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Oh hey, it's your neighbor with the smelly trash

1:15

cans. What's in there? Allie

1:17

Ward. I am going to make this intro as short as possible because

1:19

I have squirrels in my pants. I want to start this. First

1:21

things first, I wanted to interview this person

1:24

for years. Somehow my emails never got

1:26

returned, my dreams never materialized,

1:28

and then one day I realized she followed

1:31

me on social media. Hot dang,

1:33

I DMed her with so many exclamation

1:35

points. It was embarrassing. And from the first

1:38

second of this interview, I'm losing my shit,

1:40

and I think you will too. So she got her undergrad

1:42

in cellular

1:43

and molecular biology at Arizona State University.

1:45

She did a master's in ecology and

1:47

evolutionary biology at Purdue and then got

1:50

a PhD in wildlife ecology and

1:52

conservation back at the University of

1:54

Arizona. We're going to talk about it. She's

1:56

now a professor of biology at Baldwin Wallace

1:58

University in Ohio.

1:59

she has done many things, one of them co-creating

2:03

a full-length dance work called

2:05

Liars in Fur Coats about

2:07

the social and mating habits of squirrels. She's

2:09

studied fox squirrels, gray squirrels, ground

2:12

squirrels, and more for decades and

2:14

her handles on social media reflect

2:16

this commitment. Squirrel Doc. It's

2:19

linked in the show notes. Also linked, patreon.com

2:21

slash ologies. For a buck or more a month,

2:23

you can submit questions ahead of time and

2:26

I might say your name with my face. Ologies

2:28

merch is also linked in the show notes and thanks to everyone

2:30

who leaves reviews and subscribes.

2:33

I read all of them such as this one left

2:35

this week by iFamily who wrote, there are a billion

2:37

podcasts but not all are worth a regularly

2:40

scheduled listen. This one absolutely is.

2:42

Thank you so much. Also, I've been told that this

2:45

particular episode has the potential

2:47

to make life good again. No pressure.

2:50

So let's get into it. So, scuriadiology.

2:53

It's hard to say but it's a real

2:55

word, people, and it comes from the Greek

2:58

for shade tail. And we're

3:00

going to talk about who's who in the family

3:02

of scuridiai. We'll also chat

3:04

about the best part of the acorns, how

3:07

many trees squirrels plant, why

3:09

they're so good at bird feeders. Do they glow in

3:11

the dark? What their chirps and barks

3:13

mean, flying squirrels, ground squirrels,

3:16

litter sizes, cozy nests,

3:19

if squirrels love you back. They're absolutely

3:22

glorious and terrible sex

3:24

lives. Hoarding, hiding, gliding,

3:26

conservation statuses that might shock you,

3:29

and why you

3:29

should never, never put a squirrel

3:32

in your pocket before you board an airplane.

3:34

And so much more with mammologist, biologist,

3:36

and most importantly, scuridiologist,

3:39

Dr. Karen Monroe. So,

3:53

my name is Karen Monroe.

3:59

and I use she-her pronouns.

4:01

My God, it's you. It's really

4:04

you. It's really me. I promise

4:06

it's me. Literally so many people in my life

4:08

know today is a really exciting one

4:10

for me. No chill, zero chill whatsoever.

4:13

And that is the correct way to be when

4:15

talking to Dr. Karen Monroe. By

4:17

the way, do you know that scurriology,

4:21

do

4:21

you know that, have you ever heard the term? No,

4:24

I've always referred to myself as a mammologist. You're

4:27

very good at squirrels though. Yes.

4:30

I just want you to know that out

4:32

there in just

4:34

the miasma of life and words, a

4:37

scurridiologist is a term for

4:40

someone who is very good at squirrels. I

4:43

know this term, I believe you. I was gonna say I've

4:46

studied squirrels for a very long time,

4:48

longer than I've been married. I mean, since I was

4:51

my freshman year in college. So since I was 17,

4:53

I've studied squirrels, but

4:55

I still to this day have active

4:58

squirrel research because people are just

5:00

fascinated by it. We love squirrels,

5:03

but we're scared of most other rodents. Right,

5:07

why is that? It's the fluffy tail,

5:09

isn't it? It's gotta be, I mean, that's where they get

5:11

their name from even, right? I read that it's- Right,

5:13

shade tail. Shade tail. Wait

5:15

a second, wait a second. Their tail is

5:18

for shade? Partially, sure. It's all kinds

5:20

of thermoregulation. So, you know, you think of

5:22

it as an umbrella, if it's just kind of misting

5:24

raining, but yeah, cover yourself in sun. Or,

5:28

you know, when they splat, right? So when they lay

5:30

flat, they're trying to thermoregulate, you know, it's a way

5:32

for them to give off heat, pick up heat, however

5:34

you'd like.

5:35

More on body heat in a bit, but

5:37

we have a whole ding-dang episode on

5:39

thermo physiology and body temperature

5:42

regulation, as well as a kid-friendly smologies

5:45

episode on it with Dr. Shane Campbell-Staton,

5:47

but I'm getting ahead of myself.

5:49

I gotta admit, I've wanted to

5:51

talk about squirrels for a long time, but I don't think I've ever

5:53

talked about the function of a squirrel tail. And of

5:55

course they have a function. They wouldn't have evolved

5:58

to have it otherwise.

5:58

Right. And then like when you watch

6:01

them jump and fall and stuff like that, they also use

6:03

it to totally right themselves so that they land,

6:06

you know, on all fours.

6:07

That makes so much sense. Is it kind

6:09

of like when you see a tightrope walker that has

6:11

one of those really big poles? Yeah,

6:13

absolutely. They kind of like, well, I don't

6:15

know about pole, but yeah, like at the Yankees game last

6:18

night, probably 10 people sent me this clip. There

6:20

was a squirrel in the outfield and

6:22

the fans were shocked by this. It's like

6:24

running across and then it falls

6:26

and it falls eight feet onto the

6:28

ground. Now he's become a flying squirrel.

6:31

Oh, this is not good. He

6:33

sticks a landing much better than we would. I'll tell

6:35

you that. Like it's nothing off

6:38

to the races. And you just watch it and it kind

6:40

of goes side to side to side. And like you

6:42

can watch the tail kind of work

6:43

as a rudder and then it lands just

6:46

fine and runs away. Is there any

6:48

part of that that also is just like a parachute

6:50

to slow it down? Oh, about parachute.

6:52

I mean, I think more like flying squirrels, right? Like

6:55

the gliding with that membrane really

6:57

kind of is better to catch some air. But gray

6:59

squirrels, which this was just a gray squirrel, they kind

7:01

of use it more

7:02

kind of as a rudder side to side. Oh

7:04

boy, Howdy. We will address different

7:06

kinds of squirrels. Gray, Fox,

7:09

giant, dwarf, flying, Marvel.

7:12

But first let's talk about the

7:14

specimen, Karen Monroe.

7:16

I got to ask, how did

7:19

you get so, I'm going to say lucky

7:22

that somehow life just

7:24

shot Dr. Karen Monroe down

7:28

a path from the age of 17

7:30

where she gets to study the most

7:33

beloved woodland creature there is. The

7:35

perfect confluence of luck

7:37

and mistakes, I guess. So

7:40

when I was in high

7:41

school, right, my high school guidance counselor was like,

7:43

oh, you know, you like biology, you should become a vet or

7:45

a doctor. Right. That was pretty much the two career paths.

7:48

And there was no way I could ever tell somebody they

7:50

had to put their pet down.

7:53

That was not even an option for me. So I was like,

7:55

well, I'll be a doctor. I like, I like people and

7:57

I, I really like kids. And so I was like, oh, I'll

7:59

be a pediatrician. And my undergraduate

8:01

advisor, one of the smartest things he did was he

8:03

made me go shadow a pediatrician for

8:05

a week. And I learned

8:08

two very important things during that week-long

8:10

shadowing experience. Let's hear it. One,

8:12

sick kids are no fun. Oh,

8:14

no. Two, parents of

8:16

sick kids are even less fun.

8:19

But he, at that point, had already

8:22

enveloped me into his lab. And so

8:24

I was working for him, mainly as an

8:26

undergraduate hourly job collecting

8:28

acorns. And feeding

8:30

acorns to squirrels is part of his lab

8:32

component. And I told my students all the time, after

8:35

I figured out I did not want to be a pediatrician,

8:38

I tried to find an area of medicine

8:40

that I liked and I really didn't. And I tried to find

8:43

somewhere else for me to go, like, what

8:45

is it that I really was interested in and what did I like?

8:48

And I ended up thinking, well, I was

8:50

at this small liberal arts college. And that if I

8:52

transferred someplace bigger, because I was from a

8:54

small town, if I went to someplace bigger, I would

8:57

have more opportunities and I could figure it out.

8:59

And so I transferred from Wilkes University,

9:01

which is, at that time, I think, 1300 students, to

9:05

Arizona State University. Oh, huge. So

9:07

across country, 1300 students to 40,000 students.

9:10

Climate differences, even. Yeah, climate,

9:13

cultural, everything and anything you

9:15

could possibly imagine. What I really figured out

9:18

at Arizona was that there were even less

9:20

opportunities as a lonely undergraduate

9:23

to get involved in research and really kind of figure out

9:25

what it is I want to do.

9:26

So Karen was majoring in cellular

9:29

and molecular biology, but couldn't seem to

9:31

get lab experience in Arizona.

9:33

So hungry for research, she

9:35

would spend summers and spring

9:38

breaks not getting crunk on

9:40

four locos in Miami Beach, but

9:42

heading back to her small town to

9:44

work on squirrels.

9:45

And so I kind of did a huge 180.

9:49

My undergrad degree is in cellular and molecular biology.

9:52

And I went to Purdue and eventually

9:55

ended up leaving there with my master's in ecology and evolutionary

9:57

biology. But it meant I had to take all

9:59

of those classes.

9:59

Oh, man. Ecology, evolution, animal

10:02

behavior, advanced mammology, all those kinds of

10:04

things I took as a graduate student. And

10:06

that's when I kind of really started putting things

10:08

together that like, oh, all this cell and molecular

10:10

genetic stuff that I really liked in

10:13

college, I could actually apply that to

10:15

the squirrels and the systems that I

10:17

do so very well from working

10:20

in the lab. So that's kind of where

10:22

my PhD ends up. My PhD is actually

10:24

in a wildlife conservation management.

10:27

And it really is the confluence

10:29

of those two things. It's applying all the genetic

10:32

stuff to an

10:33

animal conservation concern was my original

10:36

thought. But

10:37

in that way to a group of animals that have a

10:39

great conservation concern.

10:40

Are squirrels in trouble? It

10:42

seems like they're everywhere. Maybe one

10:44

tried to even steal your croissant yesterday.

10:47

They seem like they're doing fine to some of us, but

10:49

we will get into how different species are doing

10:51

later in the episode. But yes, her interests

10:54

and experience all converged to

10:57

make her a truly lauded securityologist.

11:00

It sounds like one was the peanut butter

11:02

and the other was the bread. And you're like, oh, I guess I can make a sandwich.

11:05

You've got my chocolate, my peanut butter. So

11:10

when it comes to your work, was there

11:12

anything about the

11:15

fieldwork that you were drawn to

11:18

or was it more systemic that you

11:20

liked? No, it was much more systemic.

11:22

I mean, I really enjoyed the fact that I could

11:24

walk and I do this now. Right. I walk outside and

11:27

my study organism is right there. It's

11:29

not like I need, you

11:30

know, to get on a plane and fly three thousand miles

11:33

with all this equipment and things like that. It's right there, which

11:35

means it's accessible. And I can talk about it

11:37

to the public and I can talk about it to my students. And

11:39

so I really enjoy that fact. At

11:41

the same point, I've also worked places where I've

11:44

had to drive six hours to the top

11:46

of a mountain to work with the species. And

11:48

so there are those distant and far away species

11:51

as well. But I really like the fact that, especially

11:53

as an undergraduate, you know, I would get on my

11:55

bike and bike across campus and start

11:58

trapping squirrels and making observations.

11:59

and things like that. It just was so accessible,

12:02

I think, is probably the reason I really got

12:05

hooked and involved. I gotta say, anyone

12:07

who's listening to this, who's like working on permacross

12:09

stuff, I know, right? Fewer

12:12

frequent liar miles, but still the availability

12:15

of squirrels. That's why we love them.

12:19

It is. And everybody knows them and everybody

12:21

loves them. And everybody, everybody,

12:23

everybody has a squirrel story. Oh, yes. I

12:27

go to dinners that have corporate people

12:30

and business people and whatnot. They're like, oh,

12:32

as scientists, we're not going to be able to talk to you. And I'm like,

12:33

I bet you you are. I

12:36

bet you will. By the end of the night, you and I will be friends

12:38

and we will have shared stories. Surely. They're

12:41

attention gathering, no matter who you are

12:43

though. But where do

12:45

squirrels live? Speaking of tundra and

12:48

permafrost, what continents,

12:50

or rather, I guess, where

12:51

don't squirrels live? I think Antarctica is the

12:53

only place squirrels do not live. You

12:55

know, from the Arctic Circle down into the tropics

12:58

and,

12:59

you know, from east to west across the way.

13:01

So if you are on a continent, squirrels

13:04

are native to it, except Australia, where

13:06

American gray squirrels were introduced

13:08

to Melbourne in the late 1800s.

