes, good afternoon, guys, huge fan of the show.

475
00:25:30,440 --> 00:25:33,200
Speaker 1: I especially loved your squirrel episodes as I was listening

476
00:25:33,240 --> 00:25:36,760
Speaker 1: to you discuss the possibly carnivorous squirrels hunting down and

477
00:25:36,840 --> 00:25:39,240
Speaker 1: eating deer. And to be clear, we we didn't really

478
00:25:39,280 --> 00:25:42,240
Speaker 1: believe that story. No, that was the one that came

479
00:25:42,240 --> 00:25:46,920
Speaker 1: to us via the Russian media as right. But Emily writes,

480
00:25:47,080 --> 00:25:49,879
Speaker 1: first of all, I believe it. I then remembered that

481
00:25:50,000 --> 00:25:52,399
Speaker 1: last winter where I live in northern Wisconsin, it was

482
00:25:52,480 --> 00:25:55,159
Speaker 1: quite a tough one for our wildlife friends. It was

483
00:25:55,200 --> 00:25:57,840
Speaker 1: bitterly cold, we had several feet of snow, and the

484
00:25:57,880 --> 00:26:00,800
Speaker 1: winter was very long. It continue you to snow well

485
00:26:00,840 --> 00:26:04,400
Speaker 1: into May. The deer population had had a particularly hard

486
00:26:04,440 --> 00:26:07,920
Speaker 1: time around the time where vegetation should have been returning.

487
00:26:08,160 --> 00:26:11,680
Speaker 1: The deer found only frozen dirt. They started starving off.

488
00:26:11,960 --> 00:26:15,040
Speaker 1: The deer were desperate, and we observed some odd behaviors

489
00:26:15,080 --> 00:26:18,760
Speaker 1: from them. The strangest was the deer appeared to become carnivorous.

490
00:26:19,040 --> 00:26:23,400
Speaker 1: There were many reports of deer eating birds and squirrels,

491
00:26:23,480 --> 00:26:26,880
Speaker 1: So if squirrels turned to hunting deer, the deer turned

492
00:26:26,880 --> 00:26:29,719
Speaker 1: to hunting squirrels. The forest is a rough place, and

493
00:26:29,800 --> 00:26:32,879
Speaker 1: she shares some videos she found online. Again, I'm a

494
00:26:32,920 --> 00:26:36,120
Speaker 1: huge fan. Keep up the good work. Well, thank you, Emily. Yeah,

495
00:26:36,160 --> 00:26:39,320
Speaker 1: I've actually heard about deer eating meat before, and and

496
00:26:39,359 --> 00:26:43,560
Speaker 1: not not predation and hunting, but like scavenging from carcasses.

497
00:26:43,640 --> 00:26:46,240
Speaker 1: It's surprising how many animals we think of as purely

498
00:26:46,280 --> 00:26:50,080
Speaker 1: herbivorous will dive into some meat if, if, if, nature

499
00:26:50,359 --> 00:26:53,199
Speaker 1: drives them to it. Yeah, I mean, ultimately, it's all energy, right,

500
00:26:53,840 --> 00:26:55,399
Speaker 1: all right, here's another one. This one comes to us

501
00:26:55,400 --> 00:26:58,800
Speaker 1: from Merle. Merle writes in and says Robert and Joe,

502
00:26:59,160 --> 00:27:01,720
Speaker 1: I just finished loosten to both squirrel episodes and found

503
00:27:01,720 --> 00:27:04,960
Speaker 1: them entertaining and informative. I trapped squirrels for a living.

504
00:27:05,240 --> 00:27:07,520
Speaker 1: I know this sounds an odd job for the twenty

505
00:27:07,520 --> 00:27:10,440
Speaker 1: one century. However, it is also a very important job.

506
00:27:11,200 --> 00:27:13,639
Speaker 1: Ground squirrels, as implied by their name, it dig a

507
00:27:13,680 --> 00:27:16,840
Speaker 1: long and deep burrows. This is a fine way to

508
00:27:16,920 --> 00:27:20,600
Speaker 1: avoid predators and is excellent out in the wilderness. The

509
00:27:20,720 --> 00:27:23,879
Speaker 1: problem occurs when they burrow into our levies and dams,

510
00:27:24,160 --> 00:27:28,200
Speaker 1: when our waterway structures become unstable, flooding and mass property

511
00:27:28,240 --> 00:27:31,400
Speaker 1: damage occurs, as well as possible loss of life. While

512
00:27:31,440 --> 00:27:33,879
Speaker 1: I don't hate squirrels, I recognize the need to manage

513
00:27:33,920 --> 00:27:36,840
Speaker 1: their population. Just to note, I live trap. Anything that

514
00:27:36,920 --> 00:27:40,000
Speaker 1: isn't a ground squirrel is released. Love the show. Now,

515
00:27:40,040 --> 00:27:41,480
Speaker 1: I love that bit of insight, and it just sort

516
00:27:41,480 --> 00:27:46,600
Speaker 1: of the uh, the real world ramifications of of squirrel

517
00:27:46,680 --> 00:27:50,360
Speaker 1: activity and that it is going to become necessary to

518
00:27:50,359 --> 00:27:54,240
Speaker 1: to to check their populations in some instances. Yeah, I

519
00:27:54,240 --> 00:27:56,080
Speaker 1: can certainly see how that would be a big problem

520
00:27:56,080 --> 00:27:58,360
Speaker 1: when they're when you're talking about levies and damns. Though,

521
00:27:58,359 --> 00:28:00,760
Speaker 1: I just got a horrible parallel thought, which is, like,

522
00:28:00,960 --> 00:28:04,280
Speaker 1: I bet there's some there's some squirrel control going on

523
00:28:04,359 --> 00:28:07,800
Speaker 1: in like California golf courses, right, Oh yeah, but there's

524
00:28:07,800 --> 00:28:10,800
Speaker 1: a whole lot of unnatural things going on with with

525
00:28:11,040 --> 00:28:15,439
Speaker 1: California golf courses. I'm picturing Caddyshack, but it's a but

526
00:28:15,480 --> 00:28:17,840
Speaker 1: it's a ground squirrel. Oh yeah, Caddyshack. Well, the Catty

527
00:28:17,840 --> 00:28:20,320
Speaker 1: Shack gives it. Uh, you know, I'm not much nicer

528
00:28:20,960 --> 00:28:23,080
Speaker 1: we can relate to Caddy Shack. There's very little in

529
00:28:23,080 --> 00:28:24,840
Speaker 1: the golfing world I can relate to, but I can

530
00:28:24,840 --> 00:28:27,960
Speaker 1: relate to catty shack ground squirrels groove into yacht rock,

531
00:28:28,840 --> 00:28:32,920
Speaker 1: chewing up golf courses on the West coast behind. Yes,

532
00:28:33,040 --> 00:28:35,560
Speaker 1: I'm on the squirrel side all right. This one is

533
00:28:35,600 --> 00:28:39,680
Speaker 1: from our listener, Trey Uh. Trey says, you're welcome to

534
00:28:39,720 --> 00:28:42,200
Speaker 1: share any of this info. Keep doing a great job.

