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Squirrels, Ahoy! · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Longtime listeners of Stuff You Should Know are well aware
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: that I've come a long way with my feelings on squirrels.
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: Time was I saw them as a common pest who
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: invaded my.
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: Bird feeders at Baby se Red.
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: But then along came my precious four legged daughter, Momo,
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: who taught me to appreciate squirrels and ways I never
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: thought possible. Now Momo takes me and her mom to
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: feed the squirrels in the park every morning, and now
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: a day goes back and I don't lift my gaze
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: to the skies and thank Mother Earth for our squirrel friends.
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: Squirrels are great squirrel's.
• 0:38
  Speaker 3: Ahoy, Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast.
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: I'm Josh, and there's Chuck and Jerry is here, and
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: this is one of the greatest episodes we'll ever do
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: as far as I'm concerned.
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: Squirrels.
• 1:09
  Speaker 4: Oh, I really want to squirrels. I've been seeing that
• 1:11
  Speaker 4: all day.
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: It's so wonderful. That is so wonderful.
• 1:15
  Speaker 4: It is that song isn't But you.
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: Know, uh yeah yeah.
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: If you go back and listen to BC Boys, you're.
• 1:22
  Speaker 4: Like, Wow, they come a long way. Though, and renouncing
• 1:25
  Speaker 4: that stuff.
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. So we're talking not about the BC Boys, surprising,
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: and we're talking about squirrels in the morning. It's squirrels
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: there evening, it's squirrels.
• 1:35
  Speaker 4: Squirrels two syllables, right.
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: I don't care however you want to say it the
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: squirrel sure or Boston I guess probably they say it
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: similarly as well. Yeah, but if you want to get fancy,
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: you can bust out their Latin name. They're members of
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: the rodent Order. But for their family, their squore a day,
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: scure a day, Nope, secury day.
• 2:01
  Speaker 4: I look this one up, all right, Sierrade.
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: Like mine more?
• 2:08
  Speaker 4: Okay? Did you just toot on my renvation?
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, even though it was correct.
• 2:14
  Speaker 4: Did you give me a bronx cheer?
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: How? How is it? Suride?
• 2:19
  Speaker 4: Well, let me do the person online? Sierra diye?
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: Okay? Is that Emma who said that?
• 2:25
  Speaker 4: Or at Sierra Day was another? But I think we've
• 2:28
  Speaker 4: heard from people that Dae is die.
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: Okay, And that's fine if that's what it's called. I'm
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: just gonna call them squirrels from now on.
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: But there's actually.
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: Exactly like three hundred species of squirrels and it's it's
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: kind of hard to wrap your head around because usually
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: if you live in a place with squirrels, meaning you
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: live on a continent outside of Antarctica.
• 2:51
  Speaker 4: Yeah, like everywhere.
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: Basically, they're probably a lot of squirrels living around you,
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: and they probably all look basically exactly alike. Because it
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: seems seems like when they fill an ecological niche, brother,
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: they fill it, and there's not much room for competing species,
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: it seems like from my experience.
• 3:11
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, there are enough who helped us with this.
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: This this is a grabster.
• 3:16
  Speaker 4: Yeah, so Grabster points out that you know, you can
• 3:20
  Speaker 4: find mountain squirrels and city squirrels, and forest squirrels and
• 3:25
  Speaker 4: jungle squirrels and desert squirrels. You can find squirrels and
• 3:30
  Speaker 4: Alaska that hibernate with the lowest body temperature of any mammal,
• 3:36
  Speaker 4: that have body temperatures below freezing at times.
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: That's so cool.
• 3:39
  Speaker 4: You can go to Africa and find one of the
• 3:43
  Speaker 4: cutest squirrels, the African pigmy squirrel, which is as small
• 3:47
  Speaker 4: as a tiny little mouse. Where you can go to
• 3:49
  Speaker 4: Buttan and find the giant flying squirrel of Button that
• 3:54
  Speaker 4: with their head and body and is over two feet
• 3:58
  Speaker 4: long with that tail, they're huge.
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: No, two feet long without the tail, oh, without stressing, Yes,
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: they're distressingly large.
• 4:05
  Speaker 4: Yeah, because the squirrel tail will get into this. But
• 4:08
  Speaker 4: that's one of their signature features generally, although depending on
• 4:12
  Speaker 4: the species, because there are three hundred species, like you said,
• 4:15
  Speaker 4: more than or almost three hundred, some of those tails
• 4:19
  Speaker 4: are a little diminished. But usually when you think squirrel,
• 4:22
  Speaker 4: you think of that big, bushy tail.
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and not only when you think of squirrel you
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: think of the tail. But the Greeks themselves, right, somebody
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: decided that a Greek term would make sense. But scurios
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: or scourios, which roughly means something like shadow tail ed,
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: says shady Butt. I also saw shadowtail, which is a
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: reference to how squirrels sometimes hide in the shadow cast
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: by their own tail.
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: It's pretty clever, but.
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: The squirrel is usually kind of The bushy tail of
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: the squirrel is what makes a squirrel a squirrel. One
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: of the other things that really differentiates it from other
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: rodents is the way that it's jaw and muscle are
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: attached to its skull. There's actually a name for it,
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: seriomorphous zygomasoteric system. They look at you hooked on phonics
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: works for me.
• 5:12
  Speaker 4: You even recorded the new pronunciation. That's right, you worked
• 5:16
  Speaker 4: it right in there with a syria dye.
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: I adapted, yeah, because you should have heard it before
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: when I was workshopping it.
• 5:22
  Speaker 4: That was the first take. Everybody, we're not lying.
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: So so those are two things that really kind of
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: differentiate squirrels. But as we've really gotten better and better
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: at taxonomy with the introduction of geno mapping, sure we
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: can see, like, oh, this animal that doesn't look anything
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: like this animal is actually really closely related. And as
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: with just about every other animal we've studied using modern
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: genetic taxonomy, squirrels are Our understanding of squirrels has really
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: kind of changed shape of who's related to whom, who's
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: descended from who. But there's there We're kind of going
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: to go the old school way, which is differentiating them
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: based on their habitat and their behavior. So there's three
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: groups of squirrels that we're going to cover, even though
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: there's technically five subfamilies now, ground squirrels, tree squirrels, and
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: flying squirrels. And before we go any further, I officially
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: dedicate this episode to Momo, one of the great lovers
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: of squirrels of all time, who changed changed me in
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: my heart towards squirrels.