13:11

And then a few days later, a scurry

13:14

of northern palm squirrels busted

13:16

out of the zoo in Perth. And honestly,

13:18

it's all over the place how many there

13:20

still are out there. Oh, and squirrels

13:23

are also not native to Antarctica. In

13:25

case you're listening there, and I am impressed

13:27

that you are and that you have Wi Fi. And

13:29

I hope that you didn't bring a squirrel there.

13:31

And since you have such a systemic

13:34

mind about that, what are squirrels

13:36

doing right to not only capture

13:39

our hearts, but also to be so

13:41

omnipresent and to be able to live in all these

13:43

different biomes? They figured it out kind of.

13:46

Right. I mean, they're just so charismatic, right? Like they

13:48

have the little pointing noses in the face and, you

13:50

know, the hands. And so you can sit there and watch them rotate

13:53

the acorn in their hand and get it just right so they can take

13:55

the perfect bite. They're not intimidating, right? Even

13:57

when they make noises and things like that, I've had people like,

13:59

Oh,

13:59

squirrels just saying hello is they're like, and

14:03

like flapping their tail at them. And I'm like, you

14:05

know, they're, they're saying that you're a predator and

14:07

they're trying to make sure everybody else knows that you're a predator

14:09

and,

14:10

and to get away. But I think that they're just kind

14:12

of the right size and shape

14:15

and they're just charismatic. From

14:17

an evolutionary standpoint, what

14:19

do you think has helped them survive

14:22

in on prairies and mountains and

14:24

in the cold and in jungles?

14:26

You know, I want to say that they're such generalists

14:28

kind of across the board that they're willing to eat just about anything.

14:31

But that is not always true because there are definitely cases

14:33

where they really do specifically

14:36

eat, you know, a very small number

14:38

of plants, things like that.

14:39

I think of like ground squirrels really

14:41

specialize in a plant type

14:43

and their whole physiology and when they come

14:45

out of hibernation or torpor really

14:47

is tied to that specific plant

14:50

type and precipitation and things like that. But

14:52

then I think of like the classic gray squirrel

14:55

and man, they will eat anything from plants

14:57

to animals, eggs, insects, truffles.

15:00

Human food is kind of the last resort

15:02

that's not

15:03

generally what they're after, but their diet is

15:05

so general.

15:07

And they have the ability just to

15:09

scatter hoarders. So they put a little bit of food here, there, there, there, and there.

15:11

They like to take things like mushrooms and fungi

15:14

and up into the trees and they will dry

15:16

it and then put it in their dry nests with them

15:18

for the winter. No, wait,

15:19

they have better meal

15:21

planning than I do. Right. That

15:24

hurts so bad and I'm really impressed.

15:29

I mean, I've seen, I have a, you know, a squirrel in my neighborhood

15:31

has taken, you know, a chunk of a Halloween

15:33

pumpkin and put it up in the tree

15:35

to dry. And I'm

15:37

sure it's stored away for winter. How

15:40

many of our trees are because of forgetful

15:42

squirrels? Almost all of them. I know from my undergraduate

15:45

research that if a acorn is handled

15:47

by a squirrel, even if it is half eaten

15:49

by the squirrel, it will germinate better

15:52

than an acorn that has not been touched at all by a squirrel.

15:53

So we owe so much carbon

15:56

capture to squirrels. I mean, they really

15:58

are like the gardener of the planet.

16:00

Half-eaten? Really? Yeah. Just

16:03

saunter over to the 1993 paper, tannins and partial consumption

16:07

of acorns, implications for dispersal

16:10

of oaks by seed predators. And you can

16:12

get a little fact snack like, germination

16:15

experiments revealed equal or

16:17

greater germination frequencies

16:20

for partially consumed acorns

16:22

than for the intact acorns. And

16:24

they say, we suggest that the higher

16:27

tannin levels may render the

16:29

apical portion

16:30

less palatable and thereby

16:32

increase the probability of embryo

16:35

survival after attack

16:37

by seed consumer, which would be the squirrel.

16:40

I guess more delicious fat

16:42

is at the top of the acorn. And remember

16:44

this for later because something's gonna

16:46

blow your mind related to this. Also,

16:48

for anyone who has ever, I don't

16:51

know, found a handful of loose

16:53

rhesus pieces in a blazer pocket

16:55

that I rarely wear. You should know that

16:58

the tastier the acorn is, the

17:00

more likely the squirrel says to itself,

17:03

none of those other jabroni squirrels are going to eat this

17:05

good one. So they bury them farther away

17:07

where they might not find them, which gives

17:09

the acorn distance from

17:12

the parent tree, which it needs to

17:14

not get choked out by its siblings. All

17:16

of this drama under our noses,

17:18

under our trees.

17:20

Also, yes, I did eat the rhesus that I found in my

17:22

pocket. And no, I don't know how long they had been

17:24

in there. How many acorns are

17:27

boreal squirrels stashing away?

17:29

I've read something that they really

17:31

only remember, like 10%

17:33

of them, or they don't even remember,

17:35

they just look around to be like, where might there be acorns?

17:38

And it might have been someone else's acorns, but they're like, yep,

17:40

they're acorns.

17:40

Exactly. As part of an undergrad

17:42

project, we tagged thousands

17:45

of acorns and put them out in a forest, little brad

17:48

nails, and then

17:49

walked for hours with a metal detector

17:51

trying to recover acorns to see

17:53

how far squirrels were actually dispersing them. And

17:55

it's quite a distance. And they,

17:57

they are so smart. They know acorns that

17:59

are

17:59

infested with weevils or other

18:02

insects that are not going to make it through the winter

18:04

and they will either eat them immediately or

18:06

excise the insect and then spray

18:09

it. They will flip the acorn over, they

18:11

will use their front incisors to scrape

18:13

out the cotyledon and then stash

18:16

it so that it won't germinate and it'll

18:18

be there longer. So yes squirrels

18:20

do not have a 100% recovery rate with

18:23

their food, all right, and they don't pretend to. It

18:26

can range from 25 to 95% recovery rate depending

18:30

on the species and area and

18:33

food but a ton of research has

18:35

shown that squirrels have

18:38

excellent spatial memory and

18:40

they know to head back to their cache but

18:42

if they smell a neighbor's food buried

18:45

on the way they might eat that too. Also

18:47

according to the 1986 paper, gray squirrel food

18:51

preferences, the effects of tannin and

18:53

fat concentration. Squirrels

18:56

know which acorn species are more perishable

18:58

and they may bury like red

19:01

oak nuts because they'll last

19:03

longer and germinate in the spring

19:06

but they might eat white acorns

19:08

because they germinate earlier in autumn. Although

19:10

years later scientists at Berkeley were

19:13

like, not so fast, it might just be

19:15

that some acorns are just bigger

19:17

and it's like taking a few bites

19:20

of a huge calzone in October

19:22

and then just digging a hole in the backyard, tossing

19:25

it in there to snack on during the Super

19:27

Bowl. Also scrape out the

19:29

what the cotyledon, who? Okay so

19:31

cotyledon, it sounds like a

19:33

very expensive shade of paint. Everyone

19:35

would be telling you to paint your kitchen but

19:38

it's actually an embryonic leaf or

19:40

a pair of them and they're in seeds

19:43

and in acorns for example it stores a lot

19:45

of energy and while the squirrels usually

19:47

only bury about an inch deep

19:49

in the soil, their whole

19:51

food festival area can be up to seven

19:53

acres wide. They're hard workers

19:56

and also liars. So a 2008 study

19:58

titled Cache protection

20:00

strategies of scatter hoarding rodent.

20:02

Do tree squirrels engage in behavioral

20:05

deception? It showed that

20:07

in about 13% of caching

20:09

events on a specific college campus,

20:12

squirrels dug a hole, pretended

20:15

to drop their acorn into it, but

20:17

kept the acorn in their mouths and ran

20:19

away. And this may have been the result of

20:21

just a lot of squirrels being around and

20:24

they didn't want anyone to see where they were stashing

20:26

their booty. And I didn't even think to ask

20:28

this, but in the paper, the researchers

20:30

mentioned that they could tell which squirrel

20:32

was which by noting distinctive

20:35

markings or according to the study,

20:37

quote, others were uniquely marked

20:39

with small spots of various brands

20:42

of men's hair dye applied with

20:44

a plastic dropper from a short distance

20:47

without restraining the animals. So

20:49

squirrel researchers, they're just out there,

20:51

they're offering snacks, makeovers.

20:53

And then in another study published

20:56

in 2017 out of UC Berkeley titled

20:58

Caching for Where and What, Evidence

21:01

for a Pneumonic Strategy in a Scatter

21:03

Hoarder, that one found that fox

21:05

squirrels buried their food in

21:07

different areas depending on what the food

21:10

was. So if they got a mixed batch

21:13

of almonds and hazelnuts

21:15

and pecans and walnuts, they

21:18

spatially chunked their caches

21:21

by nut species, but only when

21:23

caching food that was taken from one single

21:25

location. And I'm reading this paper, and

21:28

I'm like, one of the authors is none other than

21:30

Dr. Michael Delgado, who was the

21:32

expert in our legendary felinology

21:35

episode, which I will link in the show notes. But

21:37

the point is, these fuzzy

21:39

little babies, they're organizing

21:41

their dirt pantries. And again,

21:44

unlike me, they have apparently

21:46

something akin to self control.

21:48

You know, they only eat an acorn based

21:50

on how much other food is available because the

21:53

plant's smart and puts tannins into the

21:55

acorn. And as it gets closer to the cotyledon,

21:57

it puts more tannins so it tastes

21:59

more

21:59

if that's possible. If you've ever eaten an acorn, it

22:02

is incredibly bitter. But the concentration

22:04

of tannins increases as you get towards the cotyledon. So they

22:07

will just eat the top half of the acorn and

22:09

drop it. And so it is nice that kind

22:11

of back and forth

22:12

evolutionary adaptation between oaks

22:15

and squirrels. But they do that for lots of seeds and things

22:17

like that. So we really do have squirrels to

22:19

thank for

22:20

most of our trees and mature

22:22

hardwood forests. For more on eating

22:25

acorns as humans, you can listen to the Indigenous

22:27

Colonology episode, which I will link

22:29

in the show notes is a great one.

22:31

I'm so curious what a squirrel's

22:33

yearly planner looks like. When

22:36

are they sleeping? When are they up? When

22:39

are they getting it on? What's their

22:41

year look like at a glance?

22:42

So if I kind of take a traditional

22:45

gray squirrel, North American squirrel. So in the

22:47

wintertime, they're mainly active in the middle of the day.

22:49

And that's when they're relying on most of their stored foods and

22:51

things like that. Typically

22:54

once you start to get warmed up, I will

22:56

say February, although the

22:58

climate changes is getting earlier and earlier. And I've actually

23:00

seen

23:01

squirrels mate as early as

23:03

December. Once kind of buds on

23:05

trees start happening and things like that, you'll get the first

23:07

round of reproduction. And squirrels will eat

23:09

the inner cambium off of tree branches and

23:11

limbs, as well as other insects, forbs,

23:14

grasses, things like that.

23:15

Inner cambium, side note, is

23:17

part of a tree. It's specifically the sugary,

23:20

really nutrient heavy layer of

23:23

new growth. It's just below the bark and

23:25

we talk all about it in the Dendrology

23:27

two parter with Casey J. Clapp. But

23:30

yes, some squirrels, thanks in

23:32

part to climate change, are having steamy,

23:35

romantic hallmark holidays and canoodling

23:37

in December. But usually they

23:39

hold off until around Valentine's Day when

23:42

spring is springing, the days

23:44

grow longer and

23:45

the world grows ever hornier.

23:48

Once young or out, usually it's springtime

23:50

and food's abundant and available.

23:53

And if squirrels are in good enough body condition,

23:55

they can reproduce again. So in a few weeks later,

23:57

they'll kind of go through that whole process again.

23:59

Most squirrels will not reproduce until they're about

24:02

a year old. And so we can kind of classify typically

24:04

sub-adults or juveniles

24:07

in less than six months, and then sub-adults. And

24:09

then once they mate, we usually refer to them as

24:11

adults. So they don't ever really, most squirrels

24:13

are not true hibernators. They'll go

24:15

into torpor for a day or two, and it's really cold.

24:17

We know that they like to nest

24:19

share a lot. Really? I

24:21

love that. I love a co-op. So if

24:23

it's really cold out, why not get up with a bunch of your friends

24:26

and all cozy and together and, you know,

24:28

save some body heat. It's like hygge. It's

24:30

like that Scandinavian concept of

24:32

just like, oh, cozy

24:34

up. Just nuggle down. And we know

24:37

that different species, they do it slightly differently. So

24:39

in gray squirrels, they tend to be matrilineal.

24:41

And so you must tend to have some kind of relatedness

24:44

will tend to nest together. And there can be like little

24:46

bachelor groups as well, kind of help save

24:48

some of that body heat and whatnot.

24:51

And they'll move from nest to nest from night

24:53

to night. It's not like one nest, one squirrel.

24:56

So they are kind of communal. They'll move

24:58

from group to group.

24:59

So no squirrels aren't setting

25:01

up ring cameras and calling the cops

25:04

if someone naps on their couch. And if you

25:06

need a visual, their dres are like

25:08

twigs on the outside for structure

25:10

and then they're stuffed with a leafy

25:13

lining for insulation. And then there's like

25:15

a little inner mattress of moss and

25:17

fur. So when you see a clot

25:19

of leaves in a denuded

25:22

tree in winter, just think there

25:24

might be a snoozing squirrel burping

25:26

up your bagel in there. Just heaven.