535
00:28:42,680 --> 00:28:45,480
Speaker 1: I am from western North Carolina, near Tennessee. I grew

536
00:28:45,520 --> 00:28:48,840
Speaker 1: up with very old school grandparents. The first story is

537
00:28:48,880 --> 00:28:51,600
Speaker 1: the skug hunt. We spent a lot of time hunting

538
00:28:51,680 --> 00:28:54,840
Speaker 1: or cutting down trees. On several occasions, during droughts, we

539
00:28:54,840 --> 00:28:58,360
Speaker 1: would witness migrations. The floor would appear to be alive

540
00:28:58,440 --> 00:29:01,320
Speaker 1: with so many gray squirrels on the move. Papa said

541
00:29:01,360 --> 00:29:03,800
Speaker 1: they would chase down prey as a pack. I never

542
00:29:03,840 --> 00:29:08,480
Speaker 1: witnessed them killing anything, but Papal would never lie. The

543
00:29:08,600 --> 00:29:12,000
Speaker 1: second story is about squirrels and castration. When it comes

544
00:29:12,040 --> 00:29:14,880
Speaker 1: down to, dominant squirrels are amazing. I've witnessed on four

545
00:29:14,920 --> 00:29:18,480
Speaker 1: occasions fights happening in the trees. Everything was a target,

546
00:29:18,480 --> 00:29:20,680
Speaker 1: but the goal was to knock the other squirrel off

547
00:29:20,720 --> 00:29:23,080
Speaker 1: to be eaten by the dogs. I don't know if

548
00:29:23,120 --> 00:29:27,120
Speaker 1: I'd put that much consciousness into it. Yeah, like you

549
00:29:27,240 --> 00:29:31,200
Speaker 1: put the dogs there. Yeah, But anyway, some of them

550
00:29:31,200 --> 00:29:33,400
Speaker 1: were smart enough to pick the terrain and would lure

551
00:29:33,440 --> 00:29:36,360
Speaker 1: the other squirrels to their doom. Waiting below was the

552
00:29:36,360 --> 00:29:39,880
Speaker 1: faithful dog watching for the falling easy prey. I've witnessed

553
00:29:39,880 --> 00:29:43,160
Speaker 1: it many locations because squirrels do a chattering noise before

554
00:29:43,200 --> 00:29:46,400
Speaker 1: the attack. Also watch a few videos on skinning and

555
00:29:46,440 --> 00:29:51,160
Speaker 1: cleaning squirrels. The testicles do rise into the abdomen. Yes,

556
00:29:51,680 --> 00:29:56,640
Speaker 1: yes they do. Uh, Trey says. The squirrel inferret story

557
00:29:56,760 --> 00:30:00,400
Speaker 1: is most likely BS. We certainly hope so a cape squirrel.

558
00:30:00,440 --> 00:30:03,760
Speaker 1: Given the opportunity, We'll put somebody in the hospital from scratches.

559
00:30:04,200 --> 00:30:07,440
Speaker 1: These deep lacerations often need stitches. I was shocked about

560
00:30:07,440 --> 00:30:10,800
Speaker 1: the Grand Canyon story about squirrels climbing on people. I was.

561
00:30:10,880 --> 00:30:13,320
Speaker 1: I was shocked by this story as I was there

562
00:30:13,400 --> 00:30:16,360
Speaker 1: to witness it a little. Luckily nobody was hurt. Now

563
00:30:16,360 --> 00:30:20,080
Speaker 1: I'm a little curious about Papa's story about the floor

564
00:30:20,200 --> 00:30:23,880
Speaker 1: of the forest being covered in squirrels. I mean it

565
00:30:23,960 --> 00:30:28,360
Speaker 1: sounds like the ending to um like a Tennessee based

566
00:30:28,480 --> 00:30:31,640
Speaker 1: a weird fiction story. From like the thirties. Right, Well,

567
00:30:31,640 --> 00:30:34,840
Speaker 1: what's that movie is like Willard where the dad from

568
00:30:34,840 --> 00:30:39,000
Speaker 1: Back to the Future is controlling an army Crispin Glover. Yeah, yeah,

569
00:30:39,080 --> 00:30:42,240
Speaker 1: I saw that one. I remember thinking he was creepy

570
00:30:42,240 --> 00:30:44,320
Speaker 1: in it. So if Crispin Glover controls an army of

571
00:30:44,400 --> 00:30:47,040
Speaker 1: rats to do as bidding witch actor controls an army

572
00:30:47,040 --> 00:30:50,240
Speaker 1: of squirrels, oh, you would have like a it would

573
00:30:50,240 --> 00:30:53,280
Speaker 1: be a squirrel lord. Maybe. I think Christopher Walkin could

574
00:30:53,320 --> 00:30:57,280
Speaker 1: play that role. Maybe how about Tim Curry the skug Lord. Yeah, yeah,

575
00:30:57,320 --> 00:31:00,840
Speaker 1: Tim Curry could have played the scug Lord at least

576
00:31:00,840 --> 00:31:05,040
Speaker 1: a few decades back. Um, this reminds me In Dungeons

577
00:31:05,080 --> 00:31:10,280
Speaker 1: and Dragons, you have these creatures called cranium rats. They're yeah,

578
00:31:10,320 --> 00:31:13,120
Speaker 1: they're pretty great because they're they're essentially just each one

579
00:31:13,240 --> 00:31:16,800
Speaker 1: individually is just a rat, and they're the product of

580
00:31:16,880 --> 00:31:20,120
Speaker 1: the elipids, the mind ful airs, and they you know,

581
00:31:20,160 --> 00:31:23,200
Speaker 1: they'll go around and they're kind of spies for the elithids.

582
00:31:24,560 --> 00:31:26,480
Speaker 1: One cranium rat not the big of a deal. But

583
00:31:26,520 --> 00:31:28,400
Speaker 1: if you have two cranium rats, well they have the

584
00:31:28,440 --> 00:31:32,560
Speaker 1: pooled mind of two creatures. Three cranium rats have the

585
00:31:32,560 --> 00:31:35,400
Speaker 1: pooled mind of three creatures. If you have a swarm

586
00:31:35,440 --> 00:31:38,760
Speaker 1: of cranium rats, then you have they all have one

587
00:31:38,840 --> 00:31:42,200
Speaker 1: collective mind, and then they take on all these additional

588
00:31:42,240 --> 00:31:46,360
Speaker 1: psionic powers, so that they become quite a difficult creature

589
00:31:46,440 --> 00:31:49,040
Speaker 1: to encounter if you encounter enough of them. I wonder

590
00:31:49,080 --> 00:31:51,600
Speaker 1: if you could have a similar situation if the elithids

591
00:31:51,600 --> 00:31:54,920
Speaker 1: were working on the surface, you could have cranium squirrels

592
00:31:55,440 --> 00:32:00,080
Speaker 1: sending you know, big big rugs of squirrels sending I

593
00:32:00,200 --> 00:32:03,600
Speaker 1: kick fireballs that their enemies. You're gonna work this into

594
00:32:03,640 --> 00:32:06,000
Speaker 1: your next campaign. If they ever get back to the surface,

595
00:32:06,040 --> 00:32:07,680
Speaker 1: they're all stuck in the under dark, so it's just

596
00:32:07,680 --> 00:32:10,040
Speaker 1: gonna be probably rats from here on out. It could

597
00:32:10,080 --> 00:32:13,240
Speaker 1: be cranium ground squirrels burrow all the way down. Okay,

598
00:32:13,240 --> 00:32:15,960
Speaker 1: that could work. Yeah, I'll go with that. Okay, maybe

599
00:32:16,000 --> 00:32:17,680
Speaker 1: we need to take another quick break and when we

600
00:32:17,760 --> 00:32:20,920
Speaker 1: come back we will finish up our exploration of listener

601
00:32:20,960 --> 00:32:26,000
Speaker 1: mail about squirrels. Thank you, thank you. All right, we're back.