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: I used to be a squirrel hater. Chuck, do you
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: remember squirrels? You remember?
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: Oh? Yeah, the bird feeder Momo pointed out to me, said, Dad,
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: squirrels are great. I'm going to teach you to love them.
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: And she did.
• 6:42
  Speaker 4: Yeah, dogs and squirrels. It's what was the Disney It
• 6:47
  Speaker 4: was either Pixar Disney had an animated movie where the
• 6:52
  Speaker 4: dog would just stop and go squirrel anytime there's a squirrel.
• 6:57
  Speaker 4: I can't remember which one was.
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: I don't remember.
• 6:59
  Speaker 4: It wasn't that long ago. But before we move on
• 7:02
  Speaker 4: to ground squirrels, it is kind of fun to learn
• 7:04
  Speaker 4: that because of that DNA analysis that we now have
• 7:08
  Speaker 4: at our fingertips and fossil evidence, we know that squirrels
• 7:13
  Speaker 4: went to western North America thirty five to forty million
• 7:17
  Speaker 4: years ago because squirrels like to get around. As we
• 7:20
  Speaker 4: will see, they crossed a land bridge to Eurasia about
• 7:23
  Speaker 4: ten million years after that, and then as soon as
• 7:27
  Speaker 4: they could as soon as Eurasia met up with Africa
• 7:30
  Speaker 4: about twenty million years ago, they went, all right, we're
• 7:32
  Speaker 4: in Africa now too. Because squirrels like to get around.
• 7:36
  Speaker 4: They as you will see, Well, we'll just tease that
• 7:40
  Speaker 4: and say, squirrels like to get around.
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, you put one tree next to another,
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: squirrel's going to go from tree to tree. Put another tree,
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: squirrel's going to go the next tree. And if you
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: put trees all the way across one continent to another,
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: they're going to migrate. That's just what they do, and
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: that's what they did. But if I thought I loved
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: squirrels before, now that I know that they're actually native
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: from plenty five million years back to North America, I
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: just think that's that's just the tops.
• 8:05
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and we talked about it before when you were
• 8:08
  Speaker 4: having your bird feeder issue. But you know, Atlanta is
• 8:10
  Speaker 4: a city in the forest, and we have tons and
• 8:14
  Speaker 4: tons and tons of squirrels. Kind of everywhere along the
• 8:17
  Speaker 4: East Coast does, but Atlanta just has a lot of squirrels.
• 8:21
  Speaker 4: And as I was reading, you know, from my upstairs office,
• 8:24
  Speaker 4: there's a window not right in front of my face
• 8:27
  Speaker 4: but sort of above me and our huge, big, beautiful
• 8:30
  Speaker 4: oak in our front yard. I'm doing this on squirrels.
• 8:33
  Speaker 4: I just look up for a second and I see
• 8:35
  Speaker 4: four squirrels running around that tree together, playing like circling
• 8:39
  Speaker 4: it like a barber pole.
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 8:41
  Speaker 4: I take my daughter to school this morning, and I
• 8:44
  Speaker 4: count the squirrels that I see on the way. I
• 8:47
  Speaker 4: counted twenty two squirrels that I just saw on a
• 8:49
  Speaker 4: you know, twelve minute car ride.
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: You hit one of them there.
• 8:53
  Speaker 4: I have before. It's the worst thing ever. It is,
• 8:56
  Speaker 4: But they're everywhere in Atlanta, And it hit me a
• 9:00
  Speaker 4: while ago about how easy it is living here or
• 9:06
  Speaker 4: anywhere where there's a lot of squirrels, just to sort
• 9:08
  Speaker 4: of be like, yeah, the squirrels. But it kind of
• 9:10
  Speaker 4: hit me like how crazy it is that there are
• 9:13
  Speaker 4: these little mammals. They're not hiding in holes generally like
• 9:17
  Speaker 4: mice and stuff like that. Like they're just out all
• 9:21
  Speaker 4: over the place at all times. We're surrounded by these
• 9:24
  Speaker 4: little mammals.
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, out and proud.
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: And if you come close too close to one of
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: their trees when you're walking by and the squirrel doesn't
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: like it, he's gonna sit there or she and chatter
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: at you and basically tell you to beat it. You
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: punk get away from my tree. That's how. That's one
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: of the great lovable things about squirrels. They have such
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: huge personalities. They're just so great.
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: Chuck.
• 9:46
  Speaker 4: Remember my famous squirrel attack not too long ago, and
• 9:50
  Speaker 4: when I went outside, I got it on my doorbell
• 9:52
  Speaker 4: camera and that squirrel leaped through the air and hit
• 9:55
  Speaker 4: me in the leg. It was a complete accident. Of course,
• 9:58
  Speaker 4: I don't think the squirrel was trying to kill me, But.
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: You don't know.
• 10:01
  Speaker 4: They're just they're all over the place. We're gonna get
• 10:04
  Speaker 4: to all the fun stuff about the black squirrels of
• 10:07
  Speaker 4: New York and why squirrels stop in the middle of
• 10:10
  Speaker 4: the road when they go to across the street. Like
• 10:12
  Speaker 4: there we found reasons for all this stuff, which I love.
• 10:15
  Speaker 4: It's not that squirrels are dumb, and we're gonna reveal
• 10:17
  Speaker 4: all that in this episode.
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: Okay, I'm a little excited. I'm a little worked up.
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: I know it's a ted early, but first break. Okay,
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: we're so squirrel positive that, I mean, that's a great
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: way to put.
• 10:29
  Speaker 4: It, Chuck, all right, so are we taking a break?
• 10:32
  Speaker 4: I say, all right, I need to calm down to
• 10:34
  Speaker 4: and I guarantee you I'm gonna go like blow my
• 10:36
  Speaker 4: nose in the other room. I'm gonna see a squirrel.
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: I'll be right back, all right, Chuck.
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: So, as promised, we're gonna break squirrels down into three groups, crown, tree, flying,
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: or aerial. And I propose that we start with the
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: ground squirrel. Sure, many species of which you probably not you,
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: but I mean you, dear listener, and may all include
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: two I didn't realize were actual squirrels, like groundhog.
• 11:26
  Speaker 4: Chuck did not know that was a squirrel.
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: Chipmunk.
• 11:30
  Speaker 4: I had a feeling that might be a squirrel.
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: Gosh, they're so great too, Yeah, chipmunks. What about a groundhog?
• 11:38
  Speaker 4: You already said groundhog?