25:29

Well, okay. Here's the thing. I try to think about

25:31

like a squirrel home and I always think

25:33

about like a hollow in a log or something.

25:35

Oh, sure. But I live

25:38

in California where we don't have the same sort of like

25:40

bare winter branches that the East coast

25:42

does. We have a lot of palm trees. We

25:44

got oaks. But

25:46

I thought when I saw clots of

25:49

nests in bare winter trees, I thought those

25:51

were big bird nests. And someone told me, no,

25:53

those are squirrel nests. Yeah.

25:56

How do they make a nest? In the top of

25:58

a tree on skinny branches. out of leaves.

26:01

I mean, you just kind of wove it in together. You

26:03

can usually tell it's a squirrel nest and then a bird nest from the

26:05

doming on the top. So when

26:08

you look at bird nests, most of them are kind of flat

26:10

and then curved on the bottom. But dres

26:13

have a shelter top, so they are kind of curved

26:15

on the top, especially when they're being used a lot. As

26:17

they become less used, they will sink down a little

26:20

bit. But yeah, those big, clumpy,

26:21

leafy pieces are squirrel

26:24

dres. So a nest is shaped

26:26

like a bowl and for birds, and

26:28

a dre for squirrels is more like

26:31

a bubble or a dome.

26:33

And no, you didn't ask, but the study

26:35

of nests is called Nedology.

26:38

And not two hours from me is

26:40

the world's best museum of nests.

26:43

It's called the Western Foundation of Vertebrate Zoology.

26:45

It's in Camarillo, and it's home to more than 18,000

26:47

nest specimens. Oh,

26:51

I want to go there so bad. But back to tree holes.

26:54

And they absolutely will use cavities

26:55

too in trees. So a cavity

26:57

is definitely prime location

26:59

in real estate, particularly if you're gonna raise

27:02

young. So if you want more protection

27:04

from not only the outside sources, but

27:06

predators as well, the cavities are

27:08

the

27:09

preferred location to raise young. But then

27:12

there are issues with things like mites and fleas

27:14

and things like that. And so squirrels do kind of move

27:17

between nest sites.

27:19

And let's say that you love

27:21

a squirrel. You love all squirrels. And you

27:23

would like to offer them a home

27:25

in your yard. My dad and I shared

27:28

a love of squirrels. And my dad built

27:30

several squirrel condominiums and just

27:33

hoped that someone would take up residence.

27:35

I think you put a for rent sign on one. And

27:38

so is there a protocol? Is

27:41

there a good way to attract a squirrel or to say

27:43

squirrels, please, I would like to be

27:45

your friend. I mean, certainly there are

27:47

squirrel nest boxes that you can build and put

27:49

out. And I've seen squirrels use nest boxes, but

27:51

I think it kind of depends on where you are and what

27:53

kind of squirrel you want to attract. Like where you

27:55

are ground squirrels probably have more ground nests

27:58

than they do nests kind of up in the trees.

27:59

and things like that. But for those people who are in the

28:02

Midwest and the East Coast, having oak

28:04

trees, having edge of forests.

28:06

Grace grows really love forest edges, much

28:09

like white-tailed deer. They really like those highly

28:11

overlapping branches. They

28:12

like that high number of tree counts.

28:14

If you are a true Midwesterner and you like those

28:17

big chunky fox squirrels.

28:18

So these are the ones with

28:20

the grayish brown fur, but they have rusty

28:23

reddish coloring on their faces and

28:25

paws and tails. And

28:27

when I leave peanuts out for the crows, the

28:30

fox squirrels come by and say, thank you very

28:32

much. And they probably pretend to hide

28:34

it if they think that I'm

28:35

watching. Which are easily 20%, if not 50% larger

28:38

than gray squirrels. They

28:40

really like a much more open park-like

28:42

place. And so they don't want lots

28:44

of overlapping trees. They really want to come

28:47

down on the ground and do their eating and whatnot

28:49

down on the ground. And so it kind of depends on where

28:51

you live and what kind of squirrels you really

28:54

want to attract.

28:55

I have to ask as a radiologist,

28:58

have you ever gotten in a fistfight with birders?

29:00

So usually, I mean, I've been asked to come and speak

29:02

to all kinds of Audubon societies and bird

29:05

or groups and whatnot. And usually one of the first questions

29:07

they want to ask me is how do I keep squirrels out of my bird food?

29:09

And so I do address this. I

29:12

usually start off, I was like, okay, let's just, let's

29:15

talk about the

29:15

elephant in the room first. The first thing you do,

29:18

you break a bottle on the side of a table. Listen.

29:22

But I talk about how cool

29:24

squirrels are to watch, you know. And we

29:27

talk about a lot of their behaviors. When I go and talk

29:29

in public about squirrels and what it is I do and

29:31

why it's important,

29:32

one of the first things I try to bring

29:34

up is that it's really only here, kind of in

29:37

the US, that we think of squirrels as like

29:39

pests and a species being managed,

29:41

a species that's hunted. 80% of the world's

29:44

squirrel populations are threatened or endangered.

29:46

I didn't expect that. Right?

29:48

And for that reason alone, you know, we should

29:50

take advantage of the fact that we have this

29:52

opportunity and try and study them and learn more

29:54

about them so that we can help answer questions

29:57

for those places. And a lot of it comes down to, right,

29:59

availability. 80%

30:01

of squirrels are in decline?

30:03

Okay, so the International Union

30:06

for Conservation of Nature's red list

30:08

of threatened species lists the

30:10

namdaffa flying squirrel, which

30:13

is globally critically endangered.

30:15

It's currently described by one

30:18

known specimen that was collected

30:20

in Northeast India in 1981. It's

30:23

the Sasquatch of squirrels. People

30:26

think they see it sometimes, but they're

30:28

usually confused and looking at a red giant

30:30

flying squirrel. And then there are

30:33

11 more globally endangered squirrel

30:35

species like the Northern Idaho

30:37

ground squirrel. There's only about a thousand left.

30:40

And Nelson's Antelope squirrel,

30:43

which is native to this vast California

30:45

Central Valley that's mostly become farmland.

30:48

I looked at pictures for longer than I needed to.

30:50

That Antelope squirrel, oh it's a cutie. So

30:53

we've all been distracted though by the

30:55

really successful and ubiquitous

30:57

park squirrels. And yes, sometimes

31:00

they're invasive. But

31:01

meanwhile, other squirrels need

31:03

our help. Well, they need their land

31:05

back really. One of my favorite places to talk

31:07

about squirrels is Japan. And really the only places

31:09

you find squirrels anymore in Japan are

31:11

the really old sacred shrines. Because

31:14

that's the only places

31:15

left that have enough large

31:17

old-growth trees to support a population

31:20

of squirrels. My gosh, just thinking about

31:22

they're getting shrunken and shrunken.

31:25

I didn't realize that they were so

31:27

threatened. I would always think they

31:29

must be a species of

31:30

least concern because they're so visible

31:33

and that's so fascinating. And I'm

31:36

also wondering how many kinds of squirrels

31:38

are there? And what's the difference between a ground squirrel,

31:41

a tree squirrel, a flying squirrel? Where's chipmunks

31:43

in this mix? Who are they? Chipmunks are cousins.

31:45

They're cute cousins. We keep them in along with the ground

31:47

hogs and other marmots and

31:50

things like that. I believe, I had to look this up actually

31:52

because I wanted to make sure I gave you the correct number. Because

31:54

I believe two weeks ago, whatever, there was a publication about

31:56

a new species of squirrel found. So I believe we're up

31:58

to 289. species of squirrels

32:01

worldwide. Fewer than I thought, to be honest.

32:03

Right around 300 species from

32:06

ones that glide where zip

32:08

lines wish they could go to

32:11

ground dwelling tunnel cuties

32:13

that I want to kiss, but I won't.

32:15

It really comes down to where they're

32:17

used to nesting, what do they prefer, you

32:19

know, tree squirrels versus ground squirrels. Flying

32:21

squirrels are definitely a different grouping, a lot

32:23

of physiological differences or anatomical

32:25

at least differences there. But I mean, tree squirrels,

32:28

I think they're usually what people picture when they think

32:30

about a squirrel with the fluffy tail and everything. Ground

32:32

squirrels to me are even more fascinating

32:35

if possible because we know a little bit less about them. You

32:38

know, they're underground doing all those things that we can't really

32:40

see. I really want to know what they're doing under

32:42

there, but they are highly related. They

32:44

have lots of the same

32:45

kinds of timings and activities

32:47

and behaviors for sure. So

32:50

to recap, the family Skuritidae

32:52

is in the order Rodentia and it involves

32:55

squirrels and chipmunks and even marmots

32:58

and prairie dogs, but there is a smaller

33:00

genus of just squirrels. But in general,

33:03

all of these squirrels we're talking about may

33:05

live in trees or the ground or

33:08

have wildly different diets and lives

33:10

living up to 10 years in the wild

33:13

or 20 in captivity. Imagine

33:15

a squirrel that could legally get a driver's

33:18

license, but not really because

33:19

it's a squirrel. You've had the privilege

33:22

of being in this field since

33:24

a young age and technology

33:26

has changed so much. Have you

33:28

seen things change in terms

33:31

of knowledge now that we can put a fiber optic

33:33

camera and record on a tiny

33:35

SD card that costs a dollar? Like

33:37

how has your work changed now

33:39

that you can spy on them? So

33:43

for my dissertation, I studied a species of squirrels

33:45

called the round tailed ground squirrel. It

33:47

does not have a round tail. I don't know why it's called

33:49

that.

33:49

You didn't name it. I

33:51

didn't name it. It looks like a little baby prairie dog

33:54

and it has kind of a long thin tail. And they live

33:57

in the ground, in the desert. And so we really

33:59

wanted to know.

33:59

how social these girls were. They

34:02

were once thought to be this great model outlier

34:04

in

34:04

that the literature and all the models

34:07

say they should be very solitary and alone

34:09

but the two papers that were published

34:11

in the mid 70s said no

34:13

they are highly social they're like prairie

34:15

dogs they form these family groups you

34:17

know oh my goodness they have all these social behaviors and so one

34:20

of the first things we want to know is okay

34:22

so they're going down and they're you know holes

34:25

entrances everywhere how many are

34:27

really connected what are they actually doing down there is

34:29

there a lot of social behavior

34:31

going on under the ground and

34:33

my field site was the Casa Grande Ruins National

34:35

Monument in Kula, Arizona where

34:38

there are 69 recognized

34:40

archaeological sites within one square mile. It's

34:43

a beautiful stunning place but there

34:45

was no way they were about to let me dig up and

34:48

look at a ground squirrel burrow in

34:50

any way shape or form and

34:52

in my four years working there they

34:54

did bring in an expert that had ground penetrating

34:56

radar

34:57

and they were using it to look at some of their archaeological

35:00

sites and we were actually able to try

35:02

and use it to kind of

35:04

map out a burrow area and

35:06

we weren't incredibly successful

35:08

not as much as I wanted it to be.

35:10

That was a long time

35:13

ago. But now I think right in terms of

35:15

fiber optic cameras yep you can just

35:17

slide one of those right down and in and

35:20

and sure enough really see the extent

35:22

of the burrow and

35:24

possibly you could actually even leave

35:26

the camera down there and see any kind of social behaviors

35:28

and actions and things like that. I know I was

35:31

there to study their mating system and things like that

35:33

and I never saw squirrels mate because

35:36

they clearly were doing it underground.

35:38

I guess they like their privacy I suppose.

35:40

They like their privacy. We saw evidence of mating

35:43

we saw copulatory plugs and things like

35:45

that but never an actual

35:47

mating. Copulatory plugs? Copulatory

35:51

plugs! Really?

35:53

Yes. So copulatory

35:55

plugs are this proteus gelatin piece

35:58

that males will deposit in the female

36:00

reproductive tract to try

36:02

and stop her from meeting with any other males.

36:04

Well, that's a dibs. And

36:06

lots of squirrels have this, lots of mammals have these. And

36:09

most of the time in just about all the squirrels I've

36:11

studied, females will just take them out and

36:14

mate again. Oh, this drama continues.

36:17

Literal cock blocking, actual cock

36:20

blocking going on in squirrel romance.

36:22

But before you go around flipping the

36:24

bird to insecure male squirrels, please

36:27

know that copulatory plugs

36:30

are also common in some primate species,

36:32

bees, kangaroos, reptiles, rats,

36:35

rodents, mice, scorpions, spiders.

36:38

But back to squirrels, we're talking about squirrels. So

36:40

ground squirrels might keep this

36:42

jizz tampon in for almost a

36:45

day. But I found a study in the Journal of

36:47

Memology titled Removal of Copulatory

36:49

Plugs by Female Tree Squirrels, which

36:52

described these in fox squirrels

36:54

and eastern gray squirrels as, quote, opaque

36:57

white

36:58

with waxy to rubbery consistency.

37:01

And if you're eating right now, I'm sorry. And

37:03

also that's not my fault. But now that

37:05

this scene is set both visually and

37:08

from a tactile perspective, it continues.

37:11

Although copulatory plugs are hypothesized

37:14

to prevent the successful copulation of

37:16

subsequent males, female tree squirrels

37:18

often remove the plug within 30

37:21

seconds of copulating and

37:24

either discard

37:26

or consume it. Eat it

37:28

or eat it, babies. Eat it or

37:30

eat it. He's not the boss of you. Can they

37:32

have litters with different

37:35

paternal? Yes. How

37:37

many uteruses do they have? They have

37:39

one big one? It's kind of this weird corkscrew

37:42

kind of shaped uterus and so round-tailed

37:44

ground squirrels. I have a litter of 13

37:48

squirrels for one of my females. I

37:50

would say the average was usually three to four. And

37:52

in

37:53

eastern gray squirrels, the average litter size is between

37:55

two and three.