602
00:32:26,040 --> 00:32:28,720
Speaker 1: You know, we were just talking about dungeons and dragons.

603
00:32:28,720 --> 00:32:31,800
Speaker 1: So it's kind of ironic that our next bit of

604
00:32:31,840 --> 00:32:35,320
Speaker 1: listener mail comes to us from Lisa I believe or

605
00:32:35,720 --> 00:32:38,160
Speaker 1: Lease l I s e. I guess that's Lease or

606
00:32:38,240 --> 00:32:41,440
Speaker 1: Lisa at any rate, She says, quote, I just finished

607
00:32:41,480 --> 00:32:43,680
Speaker 1: listening to part one of this and wanted to thank you.

608
00:32:43,720 --> 00:32:46,160
Speaker 1: I'm trying to come up with some creepy color text

609
00:32:46,280 --> 00:32:50,000
Speaker 1: for my next RPG run, Fate Core, if you're keeping track,

610
00:32:50,320 --> 00:32:51,760
Speaker 1: I don't know what. I'm not familiar with that one,

611
00:32:51,760 --> 00:32:54,280
Speaker 1: but I mean, there are a lot of of RPG

612
00:32:54,320 --> 00:32:58,040
Speaker 1: gaming systems out there, and scheming carnivorous squirrels are just

613
00:32:58,120 --> 00:33:01,400
Speaker 1: the ticket. Looking forward to addering deer corpses and have

614
00:33:01,520 --> 00:33:05,640
Speaker 1: had that have had their sinews not out around the landscape,

615
00:33:05,840 --> 00:33:09,200
Speaker 1: and squirrels hunting snakes and hoarding bones will also work

616
00:33:09,320 --> 00:33:13,200
Speaker 1: really well. Excellent. I'm glad anytime we can inspire an

617
00:33:13,280 --> 00:33:15,880
Speaker 1: RPG campaign. I feel like we've we've done a good job.

618
00:33:16,120 --> 00:33:19,880
Speaker 1: The Monsters of Reality once again outstripped. The surprising and

619
00:33:19,880 --> 00:33:24,160
Speaker 1: wonderful nature of the monster is in the Monster Manual. Indeed,

620
00:33:25,440 --> 00:33:28,440
Speaker 1: though I guess the deer corpses, that's probably not. That's

621
00:33:28,440 --> 00:33:32,040
Speaker 1: probably not reality? Is it probably not? Probably not? Okay,

622
00:33:32,040 --> 00:33:34,560
Speaker 1: here's the fun when this comes from our listener, Erica.

623
00:33:34,960 --> 00:33:37,560
Speaker 1: Erica writes Hello. First, I want to say I love

624
00:33:37,560 --> 00:33:39,400
Speaker 1: your podcast so much and listen to it all the

625
00:33:39,400 --> 00:33:41,320
Speaker 1: time at work. It's wonderful and I'm so happy you

626
00:33:41,320 --> 00:33:43,360
Speaker 1: guys are making it well. Thank you for listening, Erica.

627
00:33:44,120 --> 00:33:47,480
Speaker 1: She writes, growing up, I watched Arthur on PBS all

628
00:33:47,520 --> 00:33:49,680
Speaker 1: the time. Robert, you know the show, Ah, yeah, I

629
00:33:49,680 --> 00:33:51,800
Speaker 1: know of it, Arthur the Ardvark. I think my son

630
00:33:52,120 --> 00:33:53,960
Speaker 1: has watched it a little bit. Is he's the guy

631
00:33:54,000 --> 00:33:57,200
Speaker 1: with glasses? Yeah, yeah, he has glasses sweaters. Yeah. And

632
00:33:57,240 --> 00:33:59,880
Speaker 1: I think if I remember correctly, he may have been

633
00:34:00,040 --> 00:34:02,120
Speaker 1: one that was one of the books about him was

634
00:34:02,160 --> 00:34:05,239
Speaker 1: a Reading Rainbow book back in the day, and uh,

635
00:34:05,240 --> 00:34:07,440
Speaker 1: and then it eventually became its own series. I feel

636
00:34:07,440 --> 00:34:10,600
Speaker 1: like the same thing happened with The Magic School Bus. Okay,

637
00:34:11,080 --> 00:34:12,839
Speaker 1: I could be it could be wrong on Arthur, though,

638
00:34:12,840 --> 00:34:14,960
Speaker 1: some of my fellow Reading Rainbow viewers will have to

639
00:34:15,280 --> 00:34:18,319
Speaker 1: China on that well. Erica says, uh, I watched Arthur

640
00:34:18,320 --> 00:34:20,640
Speaker 1: on PBS all the time growing up. And as soon

641
00:34:20,680 --> 00:34:22,640
Speaker 1: as you mentioned in part one that you were looking

642
00:34:22,640 --> 00:34:25,759
Speaker 1: for horror movies about squirrels, it came to mind, not

643
00:34:25,880 --> 00:34:29,440
Speaker 1: the movie yet, she just said. It's referring to Arthur. Yeah,

644
00:34:29,480 --> 00:34:33,320
Speaker 1: one episode focuses on this movie called The Squirrels, also

645
00:34:33,440 --> 00:34:36,279
Speaker 1: the title of the episode from season ten. Most of

646
00:34:36,280 --> 00:34:38,520
Speaker 1: the characters watched it, and they were all afraid of

647
00:34:38,560 --> 00:34:40,840
Speaker 1: squirrels for a while until they got over it and

648
00:34:40,920 --> 00:34:44,320
Speaker 1: learned a valuable lesson about irrational fears. The next movie

649
00:34:44,360 --> 00:34:47,440
Speaker 1: they all decided to watch is called The Birds. So

650
00:34:47,560 --> 00:34:50,400
Speaker 1: in case you're interested in finding a recreation of the

651
00:34:50,440 --> 00:34:52,799
Speaker 1: Squirrels or making your own, it would be a good

652
00:34:52,840 --> 00:34:55,480
Speaker 1: jumping off point. Have a great day. Oh you know,

653
00:34:55,600 --> 00:34:59,880
Speaker 1: I actually we're we are recording this episode before Halloween,

654
00:35:00,360 --> 00:35:02,200
Speaker 1: and I think I may just have to look up

655
00:35:02,239 --> 00:35:04,680
Speaker 1: that episode to show my son, because you know, Halloween

656
00:35:04,719 --> 00:35:07,399
Speaker 1: is this weird time where we're kind of encouraging all

657
00:35:07,480 --> 00:35:11,560
Speaker 1: these uh, you know, terrifying ideas and all, and uh

658
00:35:11,840 --> 00:35:15,799
Speaker 1: it is a good reminder, I think, at least for

659
00:35:15,800 --> 00:35:18,439
Speaker 1: for young children, that you know, we're we're engaging, we're

660
00:35:18,520 --> 00:35:22,240
Speaker 1: leaning into a lot of irrational fears this Halloween, and uh,

661
00:35:22,440 --> 00:35:24,719
Speaker 1: you know, we don't necessarily need to live in fear

662
00:35:24,760 --> 00:35:27,360
Speaker 1: of the scugs. This this is kind of a tangent,

663
00:35:27,440 --> 00:35:31,200
Speaker 1: but at what age do you generally think kids start

664
00:35:31,520 --> 00:35:36,880
Speaker 1: learning to enjoy being scared, like telling the difference between

665
00:35:37,040 --> 00:35:41,360
Speaker 1: like unpleasant fear and pleasant fear. I don't know, I

666
00:35:41,360 --> 00:35:44,479
Speaker 1: mean just going boo happens pretty early. So I feel

667
00:35:44,520 --> 00:35:47,839
Speaker 1: like they're they're they're versions of it that kick in

668
00:35:48,080 --> 00:35:52,120
Speaker 1: reasonably young, because ultimately, like what's a what's a jump scare?