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: Did I yeah, okay, I'm swirling. I'm swirling still. And
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: my love squirrel prairie dog. Yeah, well that's what was
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: coming out of my mouth next.
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: To Patty Dog.
• 11:50
  Speaker 4: Yeah, prairie dog didn't know it.
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: What about that meerkat?
• 11:54
  Speaker 4: I didn't know that.
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: Well, that's because.
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: They're not but okay, prairie dogs, chipmunks, and what's the
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: other one, marmots? Yeah, marmots and brought them in groundhogs.
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: Those are all ground squirrels. They're squirrels friends, and that
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: makes them pretty awesome. But one of the reasons why
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: they you wouldn't think they're squirrels is because in a
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: lot of those species they lack that characteristic bushy tail. Yeah,
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: but then also they live almost a totally different life
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: from their tree dwelling more famous cousins.
• 12:27
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, they might climb a tree, but generally
• 12:30
  Speaker 4: you're not going to see a groundhogger prairie dog up
• 12:33
  Speaker 4: in the tree. If they need to, you know, for
• 12:36
  Speaker 4: a brief time, if they're trying to find food or
• 12:39
  Speaker 4: something or like on the run from something trying to
• 12:42
  Speaker 4: kill it, they might go up in a tree, but
• 12:44
  Speaker 4: they generally hang out on the ground, hence the name
• 12:46
  Speaker 4: they love their rocky terrain chipmunks for just speaking for them,
• 12:52
  Speaker 4: are pretty solitary unless they're trying to reproduce. But I
• 12:56
  Speaker 4: know that you've found some stuff, was it on the
• 12:59
  Speaker 4: prairie dog that have their big families and colonies.
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean that's one of the main characteristics of
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: ground squirrels in general, aside from a couple, but that
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: they're much more communal than tree squirrels, and in particular,
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: the largest town a prairie dog town, is what they're
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: called the largest prairie dog town on record is in Texas,
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: because of course everything's bigger there, But it was a
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: colony of black tailed prairie dogs. And this town, Chuck,
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: stretched one hundred miles wide, wow, by two hundred and
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: fifty miles long, and contain four hundred million prairie dogs.
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: My gos again, crownd squirrels all living in this kind
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: of large community. Jeez, I mean that's it's like a
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: Chinese megacity or something like that times ten.
• 13:46
  Speaker 4: Yeah, So are these the ones that tend to stay
• 13:50
  Speaker 4: grouped with their own sex?
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: No, those tend to be either tree squirrels or flying squirrels.
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: These are more the because they live in communal groups
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: and kinship is a big deal. Ground squirrels, like prairie dogs,
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: tend to have a really good ability to smell the
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: scent of other ground squirrels, so they can tell like
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: who's a blood relation who's not. They've done studies to see,
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: you know, like if a ground squirrel. They have a
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: lot of really sophisticated calls too, because they're alerting others
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: to the presence of a rattlesnake or a hawk or something.
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: So they're really talkative and they have a lot of
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: sophisticated different communication and they found that like a prairie
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: dog that will stand up and take the time to
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: risk its own life to alert others, it's actually alerting.
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: The others that it's alerting are actually related by blood.
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: And the groundhog or the prairie dog knows this because
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: it can smell its blood relations among all these other
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: you know, extended family members in the town.
• 14:57
  Speaker 4: There's not much cuter than a squirrel up on its
• 15:00
  Speaker 4: hot rear haunches. Yeah, whether it's I mean, obviously those
• 15:04
  Speaker 4: prairie dogs, you know, they do it for a living.
• 15:07
  Speaker 4: But even our eastern gray squirrels sit upon those back
• 15:10
  Speaker 4: legs if they want to work a nut with their
• 15:13
  Speaker 4: little front pop ads.
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, or a chipmunk on its back legs. It's doesn't
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: get much cute.
• 15:18
  Speaker 4: It's little busy hands. Goodness me. Yeah, all right, So
• 15:21
  Speaker 4: we can move on to our tree squirrel. This is
• 15:24
  Speaker 4: they're known as arboreal squirrels obviously because they are tree squirrels.
• 15:29
  Speaker 4: And this is when you're talking your eastern gray squirrel.
• 15:32
  Speaker 4: This is not a groundhog, this is not a prairie dog.
• 15:36
  Speaker 4: This is your dyed in the wool. Cute, little fluffy
• 15:40
  Speaker 4: tailed sort of you know, they're called gray, but there's
• 15:43
  Speaker 4: sort of a light brownish color generally, although the colors
• 15:45
  Speaker 4: do range, as we'll see. And these are the ones
• 15:49
  Speaker 4: that you're gonna find all over Atlanta, jumping around, climbing around,
• 15:52
  Speaker 4: leaping it podcasters in their front lawn. Yeah, they spend
• 15:58
  Speaker 4: most of the time. I mean, you see them on
• 16:01
  Speaker 4: the ground plenty, but they live in trees. They nest
• 16:03
  Speaker 4: in trees called drays or drays or Drey's spelled with
• 16:08
  Speaker 4: a year an a right.
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: And you probably if you've ever looked up and seen
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: a mass of like sticks and twigs and a leafless
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: tree in the middle of winter, you're looking at a
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: squirrel's nest called a dre And this is where you
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: were you were asking about them staying in like same
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: sex groups apparently in the winter. Even though the tree
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: squirrel does not live in a communal society like a
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: ground squirrel does, they're still social. They still interact with
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: one another. They play, they chase, they chase one another off.
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: They like mate. But when it.
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: Gets really cold, tree squirrels will kind of group their
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: heat together by staying in a dre communally up to
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: like thirty members. It's able, Yeah, it is very adorable.
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: I want to do a little exercise here real quick, Chuck.
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: I want you to use your imagination.
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: Close.
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: Imagine a very cold winter day. The wind's blowing, snow's
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: being carried on the wind, and it's passing by just
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: outside a woodpecker hole, and we're inside that woodpecker hole's dark.
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: The light is very very faint because it's it's kind
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: of an overcast, snowy day to begin with. But we're
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: also inside a tree, in an old woodpecker hole, and
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: it's lined with a bunch of different leaves, and there's
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: half a dozen or so squirrels, all kind of snuggled together, sleeping,
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: sharing their warmth as the winter day passes by outside
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: and they snooze an afternoon away fat on acorns that
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: they all just ate. Oh boy, isn't that amazing?
• 17:43
  Speaker 4: I almost fell asleep. You're real, Robert Fross, my friend,
• 17:46
  Speaker 4: Thank you.