37:56

But absolutely those squirrels can be sired

37:58

from different males.

38:00

Okay, so usually just a few baby

38:02

squirrels are kits. Sometimes

38:04

they're called kittens, unless you

38:06

have 13 at a time. And perhaps

38:09

that squirrel mom

38:10

is related to my Catholic grandmother who

38:12

had 11 children by the

38:14

age of 30 and stark

38:16

white hair. But let's get off the topic of my

38:19

deceased and beloved Catholic grandmother and talk

38:21

about group sex in your backyard.

38:24

We know that females will mate multiply, female gray

38:26

squirrels will mate multiply. They're only in estrus for

38:28

eight hours. So they're only receptive to mating for eight

38:30

hours.

38:31

And in that eight hours,

38:33

I believe the published

38:34

number is 24 males. She will mate

38:36

with up to 24 males in

38:38

that eight hours. Oh, get it girl. Is that eight hours

38:40

a day or a year? Mating season. So

38:43

maybe twice a year. Wow. So

38:45

she goes fast and hard. And

38:47

then is there any paternal care or are they

38:49

just like, I don't even remember. There's so much. It

38:51

was

38:51

an orgy. Nope. Nope. Just

38:55

there and gone. See you never. They can reproduce

38:57

like more than once a year. Do they tend

38:59

to give a lot of resources to their

39:01

young or is it kind of like we just kind of make

39:03

as many as we can and then,

39:05

you know, we wish them well. I mean, we know that lactation

39:07

is incredibly expensive and they tend to

39:09

stay in the nest for probably six to eight weeks

39:12

with mom after that. And then you can actually watch

39:14

them. It's one of my favorite behaviors to watch is you'll

39:17

watch the juveniles come out of the nest and kind of play. And

39:19

then you will see the female, you'll see mom come out

39:21

and basically just yell at them and chase them off

39:24

and then they'll come back in at the end of the night and everything. And it's

39:26

kind of this, you know, ritualized like

39:28

you can't just stop you quit this. You don't go

39:30

get out. Go. What

39:33

about rat kings in squirrel nests? I've

39:35

seen saps that can glue their tail together.

39:37

It makes me want to throw myself in the ocean. I can't.

39:40

It's the saddest,

39:41

cutest, most terrible thing I've ever seen.

39:44

Yeah. Okay. I explained that partly,

39:46

but sometimes squirrel tails will get glued together by

39:49

tree sap. And we discussed

39:51

this notion of a rat king in

39:53

the urban rodentology episode with Dr. Bobby

39:56

Corrigan, but it's just awful.

39:58

Please call a wildlife rehabber. And unless

40:01

you see it in real life, don't look it up. Don't look

40:03

it up. Don't look it up. I get

40:05

people all the time who call me with baby squirrels who have fallen

40:07

out of a nest and things like that. And that is not my jam

40:09

in any way, shape or form. I have several

40:11

wildlife rehabbers on call. And so I send

40:14

them to places

40:15

much like that. But I will also get calls about

40:18

squirrels who have mange, who have lost fur because

40:20

they have a flea infection or something. And

40:22

I tell people like, they know what they're doing. They know how to treat

40:24

it.

40:26

Let them go and they'll be okay.

40:27

What about redenticide? Is that a threat

40:29

since some of them are generalists? Absolutely.

40:32

Yeah. I've definitely worked in places that it's one of

40:34

the main ways that they will control squirrels, particularly

40:36

ground squirrels, when they don't want them in a place.

40:39

I mean, I feel like gophers are like,

40:41

everyone has a gopher. Culturally,

40:43

people are quite unfair to gophers. But

40:47

do ground squirrels cause

40:49

that kind of damage to lawns and sports

40:51

fields and stuff like that?

40:53

They can. Yeah. They certainly can. And now,

40:55

a once in a lifetime chance to ask

40:57

a personal burning question.

41:00

I cannot believe that I have the opportunity

41:02

to ask a ground squirrel expert

41:05

about some hazing that I got from

41:07

a squirrel. Can I play you a noise?

41:10

And can you tell me what's going on? Sure. I

41:12

was having a bad day last week.

41:15

You know me. I get personal here. I was

41:18

bummed. And my husband was like, let's go to the park

41:21

and let's walk around. And I was like, that's a good idea. We

41:23

did. And then this squirrel started yelling

41:25

at us. This might hurt my heart what you have to tell me, but

41:27

that's OK. A

41:38

little guy, or girl, is

41:41

hanging out just under a bush

41:43

maybe five feet away from us.

41:45

Calling you a predator. Little

41:49

California ground squirrel. Probably

41:51

is young, down in the burrow. And so

41:53

it's just kind of that warning. We're such

41:56

dipshifts. Here we were, standing

41:59

there longer. were like, does she need

42:01

help? Like, is she the lassie

42:03

of a squirrel family? Like, we

42:08

were like, what do what do we do?

42:10

And then the whole time she was like, go away,

42:12

I hate you. But I mean, there's

42:15

a reason why dog squeaky toys sound like that,

42:17

right?

42:17

Right, exactly. And, and

42:19

really, if you did not know right where

42:21

she was, it would have been hard for you to locate

42:23

it. It's a single tonal whistle. It's

42:25

really hard for mammalian predator to

42:28

echolocate that and figure out exactly where that is.

42:30

So she probably had some cute little babies

42:33

that were underground, not far from us. Yes.

42:35

And if you've ever heard chirping or barking

42:38

coming from a squirrel, there are

42:40

correct terms. I just learned that skirt

42:43

eologists have words for

42:45

those like barking, like

42:48

clicking Donald Duck calls. They're called

42:50

cooks,

42:51

quas, and moans. And

42:53

according to the paper, joint

42:56

tail and vocal alarm signals of

42:58

gray squirrels in the journal Behavior,

43:00

researchers from the University of Miami

43:03

flew gliders painted

43:05

like hawks and they drove robot

43:08

cats around campus towards squirrels.

43:11

And they found that only

43:13

sweeping back and forth tail movements

43:16

known as flags and vocalizations

43:18

called moans are associated

43:21

with a certain predator type. Moans happened

43:23

more often when there were aerial predators

43:26

present and the flagging with

43:28

the tail happened when the cat approached,

43:31

but they also found quas

43:33

more strongly associated with aerial threats

43:36

too. They might also clack their

43:38

teeth at other squirrels. But my point

43:40

is that

43:42

if a squirrel is chirping at you and twitching

43:44

its tail, it wants you to please go

43:46

to hell. It hates you. I've never seen

43:48

so many ground squirrels in my life. I was like, I

43:50

thought I mean, they were everywhere.

43:53

And this was a couple of weeks ago. So this was like late spring.

43:55

Would there be a reason why they were out so much?

43:57

Or do you think it's just a really good place for ground squirrels?

43:59

the oak trees. No, I think it's probably just a great place for ground

44:02

squirrels. It's just a party. Oh, that's

44:04

exciting. I know when I started to study around

44:06

how ground squirrels, I was trying to find a population

44:08

that would be good to study. And I was having

44:10

a hard time kind of really locating a good dense

44:13

population. And I actually went to some

44:15

snake researchers and I was like, would you look

44:18

at your records and tell me like,

44:21

where you have good populations and, and

44:23

they came through. I mean, this is, you know,

44:26

perfect confluence. Oh, no one tell

44:28

the snakes. It's like they're going

44:30

to blow up this restaurant. But

44:32

the squirrels, you know, they have a relationship with the snakes

44:34

as well. Like it's not like every time you see the

44:36

snakes, he's a squirrel. The snake gets the squirrel and

44:38

the squirrels fight the snakes right off.

44:41

I saw a pregnant female totally chase

44:43

off a rattlesnake. You know, you could tell

44:45

from the roundness of her belly that she was pregnant

44:48

and kind of the snake was just coming through.

44:51

And she started on high alert

44:53

and let everybody know. And when it's a

44:55

ground predator, like a snake, they will also thump their

44:57

back feet. Let anybody underground also

44:59

know that there's a snake and she just completely

45:02

chased them away. And it

45:04

did not bite her. It didn't really try to bite her.

45:06

And she just kept bouncing on it and forcing

45:08

it away.

45:09

Okay. So I'm learning squirrels

45:11

are cute and beautiful. And they also

45:14

will talk shit. Oh, they're badasses. Yeah.

45:16

And they'll cut you. We know

45:18

that they have some resistance to

45:21

some venoms and possibly even

45:23

some rattlesnake venoms. We don't know quite how

45:25

much, but certainly they have some resistance. In

45:28

all of your work, have you ever been bit by

45:30

a squirrel? I have never been bit by

45:32

squirrel. Oh, I'm knocking on so much wood.

45:34

I have, I have come close once and gotten

45:36

a blood blister from kind

45:38

of getting squished. But when we handle them,

45:41

I use a cloth handling bag that's

45:43

in the shape of a triangle. I actually

45:45

usually describe it as a giant pastry bag. So

45:47

if you imagine a giant pastry bag made out of like

45:49

a denim material, we wrap the wide end

45:52

around the trap opening because it's really easy to catch

45:54

a squirrel, peanut butter, sunflower seeds, things

45:56

like that. But then you have a very angry squirrel

45:58

in a metal cage.

45:59

And so if you wrap the big end

46:02

around the trap and open the door The

46:04

squirrel does not want to be in the trap and will run

46:06

out and basically run into the narrow end and

46:09

basically just wedge themselves Into

46:11

this pastry bag and it's

46:13

like being the same like being swaddled physiologically.

46:16

So they're in there they're all kind of nice and tight their

46:19

eyes are closed usually their nose kind of sticks out

46:21

the very end and

46:22

They're very calm and they can't open

46:24

their mouth to bite me and therefore I

46:26

am very calm They're not trying

46:29

to run away. They're not trying to

46:30

move anything. They're just Basically

46:33

chill. Yeah, of course. I look this up and I found

46:35

fieldwork photos of dr. Monroe on a campus

46:37

lawn in her lap a pillowcase

46:39

sized Dark blue canvas sack

46:42

pointed at one end She is wearing

46:44

a school bus yellow t-shirt and it

46:46

matches the shirts of her student assistants

46:49

And there's a small logo of the breast

46:52

an official seal of some sort But

46:54

on the back of the shirts in bold lettering

46:57

it reads it's the squirrels. They're

46:59

watching me

47:00

What kind of alien

47:02

abduction science do you have

47:04

to do in order to make sure that their population

47:07

is healthy? Like do you have to weigh them? Do you take their

47:09

temperatures? You have to check them for fleas? Like what kinds

47:11

of things are our scientists looking

47:13

for?

47:14

Right. So there's usually this is everything that we're doing

47:16

So we catch them we weigh them we take a whole

47:18

set of morphological measurements, right? We want to know not

47:21

just how much they weigh but you know How much of that

47:23

is fat versus bone and things

47:25

like that? Certainly I look for flea infections I

47:28

usually feel around see if they have any broken bones

47:30

sector tails I usually will check to see if they're

47:32

pregnant or if they're lactating or things like

47:34

that check to see if the males are actually active

47:36

in reproduction

47:38

and then we mark them so we put unique colored

47:40

ear tags usually numbered and colored ear tags

47:42

into their ears and When I do that, I take a DNA

47:44

sample

47:45

and then sometimes if we're gonna see how far they're

47:47

gonna go and things like that We can put a radio collar

47:49

on them, which is a necklace weighs less

47:52

than 5 grams And then we can kind of get an idea

47:54

about you know, number of males number of females

47:56

number of juveniles

47:57

and things like that If there

47:59

is one that's injured or has an

48:02

infestation. Because you're a

48:04

researcher and not a wildlife wehabber, where's

48:07

the line between getting help and letting nature do

48:09

its thing? How do you decide?

48:11

My general default is to let nature take its

48:13

course. I usually think if it's something that I personally

48:16

have caused, I definitely have had a squirrel to kind of get

48:18

a piece of skin, you know, on their nose or whatnot,

48:20

scratched from the metal trap or whatever. I will tend

48:22

to swipe a little piece of, you know,

48:24

spore on that nose before I let them go. But generally

48:27

speaking, I let nature take its course.

48:29

I have not ever come

48:31

across a squirrel that I've

48:33

needed to do

48:34

something significant about. I'd like to keep

48:36

it that

48:37

way as well. Yes. I mean, I feel

48:39

like they just probably got wind of you and disrespect

48:41

you a lot. I think they probably like, well, it would make it so much easier

48:44

if they would just kind of stand up and be like, hi, I

48:47

weigh 250 grams. Here's my measurements. I'm

48:50

not pregnant. I'm real knocked up right now.

48:52

I had a great time

48:54

a couple months ago.

48:55

What about, oh, I have a million questions

48:58

for you. I cannot tell you how exciting this is.

49:00

If you could stand on a cosmic

49:02

soapbox and have the biggest bullhorn

49:05

ever to bust some flim-flam about squirrels,

49:07

what is the biggest misconception that you're like, people,

49:09

it's not like that.

49:10

I would say people often ask me about rabies.