669
00:35:52,160 --> 00:35:54,480
Speaker 1: What are any of these things but false positives? Right?

670
00:35:55,280 --> 00:35:59,320
Speaker 1: All right? This next one comes to us from Dan. Hello, gentlemen,

671
00:36:00,080 --> 00:36:02,520
Speaker 1: was excited to see your episodes on squirrels pop up

672
00:36:02,520 --> 00:36:04,440
Speaker 1: in my feed and I immediately knew I had to

673
00:36:04,480 --> 00:36:07,600
Speaker 1: write you to share a personal squirrel experience that makes

674
00:36:07,640 --> 00:36:10,880
Speaker 1: me shutter to this day. About fifteen years ago, I

675
00:36:10,920 --> 00:36:13,280
Speaker 1: lived in an apartment which had an old but functional

676
00:36:13,320 --> 00:36:16,200
Speaker 1: grill on the back deck. There's a squirrel that lived

677
00:36:16,200 --> 00:36:18,520
Speaker 1: near the apartment, which I came to no one's site.

678
00:36:19,440 --> 00:36:22,480
Speaker 1: The squirrel seemed to enjoy being very disruptive around our

679
00:36:22,520 --> 00:36:25,439
Speaker 1: apartment area. It would frequently go on our back deck

680
00:36:25,480 --> 00:36:29,240
Speaker 1: and chew things up or knock over plants. Maintaining bird

681
00:36:29,280 --> 00:36:31,960
Speaker 1: feeders was an impossibility. If we were grilling, I had

682
00:36:32,000 --> 00:36:34,640
Speaker 1: to keep a watchful eye because the squirrel would sneak

683
00:36:34,719 --> 00:36:38,480
Speaker 1: up and take food. I responded by frequently throwing acorns

684
00:36:38,560 --> 00:36:40,879
Speaker 1: or small pebbles at it. The longer we lived there,

685
00:36:41,000 --> 00:36:44,880
Speaker 1: the more I threw them with bad intent. One day

686
00:36:44,920 --> 00:36:47,000
Speaker 1: I went out to use the grill, I turned the

687
00:36:47,080 --> 00:36:50,040
Speaker 1: valve on the propane tank. I momentarily thought I heard

688
00:36:50,080 --> 00:36:52,880
Speaker 1: something a little unusual, but I didn't think much of it.

689
00:36:53,160 --> 00:36:56,399
Speaker 1: This obviously was poor thinking on my part. I then

690
00:36:56,480 --> 00:36:59,279
Speaker 1: turned on the grill burner and proceeded to try to

691
00:36:59,360 --> 00:37:02,160
Speaker 1: light the grill with the grill lighter and then a

692
00:37:02,160 --> 00:37:05,799
Speaker 1: gas lighter, to no avail. After probably close to two

693
00:37:05,840 --> 00:37:08,160
Speaker 1: minutes of stubbornly trying to light the grill, I decided

694
00:37:08,200 --> 00:37:10,520
Speaker 1: to investigate why it wasn't lighting. I turned off the

695
00:37:10,520 --> 00:37:13,240
Speaker 1: grill burner and I honed in on the unusual sound

696
00:37:13,320 --> 00:37:16,040
Speaker 1: I had heard, which was still clearly there. With a

697
00:37:16,120 --> 00:37:18,239
Speaker 1: lump in my throat, I looked underneath the grill, and

698
00:37:18,360 --> 00:37:21,640
Speaker 1: what I saw shook me to my core. The grill

699
00:37:21,760 --> 00:37:25,160
Speaker 1: gas line, which consisted of a tough synthetic rubber coated

700
00:37:25,440 --> 00:37:29,440
Speaker 1: coating over a not insubstantial metal core, had probably nickel

701
00:37:29,520 --> 00:37:33,080
Speaker 1: sized holes chewed through its side near where it connects

702
00:37:33,120 --> 00:37:36,839
Speaker 1: to the burners. Gas was visibly and rapidly pouring out

703
00:37:36,880 --> 00:37:39,640
Speaker 1: of the hole and spreading into an all around the

704
00:37:39,719 --> 00:37:42,520
Speaker 1: enclosed area at the bottom of the grill. Several other

705
00:37:42,560 --> 00:37:45,760
Speaker 1: bite marks were also apparent on the line. I rushed

706
00:37:45,760 --> 00:37:48,280
Speaker 1: to turn off the tank valve and then stood way

707
00:37:48,320 --> 00:37:51,040
Speaker 1: back from the grill to let the gas dissipate, all

708
00:37:51,080 --> 00:37:54,000
Speaker 1: the while shocked that I had not blown myself up.

709
00:37:54,560 --> 00:37:56,800
Speaker 1: As I stood there, wide eyed, I looked into the

710
00:37:56,840 --> 00:38:00,440
Speaker 1: backyard and I saw my nemesis perched on two legs,

711
00:38:00,520 --> 00:38:03,920
Speaker 1: watching me intently. The scientific part of my mind tends

712
00:38:03,960 --> 00:38:06,600
Speaker 1: to think that this must have been a coincidence, as

713
00:38:06,640 --> 00:38:10,080
Speaker 1: the squirrel had a proven chewing history, and it frequently

714
00:38:10,120 --> 00:38:13,040
Speaker 1: was in our backyard anyway. However, I cannot help but

715
00:38:13,120 --> 00:38:16,400
Speaker 1: consider that maybe the squirrel had grown tired of my

716
00:38:16,480 --> 00:38:21,360
Speaker 1: continued harassment and had decided to get even. Thanks for reading.

717
00:38:21,400 --> 00:38:25,319
Speaker 1: I love the show. Keep up the great work yours, sincerely, Dan.

718
00:38:25,520 --> 00:38:28,000
Speaker 1: I was on the edge of my seat. Dan. Well,

719
00:38:28,040 --> 00:38:31,359
Speaker 1: like I said, we received that email what several weeks back.

720
00:38:31,400 --> 00:38:33,920
Speaker 1: So I hope Dans still okay and the squirrels, or

721
00:38:33,920 --> 00:38:36,440
Speaker 1: at least he's worked it out with the squirrel nation. Well,

722
00:38:36,520 --> 00:38:38,600
Speaker 1: I think this was supposed to be fifteen years ago.

723
00:38:38,880 --> 00:38:41,600
Speaker 1: But maybe you squirrels might have a long memory. Yeah,

724
00:38:41,719 --> 00:38:44,400
Speaker 1: or the the there is the memory of the individual squirrel.