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: Thank you. I like to think Robert Redford crossed with
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: Robert Cross.
• 17:51
  Speaker 4: But sure, well you know Robert Redford if you look
• 17:54
  Speaker 4: in the mirror, but Robert Frost when you pick a.
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: Bent up with the touch of Robert Goolay if.
• 17:59
  Speaker 4: You say it surely, Oh man, that really did almost
• 18:03
  Speaker 4: put me to sleep. That's quite nice. I love that scene.
• 18:06
  Speaker 4: So here's a little fun adaptation that squirrels have. If
• 18:10
  Speaker 4: you see a tree squirrel running down a tree face
• 18:14
  Speaker 4: first with little resistance, it's just like it was made
• 18:20
  Speaker 4: to do it. It's because it is. And they have
• 18:22
  Speaker 4: those little claws of course that really helps. But if
• 18:25
  Speaker 4: you look closely, or if you look up a picture
• 18:28
  Speaker 4: rather and you see like a still image, you will
• 18:30
  Speaker 4: notice that they have the ability to and Ed says
• 18:33
  Speaker 4: they can turn their feet around. They really kind of
• 18:35
  Speaker 4: just turn their whole back legs around backwards to where
• 18:40
  Speaker 4: those claws are gripping on the way down. And that's
• 18:45
  Speaker 4: why they're you know, it's like the perfect adaptation to
• 18:48
  Speaker 4: be able to run up and down a tree.
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: So if you ever watched one do that up close, sure,
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: so anytime I've seen that there, if you look their
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: legs because they're turned around and it kicks kind of
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: their elbows out a little bit, uh huh, and they
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: climb down, it looks a little different. And I've noticed
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: that it triggers the part of my lizard brain. That's
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: like a spider alert. It's like that's triggered by that.
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: So it's like a giant, furry spider is coming down
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: to some little part of my brain that sends off
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: an alarm, and it's really off putting sometimes until you
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: know the larger part, the executive functioning part of my
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: brain is like, it's a squirrel, don't worry, But there's
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: that one just zap of Like this is weird and
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: scary for a second, but it happens to me from
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: time to time when they come down the tree like that.
• 19:38
  Speaker 4: Well, it can be a little startling, you know, if
• 19:40
  Speaker 4: you're going to take out the trash or something and
• 19:42
  Speaker 4: your trash can is next to a big live oak
• 19:44
  Speaker 4: like ours is, and there are two or more squirrels
• 19:47
  Speaker 4: that are they seem I don't know what they're doing.
• 19:49
  Speaker 4: It seem like I have a beef with one another.
• 19:51
  Speaker 4: But maybe they're just playing chase. But when they're really
• 19:54
  Speaker 4: boogying up and down and around a tree right as
• 19:57
  Speaker 4: you walk upon it is it can be a little
• 19:59
  Speaker 4: bit like, oh okay, I.
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: Read that when one was chasing the other. It's a
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: part of the mating ritual.
• 20:05
  Speaker 4: Oh Okay, so that's embarrassing for them, right.
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: I don't know if that's across the board, but I
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: saw that in at least one.
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: Place, all right.
• 20:14
  Speaker 4: I like knowing that. Here's another cool thing about squirrels.
• 20:18
  Speaker 4: All kinds of squirrels have scent glands, and it depends
• 20:22
  Speaker 4: on the species where that scent gland is located. It
• 20:24
  Speaker 4: can be near their little bum hole. It can be
• 20:27
  Speaker 4: near their mouth in the corners of their mouth, can
• 20:30
  Speaker 4: be on their back. But in the case of the
• 20:32
  Speaker 4: tree squirrel, they have their scent glands on their feet
• 20:37
  Speaker 4: and sweat glands on the bottom of their feet. And
• 20:39
  Speaker 4: they are a squirrel that buries their food over large.
• 20:43
  Speaker 4: Large areas sometimes like up to twenty five acres can
• 20:47
  Speaker 4: be their habitat where they're bearing and hiding food, and
• 20:50
  Speaker 4: they are literally every time they walk to bury something,
• 20:53
  Speaker 4: they're leaving a little scent trail that they can go
• 20:55
  Speaker 4: back and pick up. Ideally, but it's not a perfect system.
• 20:59
  Speaker 4: Sometimes they will lose stuff and not be able to
• 21:01
  Speaker 4: go back. But what they have then done is planted
• 21:04
  Speaker 4: a tree.
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, which brings up their huge ecological role, which is
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: like planting new forests, like keeping forests healthy by forgetting
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: about nuts. And the nut is actually a seed and
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: it grows into a new tree that the squirrel helped
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: move away from the tree.
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: It's amazing its range.
• 21:22
  Speaker 4: They're known as the gardeners of the forest.
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and we taught we did a whole short stuff
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: on squirrels bearing nuts, and I remember one of the
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: things that came up was there was a study that
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: found that they if they know they're being watched by another.
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: Squirrel, they'll fake dig a hole.
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: And then won't drop the nut in it, And then
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: we'll go somewhere else and mislead a squirrel.
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: It's that they think is watching them.
• 21:43
  Speaker 4: Yeah, they'll look around first and be like, did anyone
• 21:45
  Speaker 4: see that? Yeah, I think I'm good.
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: Tod was watching. I better not drop the nut in
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: this hole. He'll come along.
• 21:52
  Speaker 4: So that's what the the I'm sorry, not flying, but
• 21:54
  Speaker 4: the tree squirrels. That's how they use their scent. The
• 21:57
  Speaker 4: ground squirrels, we should say, mainly use the scent glands
• 22:00
  Speaker 4: to mark their territory. And you know, because they're all
• 22:04
  Speaker 4: about their clan and their colony, to sort of mark
• 22:07
  Speaker 4: their territory and find out if someone is a part
• 22:09
  Speaker 4: of their clan.
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: And then also as far as sense go, I saw
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: some somewhere that some kinds of ground squirrels that are
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: prey to rattlesnakes will actually find shed rattlesnake skin rub
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: it on themselves. Oh wow, chew it up and rub
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: it on themselves to give themselves a rattlesnake scent to
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: throw off rattlesnakes.
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: They camouflage their scent.
• 22:30
  Speaker 4: That's pretty cool.
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 22:32
  Speaker 4: I wonder if they ever wear it and just like
• 22:34
  Speaker 4: fashion a couple of holes and stick their arms through.
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and they bragged that they killed it.
• 22:38
  Speaker 4: Yeah, have you man? I shouldn't even mention this. Yeah,
• 22:42
  Speaker 4: I'm gonna mention it.