49:12

Like, are I afraid to catch rabies and things like that? And

49:14

there's never been a case of a rodent

49:16

carrying rabies. And so there's

49:18

never been any kind of report of squirrels carrying

49:20

rabies. And so that's why I don't mind working with

49:22

undergraduate students with them. I'm always present when

49:24

undergraduates do its trap, but really the only thing they carry

49:26

is tetanus. And so as long as students have had their tetanus

49:29

shot,

49:30

I'm generally not so worried. You were in Arizona

49:32

and I feel like in my brain, someone

49:35

says squirrels, Arizona bubonic

49:37

plague.

49:38

Plague, yes. Did I make that up? So bubonic

49:40

plague is definitely a thing to be worried about. When I

49:42

worked at the Casa Grande ruins, since it's a national

49:44

monument, they would have their fleas

49:47

tested annually to see

49:49

if there was any chance of plague. And

49:51

fortunately,

49:52

all four years that I was there, there was no chance

49:54

of plague. Okay, so according to the

49:57

CDC, small rodents like squirrels

49:59

and hamsters and

49:59

guinea pigs and chipmunks and rats and

50:02

gerbils and mice and bunnies are

50:04

almost never found to be infected with the

50:06

rabies and they have not been known to

50:09

transmit rabies to humans. However,

50:11

groundhogs, they got a little more chunk of their trunks,

50:13

they have bigger bodies. So they do get

50:16

reported as rabid from time to time. Now

50:18

the bubonic plague has been transmitted

50:21

by fleas on ground squirrels and woodrats

50:24

and prairie dogs, but it's very rare.

50:26

And

50:27

please, I beg you to

50:29

channel your anxiety toward

50:31

really anything else or as a slate headline

50:34

from the summer of 2020 read, you

50:36

do not need to worry about the bubonic plague

50:38

squirrel in Colorado. And just reading

50:41

that like, whoo, what a time machine. What

50:43

an eventful few years it's been on planet

50:45

earth. Just can we catch a break?

50:48

But if you do feel very sick and have giant

50:50

lymph node area nodules, just

50:52

please see a doctor if you're in trouble. Speaking

50:55

of being in trouble

50:56

and confronting that sweet,

50:58

sweet ache of mortality.

51:00

The most endangered mammal in North

51:02

America is a squirrel species. The

51:05

Mount Graham red squirrel is the most endangered

51:07

mammal in North America. It only resides

51:10

on one mountain top. When I was there

51:12

studying them,

51:13

their numbers were probably in the two to

51:16

three hundreds. I can say that a few

51:18

years ago they were down below a hundred.

51:21

They kind of come back a little bit, but. Is

51:23

that all habitat loss or climate? It

51:26

is a Mount Graham is a, is

51:28

a whole ecosystem of, of a mess. So

51:30

yes, there's a lot of habitat loss. It was slated

51:33

to have two dozen telescopes

51:35

built on the top of the mountain and

51:38

they were denied and some were built. And,

51:41

and then there was an insect infestation. It's sacred

51:44

Native American land. There was a, you

51:46

know, several large forest fires. There's an

51:48

endangered raptor that comes through

51:50

that eats them. There's an introduced squirrel.

51:53

I mean, like every

51:54

plight that has affected an endangered

51:56

species is there on the one mountain top.

51:59

cursed by a witch. Hoo

52:02

boy. So now might be an okay time to tell you that

52:04

we have episodes on fire ecology, indigenous

52:06

fire ecology, fulminology about lightning

52:09

strikes that cause forest fires, and

52:11

a recent field trip episode about raptors. I'll

52:13

link them in the show notes. But yes, Mount

52:15

Graham is a 10,000 foot

52:18

tall peak in the southeastern corner

52:20

of Arizona. So this Mount

52:22

Graham red squirrel, it's about eight inches

52:24

long. It has dark gray brown

52:27

fur and a white belly I want

52:29

to pet.

52:29

And it enjoys a diet of seeds

52:32

and pine cones and air dried

52:34

mushrooms. Now this crater is endangered,

52:37

but at one point in the era of

52:40

Camaros and Aquanet, there was

52:42

no hope. They actually

52:43

thought that they were extinct into the mid eighties and

52:45

a hunter brought one in. And while

52:48

the first were like, oh, that is not the

52:50

abrets squirrel that you should be hunting.

52:53

That is probably

52:54

the endangered Mount Graham red squirrel. That must've

52:56

been a huge day in this ger

52:59

ideology community. They must've

53:01

been popping

53:02

bottles. I know that they couldn't text

53:04

each other, but they must've been paying long

53:06

distance fees to be like, Yes.

53:09

Yeah. To be like, Barbara, I got some news. That

53:11

is so exciting. What about

53:14

tiny squirrels on the big screen? Is

53:16

there a favorite squirrel in film

53:18

or TV that you're like, they got that

53:20

right. Or I like that one. You

53:23

know, I do love me to scratch. I

53:28

keep waiting for squirrel girl to come out. I

53:30

have a number of squirrel girl paraphernalia

53:33

in my office and things like that. She was

53:35

supposed to be in so many Marvel superheroes. I have

53:37

so many figurines of her. I cannot

53:39

wait for her Doreen to come out and show everybody

53:42

what a badass she really is. Cause she, you know, supposedly

53:44

has kicked Deadpool's ass, you know, Thunas ass,

53:47

you know, Wolverine. Like she is just

53:49

as badass in the

53:51

Marvel world. And yet I'm

53:53

waiting. I'm waiting. Just a short

53:55

PS. So LA is very small and I happen

53:58

to know, Milana Vintrope, the.

53:59

actress and the director who was slated to

54:02

play Squirrel Girl for Marvel. And

54:04

I texted her, I told her that she has a friend

54:07

in the squirrel world. And she said that

54:09

that was the most giantist honor

54:12

I know. And she'd pass it along to

54:14

Ryan North, the comic book creator who

54:16

is the real hero, she says, behind

54:19

Squirrel Girl. And also there's a six

54:21

episode scripted podcast series starring

54:23

Milana called Marvel's Squirrel

54:25

Girl, The Unbeatable Radio Show. But

54:27

if you want that movie or TV series, just

54:29

feel free to get those petitions going,

54:32

folks. Ologites, I have faith in you.

54:34

Can I ask you listener questions? Sure. I

54:37

told them you were coming on. I told them that this

54:39

was the best day of my life. But

54:43

before your questions, each week we donate to a cause

54:45

of theologist's choosing. And this week we're going to split

54:47

it between two for Karen. One is letters

54:50

to a pre-scientist which connects students

54:52

to STEM professionals through snail

54:54

mail to broaden students' awareness

54:57

of what STEM professionals look like and

54:59

do at work. And the other is to Squirrel

55:01

Mapper, a community science project

55:03

that helps researchers

55:04

identify populations

55:07

of squirrels and their morphs. Why,

55:09

they ask? Because together we can

55:11

crack this nut. So find out more

55:14

at prescientist.org and

55:16

squirrelmapper.org. And those

55:18

donations were made possible by sponsors

55:20

of the show.

55:22

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Let's start with one about

1:00:02

goth squirrels. Shall we? Asked

1:00:04

by Cooper Moore, Kylo Murphy and

1:00:06

Clay Morman, who says, I've

1:00:08

seen a ton of melanistic gray squirrels

1:00:11

in Ohio and Toronto, but none in

1:00:13

New England. What's the deal? And

1:00:15

Jess Shrazan has seen them

1:00:18

in central Illinois, but almost

1:00:20

none in and around Chicago.

1:00:23

Huh. Populations, pockets of squirrels,

1:00:25

like the all black squirrels in

1:00:27

DC. Absolutely. Yeah. The

1:00:30

Canadian black squirrels. How did they get to DC?

1:00:33

And also LA not

1:00:35

supposed to have a lot of Fox squirrels. And

1:00:37

yet here we are. They're everywhere.

1:00:40

How did these Canadian squirrels get to DC?

1:00:42

People love squirrels and they move them

1:00:44

everywhere. That's

1:00:46

the easy answer. Right. So here I'm

1:00:48

here in Ohio and the very classic answer is that

1:00:50

a man went on vacation in Canada, found

1:00:52

these black squirrels, fell in love with them, caught 10

1:00:55

of them, brought them back and released them.

1:00:58

Oops. Anything having to

1:01:00

do with love and smuggling,

1:01:03

it's complicated. But the Smithsonian

1:01:05

in Washington says that it has the receipts

1:01:07

dating back to the year 1900 when

1:01:10

the superintendent of the national zoo,

1:01:12

one Frank Baker, was thirsty

1:01:15

for the squirrels that Canada had and

1:01:18

got about eight or 10 of them sent

1:01:20

and they were the talk of the town at

1:01:22

the zoo in Washington, DC. In six

1:01:25

years, a few litters later, they

1:01:27

were like, listen.

1:01:28

The gray squirrels here in Washington

1:01:30

are getting hunted too much. What

1:01:32

say you to a little city upgrade by releasing

1:01:35

a few of these melanistic ones just

1:01:37

on the zoo grounds? Of course, that didn't go

1:01:39

as planned. Nature finds a way.

1:01:41

And so the squirrels that you see in some parts of the Northeast

1:01:44

sporting this lustrous jet black

1:01:47

fur are technically gray

1:01:49

squirrels.

1:01:49

It's a single gene. If you're missing one little

1:01:51

part of your gray gene, right,

1:01:54

you become this dark

1:01:56

black squirrel. If you get both copies

1:01:58

of black, if you get one copy, you're just kind of

1:02:00

more grayish and you're missing your white belly

1:02:02

and things like that. But certainly, I mean we

1:02:04

have black squirrels here in Ohio, they

1:02:06

are coming kind of moving

1:02:08

down from Canada and

1:02:10

dispersing down. And once the trait gets into the

1:02:13

population, it just spreads. It's a dominant

1:02:15

trait. So if you get

1:02:17

one gene,

1:02:19

it's gonna be expressed. So we

1:02:21

see them more and more and more. I'm willing

1:02:23

to bet that there is probably some

1:02:25

thermoregulation advantage,

1:02:27

but no one really knows why.

1:02:29

Listen, I know not everyone has a thermophysiologist

1:02:31

that they can text on a whim, but I hit up my friend

1:02:34

Dr. Shane Campbell-Staton of the

1:02:36

Thermo Physiology episodes and he said, I

1:02:38

would imagine being able to absorb more heat from

1:02:41

the environment during a time when heat is

1:02:43

at a metabolic premium, like winter, would

1:02:45

have clear benefits. However, there's also

1:02:47

a trend called GLOJURs rule that

1:02:49

says mammals should get lighter toward the

1:02:51

poles. Ultimately, it probably comes down to

1:02:54

which aspect of the environment is the biggest

1:02:56

challenge, he said. And sure enough, yep, research

1:02:58

has shown that

1:02:59

black mammals have 18%

1:03:01

lower heat loss in temperatures below

1:03:04

negative 10 degrees Celsius. And also

1:03:06

when it comes to these squirrels, the darker morphs

1:03:08

may survive the city better because researchers

1:03:11

say they're more visible to drivers who

1:03:14

are looking to avoid squirrel

1:03:16

murder on their way to the post office. But

1:03:18

remember, this morph didn't evolve to

1:03:20

live in this part of the continent and now also

1:03:23

is a great time to plug Dr. Shane Campbell-Staton's

1:03:25

new and really stunning PBS show called

1:03:28

Human Footprint,

1:03:29

which just premiered a few weeks ago.

1:03:31

I've known he was shooting it for years.

1:03:33

I'm so excited for you to see it. So I'll link it on

1:03:36

my website. It's called Human Footprint on PBS. You

1:03:38

can look it up. But yes, any melanistic

1:03:40

squirrels in DC are likely

1:03:42

descendants of Frank Baker's

1:03:44

quest to populate the nation's capital

1:03:47

with pretty little squirrel babies.

1:03:49

People always say that they're smaller or they're meaner

1:03:51

or they're more aggressive and I've not seen any

1:03:53

of that in my studies. They weigh the same

1:03:55

as

1:03:56

gray squirrels. I've definitely seen litters

1:03:58

that are mixed black and gray.

1:03:59

Oh, maybe different dance. Possibly

1:04:02

different dance. I mean, get

1:04:04

the dance. Yeah, I mean, it's just brunettes versus blondes.

1:04:07

Al Ham is a first time question asker who appears

1:04:10

to know a little bit about this and asked, are the black

1:04:12

squirrels introduced to several areas of the USA,

1:04:14

like Kent, Ohio, Holland, Michigan, some areas of Arizona,

1:04:17

et cetera. Are they considered feral

1:04:19

or because they were maybe

1:04:22

escaped pets or does that even matter

1:04:25

at the end of the day? Most of the time it doesn't matter. So

1:04:27

gray squirrels,

1:04:28

whether they're black or gray, have been introduced

1:04:30

all over the world and they typically

1:04:32

will cause trouble wherever

1:04:35

they go. They are able to outcompete most of the

1:04:37

other squirrel species and we don't have a really

1:04:39

easy answer as to why, why

1:04:41

that might be, but people just love squirrels.

1:04:43

And so they take them and introduce them places where they

1:04:45

really shouldn't be. And places like California,

1:04:48

where there is a Western gray squirrel, the

1:04:50

Western gray squirrels are getting outcompete by the Eastern

1:04:53

gray squirrels. Same kind of thing in Arizona, same

1:04:55

kind of thing in England, in Italy.

1:04:58

There's reports of Eastern gray squirrels in the

1:05:00

hazelnut farms. I love it, I love it, I

1:05:02

love it. That's a problem economically.