725
00:38:44,440 --> 00:38:48,719
Speaker 1: But remember the cranium squirrels. They're they're going to hold

726
00:38:48,760 --> 00:38:53,640
Speaker 1: the grudges. Okay, This next message is from our listener

727
00:38:53,719 --> 00:38:57,319
Speaker 1: Amelia Amelia Rights, Hey, Joe and Robert, your podcast on

728
00:38:57,360 --> 00:39:00,080
Speaker 1: squirrels was illuminating. Thanks to your efforts at day K

729
00:39:00,280 --> 00:39:03,840
Speaker 1: long mystery has been solved. Let me explain. As an undergrad,

730
00:39:03,840 --> 00:39:06,040
Speaker 1: I took a lot of walks along the bluff outside

731
00:39:06,040 --> 00:39:09,120
Speaker 1: my campus early my freshman year. On one of these walks,

732
00:39:09,160 --> 00:39:13,720
Speaker 1: I saw something extraordinary, A fuzzy mammal, alarmingly flat and wide,

733
00:39:13,800 --> 00:39:16,759
Speaker 1: scurrying across the quad. I was so surprised by this

734
00:39:16,800 --> 00:39:19,640
Speaker 1: weird road and I thought I'd misidentified a rat or

735
00:39:19,719 --> 00:39:23,759
Speaker 1: gray squirrel. Subsequent sightings, however, laid waste my doubts. There

736
00:39:23,760 --> 00:39:26,800
Speaker 1: were dozens of them, typically clustered along the tree line

737
00:39:26,840 --> 00:39:30,440
Speaker 1: behind my dorm. A friend reported similar sightings, chalking it

738
00:39:30,520 --> 00:39:32,960
Speaker 1: up to common squirrels that had been run over and

739
00:39:33,080 --> 00:39:37,000
Speaker 1: inexplicably survived. I had my doubts about this conclusion and

740
00:39:37,040 --> 00:39:40,080
Speaker 1: began searching in vain for online information on what I

741
00:39:40,200 --> 00:39:44,000
Speaker 1: dubbed the pancake squirrel. When college ended, I moved to

742
00:39:44,080 --> 00:39:46,439
Speaker 1: an apartment in the same area. I continued to see

743
00:39:46,480 --> 00:39:50,200
Speaker 1: pancake squirrels hustling through parks and even around a nearby Corey.

744
00:39:50,600 --> 00:39:53,240
Speaker 1: Not until I listened to your podcast and grew curious

745
00:39:53,280 --> 00:39:56,240
Speaker 1: about the California ground squirrel did I discover my answer.

746
00:39:56,600 --> 00:39:59,840
Speaker 1: Following your first episode, I googled California ground squirrel and

747
00:40:00,000 --> 00:40:03,799
Speaker 1: immediately recognized by beloved pancakes. I didn't know that the

748
00:40:03,840 --> 00:40:07,240
Speaker 1: species lived in Portland, Oregon, but the local population seems

749
00:40:07,280 --> 00:40:10,240
Speaker 1: to be thriving. Thanks again for helping solve a mystery

750
00:40:10,239 --> 00:40:13,160
Speaker 1: and keep up the good work. Sincerely, Amelia, I'm glad

751
00:40:13,200 --> 00:40:18,320
Speaker 1: we could dispel the notion of essentially zombie squirrels flat

752
00:40:18,400 --> 00:40:24,000
Speaker 1: zombie squirrels. Uh. You know, it is interesting, how just

753
00:40:24,040 --> 00:40:28,200
Speaker 1: noting the differences in squirrel species. I recently rewatched the

754
00:40:28,280 --> 00:40:31,359
Speaker 1: horror film It follows. Oh, it's a great one. Yeah,

755
00:40:31,400 --> 00:40:33,360
Speaker 1: after the three years of trying to get my my

756
00:40:33,440 --> 00:40:36,239
Speaker 1: wife to watch it, she finally gave in and and

757
00:40:36,280 --> 00:40:38,960
Speaker 1: loved it. But there's a scene where one of the

758
00:40:39,040 --> 00:40:41,560
Speaker 1: characters is in a swimming pool in the backyard, and

759
00:40:41,600 --> 00:40:44,680
Speaker 1: she's staring up at the trees and the sky, and

760
00:40:44,719 --> 00:40:48,040
Speaker 1: there's a scene where a squirrel is making its way

761
00:40:48,080 --> 00:40:50,600
Speaker 1: across a power line or something, or you know, a

762
00:40:50,719 --> 00:40:55,160
Speaker 1: telephone line. And instantly what what occurs to me is

763
00:40:55,200 --> 00:40:57,120
Speaker 1: like that is not like the squirrels we have here. Like,

764
00:40:57,200 --> 00:41:00,680
Speaker 1: clearly this is a Michigan squirrel. It's um, it's it's

765
00:41:00,719 --> 00:41:03,439
Speaker 1: a slightly different species of some sort. I haven't checked

766
00:41:03,440 --> 00:41:06,440
Speaker 1: to see exactly which species it is, but it's clearly

767
00:41:06,480 --> 00:41:09,560
Speaker 1: not the same creature that we have here in the

768
00:41:10,120 --> 00:41:13,400
Speaker 1: Georgian environment. You know, Robert, you have just made me

769
00:41:13,480 --> 00:41:15,960
Speaker 1: think I have a mission now in life, and the

770
00:41:16,040 --> 00:41:20,480
Speaker 1: mission is to make squirrels a spooky animal. You know,

771
00:41:20,520 --> 00:41:23,560
Speaker 1: they're inherently spooky animals. There's the bat, there's the spider,

772
00:41:23,880 --> 00:41:28,040
Speaker 1: there's the wolf, the children of the night, the animals

773
00:41:28,080 --> 00:41:31,719
Speaker 1: that are automatically associated with Halloween and spooky times and

774
00:41:31,800 --> 00:41:34,719
Speaker 1: vampires and all that. We gotta make squirrels one of

775
00:41:34,760 --> 00:41:37,719
Speaker 1: those animals. We've got to get them into the club. Yeah,

776
00:41:37,760 --> 00:41:40,520
Speaker 1: if you can do it safely without endangering species, because

777
00:41:40,520 --> 00:41:44,000
Speaker 1: that's unfortunately the other side of it, right, is animals

778
00:41:44,040 --> 00:41:47,200
Speaker 1: that have long been considered spooky have often suffered for it.

779
00:41:47,800 --> 00:41:50,840
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, certainly. I don't want to encourage squirrel culling

780
00:41:50,920 --> 00:41:52,640
Speaker 1: the way that would be like wolf culling. But I

781
00:41:52,680 --> 00:41:55,560
Speaker 1: don't know, has it has it really harmed? Uh? Well,

782
00:41:55,719 --> 00:41:58,000
Speaker 1: I was gonna say, has it harmed bats? It probably has.

783
00:41:58,239 --> 00:42:01,319
Speaker 1: It's definitely harmed bats. Yeah. But if you if we

784
00:42:01,520 --> 00:42:05,600
Speaker 1: established it as like squirrels are dark but somehow holy creatures,

785
00:42:05,680 --> 00:42:09,000
Speaker 1: you know, uh, they should not be messed with, but

786
00:42:09,120 --> 00:42:13,359
Speaker 1: they represent something you know, dark and foreboding, then I

787
00:42:13,360 --> 00:42:15,040
Speaker 1: think I could get on board with that. All right,

788
00:42:15,120 --> 00:42:17,600
Speaker 1: We have one last listener mail for you here, and

789
00:42:17,600 --> 00:42:19,240
Speaker 1: it's a pretty long one, so we're going to break

790
00:42:19,280 --> 00:42:21,480
Speaker 1: this one up. Okay, Robert, do you want to go

791
00:42:21,520 --> 00:42:24,520
Speaker 1: first to start reading? And uh when I when I

792
00:42:24,560 --> 00:42:29,000
Speaker 1: can't go anymore, I'll tag out. This comes to us

793
00:42:29,120 --> 00:42:32,600
Speaker 1: from Mako Dear Stuff to blow your mind. Hello. My

794
00:42:32,640 --> 00:42:35,040
Speaker 1: name is Macho. I'm nineteen years old, and about a

795
00:42:35,080 --> 00:42:36,840
Speaker 1: year ago I started listening to your show as my

796
00:42:36,880 --> 00:42:40,120
Speaker 1: first regular podcast and have been a frequent listener ever since.