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: Have you?
• 22:44
  Speaker 4: Because it is granted it is roadkill. But have you
• 22:46
  Speaker 4: ever seen the pictures of the squirrel roadkill with the
• 22:49
  Speaker 4: little G I Joe action figures? No, just look it up,
• 22:57
  Speaker 4: I can. They aren't squirrels at some one killed. It's
• 23:00
  Speaker 4: someone will take a roadkill picture of a squirrel and
• 23:03
  Speaker 4: they'll take the little G I Joe figures as if
• 23:06
  Speaker 4: they were big game hunters, and they'll have their guns
• 23:09
  Speaker 4: and they'll have like one leg up on the squirrel's head.
• 23:12
  Speaker 4: As if it was their trophy. And the squirrel looks
• 23:14
  Speaker 4: positively giant next to the little action figures, and it's
• 23:18
  Speaker 4: kind of funny.
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: I'll have to check that one out.
• 23:20
  Speaker 4: I don't want to encourage people. Maybe I shouldn't have
• 23:22
  Speaker 4: even said anything.
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: Well, I don't know if you're encouraging people to like
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: swerve onto a squirrel, you know, one guy or.
• 23:29
  Speaker 4: Kill a squirrel to do that. But maybe just took
• 23:31
  Speaker 4: it up on the internet. If you want to see that,
• 23:33
  Speaker 4: don't recreate it.
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: If you kill a squirrel and we find out about it,
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: we're coming to your house.
• 23:38
  Speaker 4: I know. Okay with a ghost of that squirrel. Yeah,
• 23:42
  Speaker 4: that will introduce to your attic you go.
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: So have we moved on to flying squirrels.
• 23:49
  Speaker 4: Yet, Yeah, let's do it. Those are you know the
• 23:51
  Speaker 4: old story when we had one growing up for a
• 23:53
  Speaker 4: little while. You probably don't remember, but my uncle gave
• 23:56
  Speaker 4: us his flying squirrel to watch for a while, and
• 23:59
  Speaker 4: he would leap from the curtains on the other side
• 24:02
  Speaker 4: of the room onto my shoulder. And then when we
• 24:05
  Speaker 4: went out of town, apparently they said the squirrel got out.
• 24:08
  Speaker 4: But now that I'm an adult, I realized that the cat
• 24:10
  Speaker 4: ate the squirrel. Oh man, yeah, just to recap that
• 24:14
  Speaker 4: childhood trauma. That's well okay, But for a little while,
• 24:19
  Speaker 4: we had a flying squirrel in our home.
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: For a brief shining moment.
• 24:23
  Speaker 4: That's the upshot.
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: So a flying squirrel, and I thought this. I thought
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: they were fairly rare. Apparently they're as common as tree
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: squirrels in some places. The reason that you think they're
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: rare is because they're nocturnal, so we're usually sleeping when
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: they're out and about.
• 24:38
  Speaker 4: I love thinking about those things just flying around all night.
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and flying is right, man, I saw Ed says
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: the thing glide up to one hundred and fifty feet.
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: I saw three hundred in some cases.
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: And that's what they're doing. They're gliding. They're not flying.
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: They have no means of like propulsion. But they have
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: a skin flap. They've evolved a skin flap that is
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: you know the batsuit that people like you know, skydive with.
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: That's that is based basically one.
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: Hundred percent on the flying squirrel's membranes between its front
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: legs and hind legs that it can you know, spread
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: out when it jumps and it just catches the air.
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: And they can move it this way and that and
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: use their tail as a rudder and go one hundred
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: and fifty feet in a pretty purposeful direction too.
• 25:27
  Speaker 4: Did you say what the name of the flap was?
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: No?
• 25:30
  Speaker 4: Do you want to?
• 25:31
  Speaker 3: No?
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: I probably screwed it.
• 25:35
  Speaker 4: I'm gonna go with potagium.
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: That's great. What do they call that? Pada gayum?
• 25:41
  Speaker 4: I wonder what they call that in the in the
• 25:44
  Speaker 4: Flying Suit Bizz Extreme Flying Suit Biz. I don't know, and.
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: I think they call them batsuits, but that's that's a misnomer.
• 25:51
  Speaker 4: If you ask me those I gotta say. I mean,
• 25:53
  Speaker 4: I'm not into any of that stuff. I would never
• 25:55
  Speaker 4: do it, but those videos are amazing and it's oh,
• 25:58
  Speaker 4: I know, as humans have come I think to flying
• 26:02
  Speaker 4: it feels like agreed.
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I would have to have.
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: Probably a lobotomy to to actually try that. It would
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: take that radical of a personality change for me to
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: try it.
• 26:14
  Speaker 4: Well, And I mean sure that kind of thing that's
• 26:16
  Speaker 4: the most extreme, like years and years of training, yes,
• 26:19
  Speaker 4: skydiving training and stuff like that. You know, like run
• 26:21
  Speaker 4: jump into a batsuit?
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: No, no, no, definitely not.
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: But even if you do, you know, once you get
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: to that point, like, I can't imagine how dangerous that is.
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: You know, if you smack into something you're going really fast.
• 26:32
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, your toast. Yeah, and that happens sadly.
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: But I get the impression that it's the rush is
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: worth the risk.
• 26:41
  Speaker 4: That's right. And speaking of risk, there are endangered flying squirrels,
• 26:47
  Speaker 4: the Carolina Northern flying squirrel. And we talked a little
• 26:51
  Speaker 4: bit about these little land bridges that are starting to
• 26:53
  Speaker 4: pop up in the United States over overpasses and freeway crossings.
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 27:00
  Speaker 4: I just read today there's one in LA that's opening
• 27:03
  Speaker 4: up that's like one hundred and sixty feet wide. I
• 27:06
  Speaker 4: can't remember the name of it. It's named after someone
• 27:08
  Speaker 4: and to allow cougars and you know, mountain lions to
• 27:12
  Speaker 4: pass and all kinds of animals, and they're using you know,
• 27:16
  Speaker 4: they have done studies for squirrels in that they found
• 27:20
  Speaker 4: tagged like radio tagged squirrels are foraging and building on
• 27:25
  Speaker 4: the other side of these massive freeways thanks to these bridges,
• 27:28
  Speaker 4: Like it's been proven to work.
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah for sure. I think it's called the Robert Evans
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: Memorial Animal Land Bridge.
• 27:36
  Speaker 4: Baby. Yeah, if only.