1:05:04

And then if they are

1:05:06

somehow able to get over the Alps, they'll be into

1:05:08

Asia and they can easily spread

1:05:10

all over Asia. And so there are a lot

1:05:12

of management concerns with people

1:05:15

releasing pet

1:05:17

gray squirrels. And there are lots of conservation

1:05:20

organizations looking to reign

1:05:22

them back and control them and manage those populations.

1:05:25

I had never even thought about it. You've got an almond or

1:05:27

a walnut orchard. Do they just not like

1:05:29

the tannic hull of those

1:05:32

nuts? Right, it's so much better. Why would you bother

1:05:34

eating an acorn when you can eat an almond or a walnut or

1:05:36

a peanut? So then I wonder what almond farmers

1:05:38

and stuff do about that. I definitely

1:05:41

see a lot of owl boxes near orchards,

1:05:43

which, you know. Okay,

1:05:45

so I did look this up and catacomb

1:05:48

of web pages led me to something called UC

1:05:50

Integrated Pest Management Program, which

1:05:53

said deep plowing, also known

1:05:55

as ripping, along perimeters

1:05:57

of fields will destroy

1:05:59

birds.

1:05:59

entrances and will help slow

1:06:02

the rate of ground squirrel invasion

1:06:04

in orchards. They also say burrow

1:06:07

fumigants, toxic baits, and

1:06:09

traps currently are the most effective

1:06:11

control methods. And I feel

1:06:13

like I say this all the time, but on the

1:06:16

topic of human footprints, even the most

1:06:18

well-meaning diet still

1:06:21

affects the ecology. It just does,

1:06:23

I have no answers for you, just an

1:06:25

urge to have perspective. Okay, moving

1:06:27

on. I thought this was an absolutely unhinged

1:06:29

question and I'll ask it. Kate

1:06:32

Webb, first time question asked her, says there are

1:06:34

species of flying squirrel in Michigan that

1:06:36

fluoresce?

1:06:38

Yes, we didn't know that till just a few years ago.

1:06:40

No one had any idea and they accidentally

1:06:43

turned on a black light and it was like, oh crap,

1:06:46

this is like bright pink, bright purple.

1:06:48

It's pretty amazing. For more on this you can see

1:06:51

the paper, Using Mass Spectrometry

1:06:53

to Investigate Fluorescent Compounds in

1:06:55

Squirrel Fur, which will treat

1:06:57

you to the visual of this fuzzy

1:07:00

furry flying squirrel cradled in

1:07:02

the palm of a researcher exposed to black light

1:07:05

and the squirrel's belly looks like a neon

1:07:08

pink hallucination. Why

1:07:10

is this happening? Well, like many things,

1:07:13

no one knows shit, but some scariotologists

1:07:16

hypothesize that fluorescent coloration

1:07:19

on their bellies may help camouflage

1:07:21

flying squirrels against predators

1:07:24

that are UV detecting like owls because

1:07:27

there are plants and lichen that also

1:07:29

glow similarly. Also might

1:07:31

be for mating, might be a communication

1:07:34

tool. As a human you would need

1:07:36

a cannon event level breakup and

1:07:38

a quart of manic panic to achieve it. It's

1:07:40

amazing, 12 out of 10.

1:07:42

Oh, that is like the Bob Marley poster

1:07:45

that no one knew that they needed. Is there

1:07:47

any reason why these squirrels would fluoresce?

1:07:50

Kate Webb wants to know. I mean they can see

1:07:52

each other, other things can see them

1:07:54

or not see them, right? The amount of UV

1:07:56

radiation that happens at night is very different than the amount that

1:07:58

happens during the day.

1:07:59

Oh. The types of eye

1:08:02

receptors and things like that. Do you think

1:08:04

that they are better equipped to see that? Yes.

1:08:06

With night vision? Yep. Which

1:08:09

brings me to Madison Hunter's question. Says, not

1:08:11

sure if you will cover flying squirrels, but I

1:08:13

had one as a pet when I was in middle

1:08:15

school, and I noticed it was quite active at night. And

1:08:18

Madison says, I would usually play music to sleep,

1:08:21

and I often caught it doing what appeared

1:08:23

to be dancing to the music. Do

1:08:26

you think it's possible

1:08:28

that squirrels get

1:08:31

down? Let's boogie. I've never personally

1:08:33

seen it. I don't want to say that it couldn't

1:08:35

possibly, but I've never seen it.

1:08:38

And what about the nocturnal

1:08:40

versus diurnal? Is it totally

1:08:43

dependent on the environment and the squirrel? So really,

1:08:45

there aren't very many tree squirrels or ground squirrels

1:08:48

that are nocturnal. Usually, it's the flying squirrels

1:08:50

that are nocturnal.

1:08:50

Oh. And those, again,

1:08:53

in Lila Laco's words, are

1:08:55

flying squirrels closely related to walking

1:08:58

squirrels, or is that name just a misnomer?

1:09:00

It's just a total misnomer. They don't fly at all. They glide.

1:09:04

They have no capacity to actually gain

1:09:07

lift by flapping or anything.

1:09:09

They literally are just taking advantage

1:09:12

of the ability to get from point A to point B

1:09:14

much faster by gliding

1:09:16

than by going down the tree, running across the ground,

1:09:19

and going back up the tree.

1:09:20

But them is squirrels? Yes.

1:09:22

OK. Absolutely. So everyone

1:09:24

such as Dania Khan, Irina D'Zazzo,

1:09:27

Aaron Gunderson, Brittany Shafis, Francis Hirschbacher,

1:09:29

Kimberly Bryant, Hudson Anzle, and the

1:09:32

squirrel queen who asked about flying squirrels,

1:09:35

the expert word is? So

1:09:37

the flying is a no. The squirrel is a yes.

1:09:40

Yes. Yes. OK. No. Oh

1:09:43

my gosh. I have never seen one in person,

1:09:45

but. So you need to go to Japan. So one of the questions

1:09:47

I almost always get asked is, what's your favorite squirrel?

1:09:50

Oh. They're like, children. You cannot pick a

1:09:52

favorite child. But if you're going to press

1:09:54

me, I will typically tell you it's the two

1:09:56

Japanese squirrels. So the Japanese pygmy dwarf

1:09:59

squirrel, which is teeny.

1:09:59

tiny little puff ball and Musasabe.

1:10:04

Musasabe is an eight pound

1:10:06

flying squirrel. What? That's

1:10:09

a baby. That's the size of an infant human.

1:10:11

It's like the size of your house cat, right? And so

1:10:13

when it glides over your head,

1:10:15

it's like somebody has hurled a trashcan

1:10:18

lid over your head speeds up

1:10:20

to 35 miles an hour. When they

1:10:22

hit the tree, when they land, you

1:10:25

can just hear the slam and then

1:10:27

you hear them kind of climbing up and then they'll take off

1:10:29

again. So I want you to picture a group of researchers

1:10:32

in a very sacred Japanese

1:10:35

shrine

1:10:36

at two, three o'clock in the morning with

1:10:38

our red headlamps on, running

1:10:40

from tree to tree as we try

1:10:42

and follow these Musasabe. I

1:10:44

was for sure. I was like, they're going to be headlines, you

1:10:46

know, American squirrel research arrested.

1:10:50

Well,

1:10:52

someone asked if there was a black squirrel

1:10:54

lab breach conspiracy, AZM.

1:10:57

Have you heard that they

1:10:59

escaped from a lab? Is there a conspiracy

1:11:02

about this? No. And generally

1:11:04

speaking, you know, picking squirrels

1:11:06

inside is not always a good thing. They really

1:11:08

do chew everything. I would

1:11:11

not want a lab full of squirrels in

1:11:13

any way, shape or form. Squirrels stay outside is what

1:11:16

I always use my students.

1:11:17

If you had a pet male squirrel,

1:11:19

would it be so horny all the time? Cause

1:11:22

that must be why they have giant balls, right?

1:11:24

They were WV points when it is super

1:11:26

aggressive and wanting to get outside and things like that.

1:11:29

Absolutely. People who keep squirrels as pets

1:11:31

generally don't keep them for very long. And because once they

1:11:34

get to that point, they are just aggressive and bitey

1:11:36

and one out. Well, you've been in

1:11:38

academia a long time and you've been researching squirrels for

1:11:40

a long time. And we have a ton of people who I will

1:11:42

list in an aside, including Adrian, who

1:11:44

works on an elementary school campus

1:11:47

and who students have become obsessed with

1:11:49

crime squirrel, one who rifles through

1:11:51

their backpacks and patron Alec Joseph,

1:11:54

whose friends have quote college

1:11:56

squirrel trauma and Mary Con

1:11:59

Cannon, Natalie Chappelle.

1:11:59

Chelsea Victoria Turner, Cassandra Grafstrom,

1:12:02

Tara Tiger Studio, RJ Deutsch, Emily

1:12:04

Stauffer, and Kyla Murphy. I want to

1:12:06

know about college squirrels. They

1:12:09

want to know why are they so big?

1:12:11

One says, what's up with U of M squirrels?

1:12:13

RJ Deutsch says, I dare say you haven't seen

1:12:15

Rutgers squirrels. Emily Stauffer, what is

1:12:17

up with squirrels on college campuses? They

1:12:20

seem to never have a fear of people. Natalie

1:12:22

Jones says,

1:12:24

I've seen a college campus squirrel drag

1:12:26

a whole bagel away. Stop doing

1:12:28

it. Come back. What is it about college

1:12:30

campuses and squirrels? I mean, they're

1:12:33

diurnal. College students are mostly

1:12:35

diurnal. And so, you know,

1:12:37

they just go kind of hand in hand, I think, because

1:12:40

they are so charismatic, people feed them all the time.

1:12:42

I mean, I can tell you that

1:12:43

the squirrels on my campus are 20% larger

1:12:46

than if they were just out somewhere

1:12:48

else. And people know that I study squirrels on campus.

1:12:50

I'm well known. Squirrel doc is well known,

1:12:52

but people still will feed squirrels. There is an

1:12:54

Instagram account that is not run by me just

1:12:57

for our campus squirrels. And I sometimes

1:12:59

get salty with them because I will submit good pictures

1:13:02

and they are not chosen to be featured on the Instagram

1:13:04

feed. How dare, how dare.

1:13:07

Patricia Jeeson notes that they

1:13:09

found a squirrel eating a hot dog bun in a tree

1:13:11

a few weeks ago. I mean, just

1:13:13

the idea of them eating whole

1:13:16

hot dog bun. Chandler Whittington wants to know,

1:13:18

how do they not get poisoned when they eat mushrooms?

1:13:21

Do they ever get high? How do they know? I

1:13:24

can't, I can't forage for mushrooms. And I have a computer

1:13:26

in my pocket. So

1:13:29

they do eat mushrooms that would be

1:13:31

poisonous to us. So they clearly have a different digestive

1:13:33

system processing system than we do. And

1:13:35

they probably do have occasionally had

1:13:38

psychedelic mushrooms. I have seen videos

1:13:40

of squirrels drunk after they've eaten

1:13:43

pumpkins or apples or things like that, that have

1:13:45

fermented and have alcohol in them and

1:13:47

really can't climb up a tree very well. They

1:13:50

kind of keep falling off and

1:13:51

falling over and

1:13:53

lack of coordination.

1:13:54

Do you think they're having fun or do you think they're like, what the fuck?

1:13:56

Why is the tree moving? Why is the tree

1:13:58

spinning? Probably both. Sometimes it's

1:14:00

a fermented pumpkin. Sometimes it's

1:14:03

a fizzy crab apple. And sometimes it's standing

1:14:05

under a keg like a rainforest

1:14:07

shower, reported by Buzz60. Operators

1:14:10

at the Honeyborne Railway Club say when they opened

1:14:12

up they found beer spilled all over the floor,

1:14:14

glasses knocked off the shelves, and bottles

1:14:17

scattered everywhere. Employees

1:14:19

thought they'd been burgled, but then the culprit staggered

1:14:21

into view. A slow-moving

1:14:23

squirrel still apparently intoxicated

1:14:26

from lapping up the fruits of his destructive

1:14:28

rampage. So

1:14:29

it happens, and this is why

1:14:32

squirrels don't have driver's licenses. Sad.

1:14:36

Jess, Donald, wants to know how many

1:14:38

nuts can they fit in their mouth? And also apologies

1:14:40

if that sounds inappropriate. How big are their face

1:14:42

versus? When it comes to their

1:14:45

ludicrously capacious face, how

1:14:48

much can they fit in there? Or do chipmunks

1:14:50

really have that down?

1:14:52

Chipmunks really have that down. Squirrels still have

1:14:54

pouches, and they can pack some good food in there. But chipmunks

1:14:56

are the ones who have that big

1:14:59

expanding piece. I do catch chipmunks

1:15:01

in our traps. My favorite thing is when you grab

1:15:03

them, the first thing they do is just regurgitate

1:15:05

all of that that's in their mouth. It just kind

1:15:08

of all just falls out. I

1:15:10

am so sorry you can have this later. I won't take it.

1:15:13

You can come back for it. I'll leave it right here. Or better

1:15:15

yet, or worse yet, depending on how you think about it. Because I use peanut

1:15:17

butter to play the trap. They will have their cheeks stuffed

1:15:19

with peanut butter, so then it's like the Play-Doh factory,

1:15:22

this

1:15:22

peanut butter being squished out. They're

1:15:25

like, just take it. Just take it. I don't want

1:15:27

this. Nick McCosh

1:15:30

wants to know, did squirrels invent maple

1:15:32

syrup? Have you heard this?