797
00:42:40,600 --> 00:42:44,239
Speaker 1: I've listened to episodes from throughout the show's history and

798
00:42:44,320 --> 00:42:47,319
Speaker 1: love the work by all your shows various hosts. I

799
00:42:47,400 --> 00:42:51,280
Speaker 1: have greatly appreciated all the wonderful information, conversation, and humor

800
00:42:51,320 --> 00:42:53,239
Speaker 1: of the episodes, and I have just felt a real

801
00:42:53,239 --> 00:42:55,200
Speaker 1: connection to the show since it's right up my alley.

802
00:42:55,560 --> 00:42:58,239
Speaker 1: My whole life, I have spent many hours of every

803
00:42:58,320 --> 00:43:00,480
Speaker 1: day engaging with the world and learn about all the

804
00:43:00,520 --> 00:43:05,799
Speaker 1: wonderful things in it through books, documentaries, walks, exploration, artistic outlets, conversation,

805
00:43:05,840 --> 00:43:10,280
Speaker 1: and Wikipedia. I have always been fascinated with many scientific, natural, cultural,

806
00:43:10,280 --> 00:43:12,600
Speaker 1: and historical topics and have always loved storytelling and fiction.

807
00:43:13,000 --> 00:43:15,640
Speaker 1: I've filled my head with information about the many wonderful

808
00:43:15,640 --> 00:43:17,680
Speaker 1: things in this world and universe and always thought to

809
00:43:17,760 --> 00:43:19,680
Speaker 1: learn more about them. That's why the show feels right

810
00:43:19,719 --> 00:43:21,680
Speaker 1: at my alley. In the last couple of years, I

811
00:43:21,719 --> 00:43:23,960
Speaker 1: haven't been able to read, walk, create, an explore as

812
00:43:24,080 --> 00:43:26,360
Speaker 1: much as I used to or as much as I

813
00:43:26,400 --> 00:43:28,279
Speaker 1: would like to, But listening to your show as I

814
00:43:28,320 --> 00:43:30,319
Speaker 1: go about my daily routine has helped to fill in

815
00:43:30,360 --> 00:43:33,600
Speaker 1: some of the gaps. For that, I am truly grateful. Anyways,

816
00:43:33,760 --> 00:43:35,799
Speaker 1: today I wanted to share some experiences I have on

817
00:43:35,800 --> 00:43:39,279
Speaker 1: the subject of your recent episode Squirrels. My Family and

818
00:43:39,320 --> 00:43:42,400
Speaker 1: I currently live in the San Joaquin part of Central

819
00:43:42,520 --> 00:43:45,880
Speaker 1: Valley with our flock of several hundred free range chickens,

820
00:43:46,160 --> 00:43:48,640
Speaker 1: and have so for four summers. This is our fourth.

821
00:43:49,000 --> 00:43:52,120
Speaker 1: In our time here, we have experienced nothing short of

822
00:43:52,400 --> 00:43:57,960
Speaker 1: terror at the hands of the squirrels. First, a little context.

823
00:43:58,200 --> 00:44:01,719
Speaker 1: The squirrels around here are a our California ground squirrels.

824
00:44:02,160 --> 00:44:05,799
Speaker 1: They are not chiefly our boreal squirrels. They usually live

825
00:44:05,880 --> 00:44:09,320
Speaker 1: in fairly open, dry areas and and dig deep, winding

826
00:44:09,360 --> 00:44:13,120
Speaker 1: burrows in the ground that instant concentrations can deform the

827
00:44:13,160 --> 00:44:17,000
Speaker 1: local area. In their regular environment, wetlands and oak woodland

828
00:44:17,160 --> 00:44:21,080
Speaker 1: check the squirrel's ability to dig burrows and provide habitats

829
00:44:21,480 --> 00:44:26,400
Speaker 1: for squirrel predators. The problem is that of California's wetlands

830
00:44:26,400 --> 00:44:29,160
Speaker 1: have been destroyed, and much of the valley's oak trees too,

831
00:44:29,719 --> 00:44:33,080
Speaker 1: in their place has risen endless wide open farmland and

832
00:44:33,200 --> 00:44:37,759
Speaker 1: semi urban areas that have proven prime squirrel habitat as well.

833
00:44:38,200 --> 00:44:42,440
Speaker 1: Many squirrel predators rattlesnakes, hawks, coyotes have been accidentally or

834
00:44:42,480 --> 00:44:46,759
Speaker 1: purposely driven out. The result is a place like ours.

835
00:44:46,800 --> 00:44:49,360
Speaker 1: On the property we live on, there are thousands of

836
00:44:49,400 --> 00:44:53,200
Speaker 1: squirrels and tens of thousands more along nearby canals and

837
00:44:53,280 --> 00:44:56,280
Speaker 1: in neighboring fields. This is obviously a problem for many reasons,

838
00:44:56,600 --> 00:44:59,280
Speaker 1: but even more since they prey on our baby chickens.

839
00:44:59,800 --> 00:45:02,800
Speaker 1: The from the smallest chicks to the ones of pushing adults.

840
00:45:02,840 --> 00:45:06,520
Speaker 1: The squirrels have attacked countless chicks. Although they often attack

841
00:45:06,640 --> 00:45:09,680
Speaker 1: them in the open, what they'll usually do is way

842
00:45:09,719 --> 00:45:13,240
Speaker 1: behind vegetation fences or and in their burrows and pop

843
00:45:13,239 --> 00:45:16,640
Speaker 1: out at chicks. They'll grab them with their claws and

844
00:45:16,800 --> 00:45:19,600
Speaker 1: bite them on their arms and legs, main nerves to

845
00:45:19,680 --> 00:45:22,839
Speaker 1: disable them before dragging them back to their burrows, who

846
00:45:22,840 --> 00:45:26,640
Speaker 1: are just violently dismembering them where they are. Either way,

847
00:45:26,719 --> 00:45:30,239
Speaker 1: they essentially chew them to death. Think Pennywise, remember that

848
00:45:30,280 --> 00:45:33,920
Speaker 1: opening scene from it. That's essentially what happens. Wow, So

849
00:45:34,000 --> 00:45:37,000
Speaker 1: the chicks are peering in the storm storm, the sewer,

850
00:45:37,160 --> 00:45:42,200
Speaker 1: the sewer grade and uh this saying like my boat. Okay,

851
00:45:42,239 --> 00:45:45,600
Speaker 1: I'll pick up from here. Mako continues, but the similarities

852
00:45:45,600 --> 00:45:48,960
Speaker 1: don't in there. Remember the burrows, Well, they're all over

853
00:45:49,000 --> 00:45:51,759
Speaker 1: the yard, hundreds of burrows that form a sewer like

854
00:45:51,960 --> 00:45:55,319
Speaker 1: system across the property. It's like a dairy with five

855
00:45:55,440 --> 00:45:58,560
Speaker 1: hundred pennywise is, that's hairy the town and in it