• 27:41
  Speaker 3: So.
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: That actually kind of leads us to a quote I
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: ran across Chuck because if you put like I was saying,
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: if you can kind of connect a tree to another tree,
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: which really ties into that rewilding episode because you're you're
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: using you're connecting core to core via corridor basically is
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: what they're doing with that. That there was an old
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: saying that before, well not too long ago, I think
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: into the eighteenth century, maybe even early nineteenth century, that
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: there was so many chestnut trees in North America that
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: a squirrel could make it from Maine to Georgia without
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: ever touching the ground.
• 28:18
  Speaker 4: Yeah, where did we cover that in?
• 28:19
  Speaker 3: Was it?
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: I don't remember?
• 28:21
  Speaker 4: I remember that Factoi. That's a great one.
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: So it really kind of goes to show like there
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: used to be a lot more forests in the United States,
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: but there were also a lot more squirrels because there's
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: a there's a positive correlation between mass producing trees, which
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: are chestnut, beech oak trees that produce nuts that squirrels
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: and other forest animals eat, and the number and population
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: density of squirrels in an area. You have a lot
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: of mass producing trees, you're going to have a lot
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: of squirrels because again, they fill their ecological niche to
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: base bursting.
• 29:01
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and they you know, bursting with food because they
• 29:06
  Speaker 4: are opportunistic eaters, is what Ed says. And that's a
• 29:10
  Speaker 4: pretty good way to say it. Because while they well,
• 29:12
  Speaker 4: obviously if they can get fruit or nuts and seeds,
• 29:15
  Speaker 4: that's the stock of their diet. But they will eat
• 29:18
  Speaker 4: whatever keeps them alive. They will eat insects and fungus,
• 29:22
  Speaker 4: and they actually spread fungus, which is great. Yeah, they
• 29:25
  Speaker 4: eat roots. They have they have found little tiny eggs
• 29:28
  Speaker 4: and little tiny birds and little tiny lizards in the
• 29:31
  Speaker 4: guts of squirrels, so they you know, technically are omnivores,
• 29:39
  Speaker 4: which is just to say squirrels are remarkable. That's staying alive,
• 29:42
  Speaker 4: and they will eat your garbage. They will eat whatever
• 29:44
  Speaker 4: they need to, but that's only if they're not finding
• 29:47
  Speaker 4: the nuts and the seeds and stuff like that, which
• 29:49
  Speaker 4: there are generally plenty plenty of in the United States.
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: And one reason that they're they're suited for nuts, or
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: that nuts are suited for them, is because they have
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: two sets of incisors. I believe it up and a
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: down is the technical term, and they grow constantly throughout
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: their lifetime. I think they grow something like, is this
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: even possible that I'm seeing it six inches a year?
• 30:13
  Speaker 4: Well, I mean they're constantly grinding them down, so I
• 30:16
  Speaker 4: think if a squirrel was in a coma, they could
• 30:19
  Speaker 4: have six inch fang.
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: That's crazy.
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: And then apparently if they don't continuously grind them down
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: and they kept growing, they would grow through the top
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: and the bottom of their face all a Lisa Simpson
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: that time she needed braces.
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: But that's crazy.
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: So they use these very very hard nuts, like a
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: chestnut or pecan or walnut shell to impart. It's a
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: food source. But as they're getting to the food source,
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: they're keeping their teeth ground down, which apparently they have
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: to do all the time.
• 30:49
  Speaker 4: That's pretty amazing. Squirrels also like a little sweet treat
• 30:52
  Speaker 4: every now and then. They have found red squirrels in
• 30:55
  Speaker 4: Maine that will tap sugar maple trees. They make little
• 30:58
  Speaker 4: bite marks in the tree and then and they just say,
• 31:00
  Speaker 4: all right, do your thing, and they come back a
• 31:01
  Speaker 4: few days later and that trap has hardened up and
• 31:06
  Speaker 4: run out a little bit. And that is just a little,
• 31:09
  Speaker 4: tiny sweet treat for a squirrel.
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: That's right, It's pretty awesome. They also found that Squirrels
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: can learn by observing other squirrels doing something, particularly finding
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: new ways to get food. Their adept at that.
• 31:21
  Speaker 4: Oh okay, so they see Todd doing something, they say,
• 31:25
  Speaker 4: not a bad idea, let's give that a shot.
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that Todd really came around.
• 31:30
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and if you'll notice, I think we kind of
• 31:31
  Speaker 4: skipped over this if we didn't mention Australia squirrels I
• 31:35
  Speaker 4: think used to be in Australia but aren't so much now.
• 31:38
  Speaker 4: And is it a mystery or is it just the
• 31:41
  Speaker 4: obvious that the Australians were like SIPs on mate.
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: I didn't see that anywhere, but I know that they
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: introduced the Eastern gray and then in Perth they introduced
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: the Indian palm, which is like if you mashed together
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: an Eastern gray squirrel in a chipmunk, that it would
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: be an Indian palm.
• 31:59
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: Well, but apparently they both died out. I don't know
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: if it's a mystery or not, like you're saying, but
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: supposedly there's some feral colonies that escape from zoos, at
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: least in Perth. So there are wild squirrels in Australia,
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: but they were introduced in the nineteenth century, which is
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: actually a trend, as we'll see. But I say before
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: we tackle all that, we take a break. How about that?
• 32:22
  Speaker 4: All right, Well we'll take the break and we'll talk
• 32:24
  Speaker 4: about squirrel migration right after this.
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: Okay, Chuck, so as I was saying, like back before
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: pre colonial days in particular, but also even into the
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: nineteenth century, I think even the nineteen sixties, there were
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: reports of a massive numbers of squirrels basically stampeding. Yea,
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: they call them squirrel migrations, and they have been documented
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: enough times that it's not an anomaly, but they are
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: fairly rare. And today they've kind of figured out that
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: there aren't dense enough populations of squirrels to ever have
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: a genuine like squirrel stampede like they had before. But
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: there used to be so many of them that every
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: once in a while, thousands to tens of thousands to
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: tends to tens of thousands of squirrels would pass generally
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: in like a big wave over an area. And apparently
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: it was quite a thing to see.
• 33:37
  Speaker 4: I imagine it was. And this happened because there would
• 33:41
  Speaker 4: just be a really big fruitful year for squirrel food
• 33:45
  Speaker 4: tons of availability, and they would you know, they would
• 33:49
  Speaker 4: boom in numbers because they go to where the food is.