1:15:34

No. I don't know. I mean, certainly they will

1:15:36

eat sap. Certainly they will pull the

1:15:38

outer bark off and eat that inner cameon

1:15:40

and things like that, particularly when there's not a lot of food

1:15:42

to eat. So maybe you could say

1:15:45

that they have long

1:15:47

time

1:15:47

taking advantage of that resource.

1:15:50

What? It's true. According to the

1:15:52

Journal of Mamology paper, Maple Sugaring

1:15:54

by Red Squirrels, in which Dr.

1:15:56

Bernd Heinrich writes, Red squirrels

1:15:59

make

1:15:59

tap via a single pair

1:16:02

of chisel-like grooves from one

1:16:04

bite into the sappy xylem

1:16:06

layer of maple trees. But, they write,

1:16:09

quote, the dripping dilute sap

1:16:11

was not harvested. Instead, the

1:16:14

squirrels came back later and selectively

1:16:17

visited the trees that had been punctured after

1:16:19

most of the water from the sap had evaporated.

1:16:22

Yes! So they found this all over Vermont

1:16:25

and Maine and the Haudenosaunee

1:16:27

legend credits squirrels with

1:16:29

teaching

1:16:29

indigenous folks how to tap

1:16:32

and evaporate maple sap. So waffles

1:16:35

brought to you by squirrels. Oh,

1:16:38

speaking of food and water, patron Iris

1:16:40

Hutchings had a question about what happens when

1:16:42

squirrels get thirsty. Where are they drinking

1:16:44

water from, actually? Do they get it from the plants

1:16:46

they eat?

1:16:47

From everything that they eat? Yeah. Is

1:16:50

it good to set up like a little water feature fountain? You

1:16:52

can. They usually won't drink from it, though. It's not

1:16:54

something they won't. So don't get your feelings hurt

1:16:56

if they don't? No. The

1:16:58

first one about squirrel memory was on

1:17:01

the minds of Popita, Diana

1:17:03

Teter, Alexandra Kattool, Anke

1:17:05

Lausch, Laureen Evans, Taylor Faulkner,

1:17:07

Jeff Berg, and Alex Keeley. A

1:17:09

ton of people want to know how do

1:17:12

they remember where they hid their food?

1:17:14

Do they have that kind of memory year after year?

1:17:17

Probably not year after year because most of the resources

1:17:19

are probably gone within a year. We do know

1:17:21

that the size of their hippocampus, which

1:17:23

we know is used in spatial memory, does

1:17:26

increase in the fall when acorns are present. There's

1:17:29

research that clearly shows that. I was part of

1:17:31

that as an undergrad as well. The size of

1:17:33

the hippocampus in spring versus fall. It's

1:17:35

much larger in fall. For them to try and remember

1:17:37

that. But that's a great question. It's one

1:17:40

of the things that my lab has just started to try

1:17:42

and take on. I have some hypotheses that

1:17:44

say that some species of squirrels are probably,

1:17:47

I don't

1:17:47

want to say that they are better at remembering,

1:17:51

but probably better at relocating

1:17:53

scatterhorns of acorns,

1:17:55

things like that.

1:17:56

Also, in case you think scatterhoarder

1:17:58

is an unnecessary insult. It's

1:18:01

not just a way to say that you're a mess,

1:18:03

squirrels. It's just a mammology,

1:18:06

scradiology term for hiding your shit

1:18:08

in a few different places, which is a thing that you might

1:18:10

do with lip balms or money, except

1:18:13

it's lunch and it's in the dirt. A

1:18:15

few people, including Amanda and

1:18:17

Chase,

1:18:18

panics want to know. By the way, I

1:18:20

just want to say never in 350

1:18:23

episodes of this podcast

1:18:25

have I gotten so many questions that

1:18:27

start with a story and that

1:18:29

is the best. Amanda

1:18:31

says, I have a squirrel that comes to my window and waits

1:18:34

patiently until I give it nuts. It looks like

1:18:36

she gets excited when she sees me and recognizes

1:18:38

me. Can squirrels recognize

1:18:40

individual humans like pros

1:18:42

can and Chase and others want to know like do

1:18:45

they remember friendly faces or are you

1:18:47

of any machine?

1:18:48

I don't think so but I'm willing to bet that her behavior

1:18:50

is the same every time and so she recognizes the

1:18:52

same behavior. Madison Hunter and

1:18:55

some other people. Also, wild pack of dogs

1:18:57

Nicole DJ, Dave DBR maker

1:18:59

and first of all, Jessica

1:19:01

Julia Suamela wants to know

1:19:03

if you've seen Mark Rober's squirrel obstacle

1:19:05

course videos. So the first challenge is

1:19:08

the bridge of instability. Now this may look

1:19:10

easy but the trick is it attaches at

1:19:12

a single point on each end and

1:19:14

from a physics standpoint that makes it no

1:19:16

different than trying to crawl across a tightrope.

1:19:18

So these videos went up during the early

1:19:20

pandemic and they feature a backyard squirrel,

1:19:23

well several, going through what is

1:19:26

described as an American ninja

1:19:28

warrior course to reach a bird

1:19:30

feeder. These videos have racked up

1:19:33

hundreds of millions of views. How

1:19:35

do you feel about them? I mean it's

1:19:37

awesome and I love that. I love it when people

1:19:40

ask me about you know they'll describe their

1:19:42

entire set up of bird feeders and things

1:19:44

like that. This is so great and it just

1:19:46

shows really how smart they are and

1:19:49

you know spatially conscious and then he

1:19:51

has the whole piece about like when they get launched that

1:19:53

they always do land correctly and you

1:19:55

can really easily watch

1:19:57

how they use that tail as a rudder in there and

1:19:59

everything.

1:19:59

And so it's just perfect. It's

1:20:02

great. But people do this all the time. They'll be like, I have

1:20:04

the spring. And then I used Vaseline and I greased

1:20:06

this and this is far from here and they have to do

1:20:08

this and they have to go here and like, yep, it's

1:20:10

amazing.

1:20:11

Everyone, I guess with a backyard. Looking

1:20:13

at you, Katie Courtright and Ebby, Sage

1:20:16

Scarberry, Grace Robichaux, Katie Armstrong.

1:20:18

Wants to know, how do we keep the bird

1:20:20

feed safe? Jenny Low Road, one to

1:20:23

know,

1:20:23

why do they eat all the bird

1:20:26

seed with capital A? And Raining

1:20:28

Emily asked this question. So

1:20:30

my grandfather is constantly at war with squirrels

1:20:33

because they eat his bird seed. And their

1:20:35

question was, is it bad for squirrels to eat

1:20:37

bird seed or just some beef that my grandfather

1:20:39

has with the squirrels? And I was like, Emily, I hate

1:20:42

to tell you this. I think your

1:20:43

grandpa's just team bird here. But

1:20:46

is there anything bad about bird seed or is it just

1:20:48

that they're taking from birds? No, it's just that, yes,

1:20:50

no, there's nothing bad about bird seed or things like that. And

1:20:53

my answer, my best answer, so listen

1:20:55

up is hot pepper bird seed. Go

1:20:57

someplace that sells specialty bird

1:20:59

seed, get the hot pepper bird seed. It'll

1:21:02

stop the squirrels from eating it. They'll stop the deer from eating

1:21:04

it. They'll stop the raccoons from eating it. And then

1:21:06

once you've dissuaded them

1:21:09

that the bird feeder is not where they wanna be, then

1:21:11

you can kind of mix 50-50 hot

1:21:13

pepper bird seed and regular bird seed, and

1:21:16

maybe even go back to just regular bird seed until

1:21:18

they figure it back out again. And then you have to go

1:21:20

back to the hot pepper bird seed. But that

1:21:22

is my only, it's

1:21:23

my best advice. And that's nature. That's

1:21:26

just, birds can't taste it. So

1:21:29

we did a chickens episode recently about putting

1:21:32

red pepper flakes in your chicken feed. Not only are the squirrels

1:21:34

like, hell no, but also you get really

1:21:36

beautiful orange yolks. Yep. But

1:21:39

it does bring me to a question a lot of people wanna

1:21:41

know. Such as Cynthia Connor, Catherine

1:21:43

Finney, Megan Guthrie, Maya, Jerry Webb, Pascal

1:21:46

Perrin, and Jackie Ross. How does

1:21:48

one protect their gardens? As

1:21:50

much as they love them, Alice and

1:21:52

P, first time question I asked her, how do I get squirrels

1:21:55

to stop stealing my sunflowers? Catherine,

1:21:58

apparently squirrels are digging up. There's a bunch.

1:21:59

garden, other heater, did

1:22:02

call them furry terrorists. Jackie Ross,

1:22:04

is there any real way to stop them from

1:22:07

eating their plants? Nope, world domination

1:22:09

for sure. What

1:22:11

about a net? Get a net? I mean, sure, you can try

1:22:14

a net and keep them and the birds

1:22:15

out. But sometimes, I mean,

1:22:18

they're, they're pretty smart. And they can kind of get usually

1:22:20

get between the fence and the net

1:22:22

unlike the birds who just kind of go from

1:22:24

the top. And so

1:22:25

it's hard, especially if you live some place that has

1:22:28

ground squirrels or groundhogs or woodchucks,

1:22:30

like you're, you're in trouble.

1:22:32

Well, they got some judgment from some

1:22:35

people who wanted to know why

1:22:37

they taunt us by not eating the whole

1:22:42

thing. Camille Charlebois, RIP

1:22:44

to your half eaten tomatoes. And Nina

1:22:47

Giocave says, why do they taunt me by leaving

1:22:49

half eaten strawberries on the edge of my

1:22:51

garden? Apparently,

1:22:53

Marika says, why do squirrels

1:22:55

leave treats and leftovers on my window sills? Why

1:22:57

do they not finish? I have complained about

1:23:00

this too. They will eat one bite out of the tomato and then

1:23:02

put it down and then reach the next one, the

1:23:04

next bite of the tomato. And so it's not like they

1:23:06

respect me

1:23:07

either. I think it comes from that natural behavior

1:23:10

to not eat the whole acorn, not

1:23:12

eat the whole seed, right? So like they'll eat the top

1:23:14

half of the acorn because it has less tannins. So

1:23:16

it means more protein for

1:23:18

them and then drop it and move on to the

1:23:20

next one. And because it is so abundant,

1:23:22

you know, we could use our marginal value

1:23:24

theorem and talk about optimal foraging, that

1:23:27

it's just better to take the best bite

1:23:30

and move on. Take the best

1:23:32

bite and move on people. Horrible

1:23:34

strategy for humans works

1:23:37

good for squirrels. Who can be so frustrated

1:23:39

with them? I mean, who doesn't, I guess, want

1:23:41

to just go to a smorgasbord, try a little

1:23:44

nibble, everything, I suppose.

1:23:46

Eat the best part of the strawberry and just, you know, the

1:23:48

rest of it. Stephanie Coombs wants

1:23:51

tips on keeping them out of my shed, aside

1:23:53

from rebuilding it. If they trap

1:23:55

them, will they come back?

1:23:57

And again, a great story.

1:23:59

but in terms of hiding mushrooms, apparently

1:24:02

Stephanie's rubber boots were filled

1:24:05

this year with mushroom, which is so

1:24:07

cute, but if you wanted to keep

1:24:09

them out of a structure. Such as

1:24:11

Attic Squirrel having Hannah Nolan and James

1:24:13

Nance, and Ness and

1:24:15

Sydney Eye and Abby Grebe, who

1:24:18

struggles with garage squirrels.

1:24:20

You need to make sure that there's no way they can get in. Usually

1:24:23

we have to make sure you block up any holes or entrances or

1:24:25

things like that, because if you don't take them

1:24:27

very far away, they will most likely

1:24:30

come back. Art by DJ has

1:24:32

a weird one. Bring it on. They say

1:24:34

a neighbor had a squirrel one by one steal

1:24:36

all the bulbs off her string of deck lights,

1:24:39

chewing them off at the cord, and then just running

1:24:41

away with them. Have you ever heard

1:24:43

of this?

1:24:44

Yes, and I don't know why. So

1:24:46

their incisors continue to grow, so they have

1:24:48

that need to continue to gnaw for their entire

1:24:50

lives, to keep their tooth wear down.

1:24:53

And there definitely are some plastics that

1:24:56

seem to be more favorite than others. And

1:24:58

so I don't know what the component

1:25:00

of the plastic is. I can tell you, on our campus,

1:25:03

they bought some of the recycled plastic

1:25:05

picnic tables that are supposedly made from corn

1:25:07

cobs. Oh, apparently those are very tasty.

1:25:10

Any, like, hole or break or anything, squirrels

1:25:13

are just in there gnawing and chewing.

1:25:14

And I don't

1:25:16

know if it's because it's just ever such a slightly softer plastic

1:25:20

or if there is actually something tasty

1:25:22

for Maine left over in

1:25:24

that corn plastic. Well,

1:25:27

I got to say, I had a Prius. Corn

1:25:30

stopped working. I don't know where. I

1:25:32

took it in and said, what's up with the holler? And

1:25:34

I said, let me know if you find any dead raccoons in there, L-O-L-O-L.

1:25:38

They call me back. They're like, you got a nest in

1:25:40

your car. They cracked open my hood, half

1:25:43

an orange, a bunch of snail shells, and

1:25:46

apparently the wire harness

1:25:48

in Toyota Priuses is lubed

1:25:50

with soybean oil, and it

1:25:53

is scrumptious. I'm sure you've heard

1:25:55

this a lot, right?