856
00:45:58,760 --> 00:46:01,960
Speaker 1: d e r r y with five hundred pennywise is,

857
00:46:02,239 --> 00:46:04,840
Speaker 1: and the death toll is about the same. Our chickens

858
00:46:04,840 --> 00:46:07,359
Speaker 1: are free range, so being picked off by predators now

859
00:46:07,400 --> 00:46:10,239
Speaker 1: and then is pretty much unavoidable, but the squirrels have

860
00:46:10,320 --> 00:46:13,239
Speaker 1: proven to be something else entirely. Keep in mind before

861
00:46:13,239 --> 00:46:15,760
Speaker 1: I continue, that we only have a few hundred chickens

862
00:46:15,800 --> 00:46:18,279
Speaker 1: at any given moment. Although it is often difficult to

863
00:46:18,320 --> 00:46:21,960
Speaker 1: determine cause of death, especially with disappeared chicks, by carefully

864
00:46:22,000 --> 00:46:25,759
Speaker 1: examining the clues of each disappearance and considering the likelihood

865
00:46:25,760 --> 00:46:28,760
Speaker 1: of all possible causes, we have determined that the squirrels

866
00:46:28,760 --> 00:46:31,680
Speaker 1: have most likely killed an excess of a hundred chickens

867
00:46:31,719 --> 00:46:35,920
Speaker 1: over four summers. That is more than all other predators combined,

868
00:46:36,360 --> 00:46:44,160
Speaker 1: and that list has, at various points included opossums, coyotes, dogs, humans, cats, snakes, eagles, hawks, falcons,

869
00:46:44,520 --> 00:46:50,280
Speaker 1: unidentified mammalian creatures, raccoons, ants, and more, including the unstoppable

870
00:46:50,320 --> 00:46:54,160
Speaker 1: force of nature the ghost hawk. All of them are outsiders,

871
00:46:54,160 --> 00:46:56,719
Speaker 1: though if a chicken is surrounded by two dozen coyotes,

872
00:46:56,760 --> 00:46:58,719
Speaker 1: they're going to be up a tree faster than you

873
00:46:58,760 --> 00:47:01,520
Speaker 1: can shout yote. If a chicken is surrounded by two

874
00:47:01,560 --> 00:47:04,880
Speaker 1: dozen squirrels, though, they won't realize something is wrong until

875
00:47:04,920 --> 00:47:07,959
Speaker 1: it's too late. Why shouldn't they. These are the same

876
00:47:08,040 --> 00:47:10,920
Speaker 1: animals that eat out of seed piles with them, and

877
00:47:10,960 --> 00:47:14,120
Speaker 1: the squirrels have used this to their advantage. Robert, you

878
00:47:14,120 --> 00:47:15,960
Speaker 1: you were talking about a study we looked at in

879
00:47:15,960 --> 00:47:18,480
Speaker 1: the episode that that mentioned something about this, right, the

880
00:47:18,480 --> 00:47:23,160
Speaker 1: the insinuation predation. Yes, yeah, that that that definitely came up. Yes,

881
00:47:23,239 --> 00:47:25,440
Speaker 1: where the squirrels just sort of gets you used to

882
00:47:25,480 --> 00:47:27,600
Speaker 1: them because they're like, Oh, I'm just harmless, little squirrel.

883
00:47:27,680 --> 00:47:30,000
Speaker 1: I'll hang out right next to you. Yeah, I forget that.

884
00:47:30,040 --> 00:47:32,200
Speaker 1: The fact terminology a bit of something to the effect

885
00:47:32,280 --> 00:47:38,760
Speaker 1: of cultivating prey tolerance or something to that effect. Okay,

886
00:47:38,960 --> 00:47:42,880
Speaker 1: picking up in Mako's message, Um, squirrels have used that

887
00:47:42,920 --> 00:47:46,160
Speaker 1: to their advantage. Groups have lost half their members. Big

888
00:47:46,239 --> 00:47:49,439
Speaker 1: rooster chicks have been killed defending their siblings. One time,

889
00:47:49,560 --> 00:47:51,719
Speaker 1: three members of a group were killed in twenty four

890
00:47:51,760 --> 00:47:55,120
Speaker 1: hours and a fourth was permanently disabled. Another time, a

891
00:47:55,160 --> 00:47:57,840
Speaker 1: tree fell and chicks that went near the tree started

892
00:47:57,880 --> 00:48:01,719
Speaker 1: disappearing moms have fended off multiple squirrels that corralled their

893
00:48:01,719 --> 00:48:06,280
Speaker 1: baby simultaneously. An entire group of eleven was systematically hunted

894
00:48:06,280 --> 00:48:08,640
Speaker 1: and killed, the only time this has ever happened in

895
00:48:08,640 --> 00:48:11,239
Speaker 1: our flocks history. So many chicks have been killed by

896
00:48:11,280 --> 00:48:14,440
Speaker 1: the squirrels, it has stunted the population growth significantly, and

897
00:48:14,480 --> 00:48:18,480
Speaker 1: they don't stop at the chicks. We've found countless songbirds, rabbits,

898
00:48:18,560 --> 00:48:22,560
Speaker 1: small snakes, and most commonly California ground squirrels killed by

899
00:48:22,560 --> 00:48:25,799
Speaker 1: the squirrels. Of course, we've taken many preventative measures with

900
00:48:25,880 --> 00:48:28,839
Speaker 1: some success, and killed many hundreds of squirrels with little

901
00:48:28,880 --> 00:48:31,440
Speaker 1: effect on their numbers. One of the problems is how

902
00:48:31,480 --> 00:48:34,279
Speaker 1: tenacious the squirrels are. There was one instance where a

903
00:48:34,320 --> 00:48:37,000
Speaker 1: squirrel had a struggling chick bigger than its head in

904
00:48:37,080 --> 00:48:39,800
Speaker 1: its mouth, and I saw it. I gave chase, yelling

905
00:48:39,800 --> 00:48:41,840
Speaker 1: at it, but the squirrel did not drop the baby.

906
00:48:42,239 --> 00:48:45,239
Speaker 1: When I've done the same with coyotes, they'll usually drop

907
00:48:45,320 --> 00:48:48,600
Speaker 1: whatever chicken they're holding. The squirrel, however, just kept jumping

908
00:48:48,600 --> 00:48:51,560
Speaker 1: over foot deep poles and tree roots and eventually diving

909
00:48:51,680 --> 00:48:56,000
Speaker 1: under a fence, still carrying the baby. The tenacity isn't invincible, though.