• 33:51
  Speaker 4: And usually if that is followed by or I guess historically,
• 33:55
  Speaker 4: when that was followed by a really bad year like
• 33:59
  Speaker 4: the rain you know, didn't work out so great for
• 34:01
  Speaker 4: producing nuts and seeds and stuff and fruit, that all
• 34:05
  Speaker 4: of a sudden, you've got a ton of squirrels in
• 34:07
  Speaker 4: an area that are all looking around, going, oh, what's
• 34:10
  Speaker 4: the deal. And they're opportunitists, so they said, all right,
• 34:13
  Speaker 4: we're getting out of here. We're going to where the
• 34:15
  Speaker 4: food is. Let's go everybody. And they would do it
• 34:19
  Speaker 4: all at.
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: Once, yeah, all at once for some reason. And so
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: there's migrations. They would be they'd be running through the forest,
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: they'd be running across fields, they'd be swimming across rivers,
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: and apparently, in at least one account, I saw they
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: would be gulped up by bass in the rivers. And
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: I can't imagine seeing anything worse than a squirrel being
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: eaten by a fish.
• 34:40
  Speaker 4: That seems unnatural.
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but there were so many of them. And this
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: is also at a time where squirrels were roundly among
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: basically everyone living in America viewed as vermin as invaders,
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: as things that were unwanted, but also a tasty food
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: source too. Yeah, So anytime there was a squirrel stamp,
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: the yokels would run out with their sticks and bags
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: and beat squirrels to death and then cook them and
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: sell their pelts and do all sorts of things with them.
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: And one of the reasons why they were viewed as
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: vermin chuck is because on these squirrel migrations and other
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: times where they were just you know, if you were
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: unlucky with your planting, those squirrels might see as a
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: food source the crops you just planted all those seeds
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: and would dig them up and ruin your year's crops
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: in a day or so. So people didn't like squirrels
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: for a very long time. And this idea of squirrels
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: being everywhere, these little mammals living among us, like you
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: were talking about earlier, that's fairly new, and that's actually
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: very deliberate and purposeful, because squirrels were basically gone up
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: until about the mid to late nineteenth century in America.
• 35:47
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, between being hunted because people hated them
• 35:52
  Speaker 4: on their farms, like you said, people and people still
• 35:55
  Speaker 4: and like generally in certain parts of like Appalachia, still
• 35:59
  Speaker 4: eat squirrel on the menu. It is a little gamey
• 36:02
  Speaker 4: from what I'm told, I'm never going to eat a squirrel,
• 36:04
  Speaker 4: but they still use pelts. But that kind of, you know,
• 36:06
  Speaker 4: just like they would eat any larger mammal and use
• 36:09
  Speaker 4: their pelts. They would just get crafty with you know,
• 36:12
  Speaker 4: as small as a squirrel. And certainly in times of
• 36:16
  Speaker 4: you know, real need, you know, small rodents would come
• 36:20
  Speaker 4: in handy on the menu back then. But they were
• 36:23
  Speaker 4: almost gone. We started growing more urban in the eighteen hundreds, obviously,
• 36:29
  Speaker 4: and they were killing squirrels as fast as they could.
• 36:32
  Speaker 4: And in the eighteen forties and fifties there were so
• 36:35
  Speaker 4: few squirrels that they were introduced to city parks, but
• 36:41
  Speaker 4: not many. At first. They were just like this weird
• 36:43
  Speaker 4: curiosity where you would go out kind of like bird
• 36:46
  Speaker 4: watching and you would like try to spot a squirrel
• 36:49
  Speaker 4: running around because it was such a novel thing. But
• 36:52
  Speaker 4: then by the time Frederick law Olmsted, who by the way,
• 36:55
  Speaker 4: deserves his own podcasts, came along and really introduced the
• 36:59
  Speaker 4: idea of these really large city parks and urban parks.
• 37:02
  Speaker 4: They introduced a lot of squirrels to these parks and
• 37:06
  Speaker 4: they really really like that. That's kind of why we
• 37:09
  Speaker 4: have the squirrels we have today, was from this movement
• 37:11
  Speaker 4: to reintroduce them in a big way to urban parks.
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I mean we talked kind of a lot
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: about that whole idea in our Central Park episode, This
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: idea that you know, they just kept building the city
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: and building the city and building the city, and people
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: started going crazy because there weren't green spaces. So that
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: brought the parks in, and then the idea of adding
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: animals to the park just to kind of naturalize it
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: even more. That squirrels played a huge role in that.
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: And not only you know, in Central Park, but also
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: it started out and I believe Philadelphia and then followed
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: by Boston, and so by the mid to late nineteenth century,
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: that's when squirrels started to re establish themselves and the
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: way that people saw squirrels started to change too, And
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: there was this idea that they weren't vermin anymore. Don't
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: you them, Please try not to hit them with a stick. Instead,
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: let's go to the park, spend some time outside and
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: bring some nuts with you and maybe feed the squirrels,
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: and not only you feed the squirrels, but you got
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: a little kid. That little kid wants to hit that
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: squirrel with a stick so bad because kids are awful
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: like that.
• 38:16
  Speaker 4: Good luck.
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: You can actually use squirrels feeding squirrels as a way
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: to teach kids to have compassion, to be upstanding morally,
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: to have charity. And that was kind of how the
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: whole interaction between humans and squirrels was kind of framed
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: around that time, like the late nineteenth early twentieth century.
• 38:37
  Speaker 4: Yeah, the Boy Scout co founder Ernest Thompson's Seaton said
• 38:42
  Speaker 4: that squirrels, in introducing them to boys in general, would say,
• 38:46
  Speaker 4: would cure them of their tendency toward cruelty. But I said,
• 38:50
  Speaker 4: good luck a second ago. How do you hit it?
• 38:52
  Speaker 4: I mean, I guess if there's a stampede. But you
• 38:54
  Speaker 4: show me a kid that can get a squirrel and
• 38:56
  Speaker 4: hit it with a stick, and that's a future OLYMPI
• 39:00
  Speaker 4: In sure, there's no way. Those things are so fast.
• 39:04
  Speaker 4: But don't try to do it, kids, definitely.
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: No, don't even practice that. Don't try to qualify for
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: the Olympics. And that because you'll show up to the
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: Olympics and'll be like, we don't have that, that's not
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: one of our sports is what.
• 39:14
  Speaker 4: Do you think you says Australia.