1:25:56

Yep. That's soy plastic,

1:25:58

so... It was so

1:26:01

cute, but there was also so much poo, and

1:26:03

I was like, that almost sounds like,

1:26:05

um, he has rats. Right. Yeah, that's

1:26:07

probably rats. Well, okay. Squirrels, you're

1:26:09

off the hook. Another reason why I love Patreon

1:26:12

questions is because this, I did not know, um, a lot

1:26:14

of people, James Hales, A. McCrag,

1:26:16

Sedoni S. And Iris Hutchings' words

1:26:18

asked, is it true that red squirrels

1:26:21

will

1:26:21

shoe off the gonax of gray squirrels

1:26:24

to decimate the gray squirrels population?

1:26:27

Is that true that they castrate each

1:26:30

other with their mouths? Never.

1:26:33

Never? No. Red

1:26:35

squirrels are definitely far more

1:26:37

aggressive than gray squirrels

1:26:39

or fox squirrels. I generally say my rule of

1:26:42

thumb is the smaller the squirrel, the more aggressive or

1:26:44

the larger the squirrel, the more dopey it is.

1:26:47

But no, there's none of that happening. So if

1:26:50

there are red squirrels around, they will typically chase off

1:26:52

the gray squirrels and fox squirrels, but there's no interaction

1:26:55

like that. Oh, Slimflam busted.

1:26:57

So I think sometimes people kind

1:26:59

of misjudge that because when males

1:27:02

are sexually active, you can clearly see their

1:27:04

testes. They're rather large. You've got a set of balls.

1:27:07

But when they're not sexually active, those testes

1:27:09

regress back up into the body cavity. And so then

1:27:11

you don't see them.

1:27:13

Oh, so they put

1:27:15

them into retirement. Yep. Okay. Well, that's

1:27:17

good because I was about to, that blew

1:27:20

my whole mind. But as long as you're busting Slimflam,

1:27:23

let's talk TikTok. Amanda Lass first,

1:27:25

her question is for you and a bunch of other people. Matthew

1:27:27

Whitman, Lenny Olzeth, Laurel, Jen

1:27:30

Squirrel, Alvarez, Amy Ducrae,

1:27:32

Steven Shelley and Danielle Zones

1:27:34

all asked about TikTok user Andy Witch's

1:27:37

February 2023 video

1:27:39

that apparently demonstrated some kind

1:27:41

of squirrel mind control by undulating

1:27:44

an outstretched arm toward a

1:27:46

squirrel on this suburban street. Andy

1:27:48

Witch, how literal is that last name? Because

1:27:50

I love it. Also, what and

1:27:53

why, how, what the hell is

1:27:55

up with the wave hand motion thing that's supposedly

1:27:57

mind controlling squirrels?

1:28:00

Do you know what I'm talking about? I know

1:28:02

completely what you're talking about. I learned a cool

1:28:04

life hack of controlling squirrels. You

1:28:07

could actually control squirrels by using your

1:28:09

hand in a wave motion. And you

1:28:11

could see that the squirrel comes towards me.

1:28:14

I learned this from a friend who was in the squirrel club. So

1:28:17

now the squirrel is super close to me. You

1:28:19

could do this on all squirrels. Be careful.

1:28:22

I had to try it because I was like, I've never seen this. I

1:28:24

have no idea. I've had zero luck. So

1:28:26

I don't know what this is. The only thing I can

1:28:28

think of is that it kind of mimics the giving of food.

1:28:31

And so maybe squirrels who

1:28:33

are in urban parks, who are used to being fed

1:28:35

by humans, recognize that kind

1:28:37

of up and down motion. But

1:28:40

I don't have another explanation. Well,

1:28:42

as long as we're communicating with appendages,

1:28:45

Chris Whitman, Jeanette Moth-McKergy, Megan

1:28:47

Guthrie, they want to know, in Chris's

1:28:49

words, what does the fast tail switching mean?

1:28:52

What are they communicating with their tails?

1:28:55

Typically, when it's kind of flipping back and forth, that's

1:28:57

kind of a predator alarm call. It's a visual predator alarm

1:28:59

call. Okay. If they're twitching and

1:29:02

screaming at you, they're like, you're going

1:29:04

to kill me. Get out of here. I

1:29:06

hate you. Stranger danger. I'm telling everybody

1:29:08

around me that there's a predator here. Well,

1:29:11

they're trying to cancel you. That's what they're doing. Yep. Because

1:29:14

we could kill them. And I see you. Yeah, we

1:29:16

are predators. Squirrel hunters are out there. Have you ever

1:29:18

eaten squirrel? Not knowingly. I feel like

1:29:20

that's a line

1:29:21

you can't cross, right? I'm

1:29:24

sure that somebody has sped it to me at some point,

1:29:26

but not knowingly. Do you have any enemies?

1:29:29

Do

1:29:29

you think anyone's done it just as well? No,

1:29:32

not that I know of, but I'm sure somebody would

1:29:35

think that that would be a welcoming

1:29:38

kind of thing. And if your

1:29:40

toes curled and your throat seized

1:29:43

hearing that, I do have some historical

1:29:45

news. So a lot of humans

1:29:47

have been eating a lot of squirrel for

1:29:50

a long time. And squirrels have been

1:29:52

called the chicken of the trees. And

1:29:54

in some cultures, squirrels are considered

1:29:56

kids' food.

1:29:57

Truly, the chicken nuggets of the

1:29:59

woods.

1:29:59

and there are 1.5 million registered

1:30:02

squirrel hunters in the US. Many ecologists

1:30:05

and chefs praise squirrel hunting

1:30:08

as more humane and less ecologically

1:30:10

devastating than factory farmed meat, and

1:30:13

a potential control of invasive

1:30:15

species of squirrel. It's also, from a taste

1:30:17

perspective, said to have a nutty, gamey

1:30:19

quality that can be swapped out for rabbit

1:30:21

in some recipes. You know, President James

1:30:23

Garfield, he liked this protein source so

1:30:26

much that the 1887 White

1:30:28

House Cookbook features a recipe for

1:30:29

squirrel soup, and that involves lima

1:30:32

beans, potatoes, tomatoes, corn,

1:30:35

butter, celery, parsley, and

1:30:37

the use of a coarse colander, quote,

1:30:39

so as to get rid of the squirrel's

1:30:42

troublesome little bones. Well,

1:30:44

the recipe concludes with a self-review.

1:30:47

Very good. Squirrel hunting is a million

1:30:49

dollar a year business in Mississippi. Like, it

1:30:52

is a hugely popular pastime,

1:30:55

so it is a reason for management

1:30:58

of squirrel populations to keep numbers high so that people

1:31:00

do have access to them. The squirrel that was

1:31:02

introduced on Mount Graham was

1:31:04

introduced purely for hunting purposes so

1:31:07

that people would have a squirrel to hunt.

1:31:08

Oh, wow. Until we did a mountain

1:31:10

goat episode, I didn't realize exactly

1:31:13

how much, obviously, conservation

1:31:15

effort is also like, we gotta crunch the numbers

1:31:17

so we can figure out how many it's cool to kill, which

1:31:19

is better than not crunching the numbers, but,

1:31:22

you know, historically, a lot of conservation is also paid

1:31:24

for by hunting licenses, too, so it goes back and

1:31:26

forth. I think that there maybe might be a notion

1:31:29

if you hunt this animal, you don't

1:31:31

care about their well-being, but it's

1:31:33

way more complicated. We covered

1:31:36

this in the deer episode, too, but I feel like

1:31:38

there's a very urban and rural divide

1:31:40

where it's

1:31:40

like if you go out and hunt any animal, you

1:31:43

are sociopath, but it's absolutely fine to

1:31:45

have bacon at a diner in the city. You

1:31:47

know? Right, right. I

1:31:49

get asked questions all the time by squirrel hunters. They want

1:31:51

to know better ways to find squirrels, catch

1:31:54

squirrels, things like that. I also get asked by fishermen

1:31:56

about squirrels because squirrel fur is used

1:31:59

in a lot of fishing.

1:31:59

So fly fishing lures. And so what about Jacqueline

1:32:02

Whelan and Kate Armstrong and Vidda

1:32:05

Trinkali? Want to know in Kati Vurds, is it true

1:32:08

those squirrel has a range of about 10 miles

1:32:10

and it can find its way home if you drive it 10 miles away

1:32:12

and drop it off? Probably 10

1:32:15

miles is a little far,

1:32:17

but not crazy far. Yeah. Really?

1:32:21

I'm definitely thinking squirrels five miles

1:32:23

and had them reliably come back. So

1:32:26

particularly during mating season and things like that, males

1:32:28

will go pretty far.

1:32:31

How are they doing that? World domination. No, I

1:32:33

mean, they spatially have a good recognition.

1:32:38

Clearly they have some kind of, I don't want

1:32:40

to say homing, but they clearly have some kind of

1:32:42

spatial recognition where they can come back. That's

1:32:44

amazing. I wonder if we'll ever find out they have like pigeon

1:32:47

magnets in their head. Right. Some kind

1:32:49

of, yeah, some kind of compass, you know? Yeah.

1:32:52

And that compass might be the hippocampus,

1:32:54

which not only helps squirrels with their

1:32:57

spatial memory to recall all that scatter hoarding,

1:32:59

it could be at play when it comes to squirrels

1:33:02

making their way back home, which can definitely happen

1:33:04

when people trap like an attic squirrel

1:33:06

and then drive five or 10 miles away

1:33:09

and release it in a new part of town. And

1:33:11

they're like, whoo, glad that's over. And then a

1:33:13

few days later, it's like back at your window being like, wow,

1:33:16

ghosted, brutal. And

1:33:18

then you have to atone to their furry little

1:33:20

faces, which you maybe

1:33:21

never wanted to see again. I don't know. Blame

1:33:24

their brains. That's a combination.

1:33:25

Megan Lynch, who was a caribologist

1:33:28

who studies carob trees and Davis left a

1:33:30

question about an introduced species,

1:33:33

learning to break into these tough raw

1:33:35

pods

1:33:36

of

1:33:37

another introduced tree. Does one

1:33:39

pioneer squirrel learn something and

1:33:41

do they teach each other? Like

1:33:43

how much of that kind of communal

1:33:45

living in squirrel dres is teaching each

1:33:48

other things. So, I mean, we don't really know about social

1:33:51

learning in terms of like feeding an acorn

1:33:53

or things like that, but a lot of their food

1:33:55

has kind of that harder outer shell. So acorns,

1:33:58

fuck eyes. Well,

1:34:00

all those kinds of things have that really hard care

1:34:03

pace that they have to get through and kind

1:34:05

of de-shell. And so the

1:34:07

Carapod, to me, probably isn't all that

1:34:09

much different than a Buckeye or something like that, where they

1:34:11

really kind of have to break off that outer husk to get to

1:34:14

the inside piece. And those teeth

1:34:16

are sharp and they have a lot of pressure.

1:34:19

They can crush a lot of things. For more

1:34:21

on Carab than not chocolate tree

1:34:24

with a bonkers history that might

1:34:26

be growing on your street, we'll link that episode

1:34:28

in the show notes. But last listener question,

1:34:30

I

1:34:31

could literally

1:34:33

talk to you for like 10 hours. You are so

1:34:36

lucky that you did not get seated next to me on

1:34:38

a flight to New Zealand because I would be like,

1:34:40

I need to sleep. A good question that I didn't

1:34:42

even think of. So many people. Brittany

1:34:45

Kaufman, MN-9, and of course Camille

1:34:47

in... Camille Charlevoix's

1:34:48

words. What's up with squirrel poop?

1:34:51

I have never seen it. Does it exist? Where

1:34:53

is it? It's in the grass. It's in the ground.

1:34:56

I mean, it's kind of like Tic Tacs, like Tilly

1:34:58

Beans. Do they poo in their

1:35:00

nest or does that even know? Yeah, typically

1:35:02

there is kind of an area where they'll

1:35:05

collect and things like that. But if possible, they'll go

1:35:07

outside. Other than podcast

1:35:09

hosts, what's the worst thing about your job? Other

1:35:11

than me asking you questions forever

1:35:14

because you're the best. But that's

1:35:16

just

1:35:16

not a bad part of my job. When

1:35:19

I realized I could kind of mix the genetics and

1:35:21

wildlife piece to be helpful, you could

1:35:23

think about charismatic megafauna and how

1:35:26

cool it would be to work on mountain

1:35:28

lions and things like that. And then it was like,

1:35:30

no, I could have this charismatic minor

1:35:33

fauna. I don't want to say micro because they're

1:35:36

definitely not that small. They're not really meso because they're

1:35:38

not kind of medium, like scones

1:35:40

and raccoons. But everybody knows

1:35:42

them and pretty much everybody has a story, has

1:35:44

a love-hate relationship with them. Those are

1:35:46

the things that make the best stories and really allow

1:35:48

you to kind of connect with somebody and

1:35:51

have them learn a bit about ecology

1:35:53

and the world and talk about things like

1:35:55

climate change and forests and hook

1:35:57

somebody and make them passionate.

1:35:59

and make just a genuine human connection

1:36:02

and really see each other and pass all

1:36:04

the other stuff. And

1:36:05

so it's kind of nice. And so there really

1:36:08

isn't a bad part. But what does

1:36:10

suck about it though? Get real with

1:36:12

us. When I was

1:36:14

in Arizona and trapping at 110 degrees or

1:36:18

on top of Mount Graham and in 10 feet of snow

1:36:21

in snowshoes,

1:36:23

trying to find the one squirrel