910
00:48:56,200 --> 00:48:58,359
Speaker 1: When we put seed out for the chickens, they eat

911
00:48:58,400 --> 00:49:01,600
Speaker 1: relatively slowly and don't stand a chance against the squirrels

912
00:49:01,600 --> 00:49:04,040
Speaker 1: that can just shove a whole scoopful in their cheek

913
00:49:04,760 --> 00:49:08,080
Speaker 1: in their cheek pouches. However, the squirrels and other birds

914
00:49:08,120 --> 00:49:11,000
Speaker 1: can start foraging about an hour and a half earlier

915
00:49:11,000 --> 00:49:13,440
Speaker 1: in the mornings than the squirrels can, so we can

916
00:49:13,480 --> 00:49:15,720
Speaker 1: put food out early in the morning so our birds

917
00:49:15,760 --> 00:49:18,279
Speaker 1: won't starve. One o their help we've gotten in the

918
00:49:18,280 --> 00:49:21,520
Speaker 1: battle against the squirrels is from a local Egret. When

919
00:49:21,640 --> 00:49:24,000
Speaker 1: Egret has learned to wait in the fields when the

920
00:49:24,000 --> 00:49:27,280
Speaker 1: grass is long and fork the squirrels as they exit

921
00:49:27,320 --> 00:49:30,160
Speaker 1: their burrows. It will then fly off with the swarming

922
00:49:30,239 --> 00:49:34,720
Speaker 1: road and presumably to slide it down its gullets somewhere. Well,

923
00:49:34,760 --> 00:49:37,239
Speaker 1: that's probably the most positive note I can leave off on,

924
00:49:37,320 --> 00:49:39,239
Speaker 1: so I'll cut this short, but I would like to

925
00:49:39,239 --> 00:49:41,440
Speaker 1: weigh in on the king of the rats debate. I

926
00:49:41,480 --> 00:49:43,560
Speaker 1: believe it was Joe who said that the squirrels could

927
00:49:43,560 --> 00:49:47,280
Speaker 1: be considered king since they have an altitude advantage. However,

928
00:49:47,320 --> 00:49:49,480
Speaker 1: if you take a walk in the woods at night

929
00:49:49,560 --> 00:49:52,520
Speaker 1: in places like here, guess what you'll hear chittering and

930
00:49:52,560 --> 00:49:55,560
Speaker 1: skittering and squeaking in the tree canopies all around you.

931
00:49:56,320 --> 00:49:59,759
Speaker 1: Rats the rats in the trees. Well, this is a

932
00:49:59,840 --> 00:50:03,920
Speaker 1: lie full email. I like, really a nice summary of

933
00:50:04,239 --> 00:50:08,600
Speaker 1: just nature unbalanced, you know, just talking about the in general,

934
00:50:09,040 --> 00:50:14,000
Speaker 1: how the the California wilds have been unbalanced. And then

935
00:50:14,040 --> 00:50:17,480
Speaker 1: if you have, you know, some sort of domesticated farm

936
00:50:17,520 --> 00:50:22,080
Speaker 1: activity with an outside species, what does that do to

937
00:50:22,200 --> 00:50:26,919
Speaker 1: the surrounding predators? Yeah, well, a farm is an unnatural ecosystem,

938
00:50:27,239 --> 00:50:29,799
Speaker 1: and when you try to do some kind of like

939
00:50:29,920 --> 00:50:33,759
Speaker 1: farming that's not clearly surrounded by boundaries that keep it

940
00:50:33,840 --> 00:50:37,879
Speaker 1: separate from the rest of the the surrounding ecosystem, which

941
00:50:37,920 --> 00:50:41,279
Speaker 1: you ultimately cannot do. I mean, if nothing else, you're

942
00:50:41,320 --> 00:50:45,480
Speaker 1: gonna have to deal with potential pathogens and whatnot. So

943
00:50:45,960 --> 00:50:49,319
Speaker 1: I mean that's just that's just part of the exercise. Yeah,

944
00:50:49,640 --> 00:50:52,480
Speaker 1: but still a lovely tale. I enjoyed hearing all of it.

945
00:50:53,480 --> 00:50:57,319
Speaker 1: A lovely tale of slaughter. Thus is the life of

946
00:50:57,600 --> 00:51:00,640
Speaker 1: the squirrel? All right? So that you have it. Bunch

947
00:51:00,680 --> 00:51:05,359
Speaker 1: of listener mails and some additional host comments about squirrels

948
00:51:05,520 --> 00:51:08,799
Speaker 1: a k a. The scugs. Um, I hope you enjoyed it,

949
00:51:08,840 --> 00:51:12,520
Speaker 1: and certainly if you have additional insights and field reports

950
00:51:12,520 --> 00:51:15,399
Speaker 1: of squirrels, uh right in, we'd love to hear here

951
00:51:15,480 --> 00:51:18,479
Speaker 1: here from you. We probably won't do another devoted uh

952
00:51:18,560 --> 00:51:21,480
Speaker 1: you know, dedicated squirrel listener mail episode, but we'll do

953
00:51:21,520 --> 00:51:25,000
Speaker 1: more listener mails so we may touch touching on the

954
00:51:25,040 --> 00:51:28,040
Speaker 1: subject again in the future. Yeah, this has been fascinating,

955
00:51:28,120 --> 00:51:29,839
Speaker 1: especially to hear from people who have a lot of

956
00:51:29,880 --> 00:51:33,080
Speaker 1: hands on experience with the world of the wild scugs.

957
00:51:33,120 --> 00:51:36,240
Speaker 1: So thank you for getting in touch and as always,

958
00:51:36,320 --> 00:51:38,920
Speaker 1: keep those messages coming. In the meantime, head on over

959
00:51:38,960 --> 00:51:40,960
Speaker 1: to Stuff to Blow your Mind. That's where you'll find

960
00:51:41,320 --> 00:51:43,880
Speaker 1: all the episodes of the podcast, going back all the

961
00:51:43,920 --> 00:51:45,799
Speaker 1: way to the very beginning. You'll find links out to

962
00:51:45,800 --> 00:51:48,760
Speaker 1: our very social media accounts. You'll find that tab for

963
00:51:48,840 --> 00:51:52,040
Speaker 1: our store where you can find that cool Cambrian logo

964
00:51:52,120 --> 00:51:54,479
Speaker 1: we were talking about. And you know, at some point

965
00:51:54,520 --> 00:51:56,960
Speaker 1: I would love to get a Scug shirt in there.

966
00:51:56,960 --> 00:51:59,799
Speaker 1: I know we've had some some listener requests for some

967
00:52:00,000 --> 00:52:03,040
Speaker 1: Scug merchandise. Uh you know, I don't know, I'm thinking

968
00:52:03,080 --> 00:52:04,880
Speaker 1: maybe you know, something looks like a slay er T

969
00:52:05,000 --> 00:52:07,799
Speaker 1: shirt except it's scugs. I don't know that's good. Yes,

970
00:52:08,000 --> 00:52:10,600
Speaker 1: if they do lend themselves well to that sort of interpretation,

971
00:52:10,719 --> 00:52:13,439
Speaker 1: but but we'll see, we'll work on that, We'll work

972
00:52:13,440 --> 00:52:16,840
Speaker 1: on getting that in place. Huge things. As always to

973
00:52:16,840 --> 00:52:20,319
Speaker 1: our wonderful audio producers Alex Williams and Tarry Harrison, if

974
00:52:20,320 --> 00:52:22,200
Speaker 1: you would like to get in touch with us directly

975
00:52:22,239 --> 00:52:24,839
Speaker 1: to let us know feedback about this episode or any other,

976
00:52:25,160 --> 00:52:27,279
Speaker 1: to suggest a topic for the future, or just to

977
00:52:27,320 --> 00:52:29,600
Speaker 1: say hi, let us know how you found out about

978
00:52:29,600 --> 00:52:31,640
Speaker 1: the show where you listen from that kind of stuff,

979
00:52:31,800 --> 00:52:34,200
Speaker 1: you can email us at blow the Mind at how

980
00:52:34,280 --> 00:52:46,200
Speaker 1: stuff Works dot com, well more almost than Bausands of

981
00:52:46,360 --> 00:53:04,920
Speaker 1: the Happens is It How Stuff Works app Howlelain foot

982
00:53:05,560 --> 00:53:07,640
Speaker 1: Proper p