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 39:18
  Speaker 4: So these days, you know, we've kind of come full
• 39:21
  Speaker 4: circle into just sort of letting squirrels be there. Are
• 39:27
  Speaker 4: you know, if you're a hunter in the United States,
• 39:30
  Speaker 4: and that may be the tradition in your family if
• 39:33
  Speaker 4: you live out in the country, to start off your
• 39:37
  Speaker 4: child with hunting squirrels with a little twenty two rifle
• 39:41
  Speaker 4: or something as practice to teach young hunters. I'm certainly
• 39:45
  Speaker 4: not into that, but I'm not going to judge you
• 39:46
  Speaker 4: if that's your thing. And like I said, people still
• 39:48
  Speaker 4: do eat squirrel in certain parts of the United States today.
• 39:55
  Speaker 4: I guess we can talk. I mean, we found a
• 39:56
  Speaker 4: lot of extra fun stuff.
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: Let's talk about.
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: So we were talking about how they're viewed in America.
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: Depending on where you are in the world, depending on
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: the squirrel you're talking about, they're actually they can be
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: viewed quite negatively. I remember in our Rewilding episode we
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: talked about how Eastern gray squirrels are considered an invasive
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: species in Italy, where they call them Americans killer squirrels.
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: And there's also an issue with Eastern gray squirrels in Europe,
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: where they've killed off most of the Eurasian red squirrels
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: over there. They've just out competed them. It's not like
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: they've you know, choked them or anything like that. They
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: just they're like almost twice as big, they're a lot
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: more ornery, and they've just kind of diminished the number
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: of Eurasian red squirrels in the UK so much so
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: that three quarters of the population lives in Scotland. And
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: I would just like to direct everybody to the Scottish
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: Squirrel's website. Go to Scottish Squirrels dot org UK and
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: this is very important. Slash about and on their about
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: page the header image is maybe the cutest squirrel you'll
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: ever see.
• 41:08
  Speaker 2: In your entire life.
• 41:09
  Speaker 4: Is that the one you sent me?
• 41:11
  Speaker 2: And Jerry, Yes, isn't that the cutest squirrel ever?
• 41:16
  Speaker 4: It's pretty cute. You also sent something else. If you
• 41:19
  Speaker 4: go to RSPCA dot org dot UK, slash Advice and Welfare,
• 41:23
  Speaker 4: slash wildlife, slash animals, slash gray squirrels, slash feeding, or
• 41:29
  Speaker 4: you could just Google feeding squirrels and using nest boxes,
• 41:32
  Speaker 4: you're gonna see a squirrel with a chicken wing in
• 41:34
  Speaker 4: its mouth.
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: That's pretty good.
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: It's better than a bass eating a squirrel, I'll tell
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: you that.
• 41:40
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that's a good article you sent because it talks
• 41:42
  Speaker 4: about if you like squirrels around, which I certainly do,
• 41:45
  Speaker 4: creating a good habitat for them. Trees obviously it is
• 41:49
  Speaker 4: a good thing to have. Not cutting down trees is
• 41:52
  Speaker 4: a great thing to do if you can avoid it. Yeah,
• 41:55
  Speaker 4: And then having squirrel safe bird feeders. And this means
• 41:59
  Speaker 4: not that the squirrel can't get to that seed, because they,
• 42:01
  Speaker 4: as you have attested, they will find a way. Life
• 42:04
  Speaker 4: finds a way, but it don't won't trap the squirrel
• 42:08
  Speaker 4: inside of it.
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: No, that's a big one too. They also kind of
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: get into they get all Macbeth or Hamlet, which one
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: was to be or not to be?
• 42:19
  Speaker 4: Why you asking me?
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: Because they get all Hamlet or Macbeth on whether or
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: not to feed squirrels. You go, so they're like, you
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: could feed squirrels, but really you shouldn't. And the RSPCA
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: takes I think a pretty sensible tact, which is build
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: a habitat for the squirrels, and that you're planting the
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: right kind of trees that provide a place for them
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: to nest in a place for them to get food,
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: and then just step back and enjoy them.
• 42:45
  Speaker 2: That's right enough.
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: If you're like you know, me and Moe and you
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: go on walks or whatever and you want to feed
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: the squirrels, there are some things that are better for
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: squirrels than others, and it's basically you want to give
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: them what they would naturally eat, which is masked, unshelled
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: nuts like walnuts, chestnuts, acorns, hazel nuts, that kind of thing.
• 43:05
  Speaker 4: Some seats probably, huh.
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: Yes, but not black safflower seeds. I saw that if
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: you were one of those people who can't stand squirrels
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: raiding your bird feeder, black safflower seeds are. They'll eat them,
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: but they're not crazy about them, and most birds like
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: them instead. So that's one way to do it. But
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: you can also feed them vegetables too, and chuck. They
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: included this little tip that I didn't realize, but if
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: you're feeding squirrels or leaving food out for squirrels in
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: your yard and you have a garden that you care about,
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: you don't really want the squirrel taking the food and
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: them burying it. Elsewhere. So they said, if you're going
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: to feed them fruits and vegetables shredded, because the squirrels
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: is going to eat it there, it's not going to
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: try to bury it.
• 43:45
  Speaker 2: I thought that was smart.
• 43:46
  Speaker 4: Yeah, And if you have the nuts, don't give them
• 43:49
  Speaker 4: like honey roasted almonds, like unsweetened, unsalted stuff. I have
• 43:55
  Speaker 4: set up, you know, have a campcam at the family
• 43:57
  Speaker 4: camp trail cam, and it's it's keyed in on my
• 44:01
  Speaker 4: deer feeder that I got, which is corn. And I've
• 44:05
  Speaker 4: seen one deer, but almost every night I have scores
• 44:09
  Speaker 4: of raccoons nice and almost every day, well every day
• 44:13
  Speaker 4: I have squirrels, crows, and now daily turkeys visiting. Oh
• 44:19
  Speaker 4: neat lots and lots of turkeys. So I don't care
• 44:22
  Speaker 4: that the deer aren't visiting. It's all kinds of animals
• 44:25
  Speaker 4: are coming around. It's always fun to watch on the
• 44:26
  Speaker 4: camp cam.
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: That is very cool. One thing you want to be
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: careful with with peanuts too, is giving them raw peanuts
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: because peanuts can carry an aff litoxin, which is very
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: It's not good. It's not good for squirrels, it's not
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: good for humans either. It's a type of fungus. I
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: think that actually is not only carcin carcina just that
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: can actually like just kill you on the spot neurologically speaking.
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: So you actually want roasted peanuts but not salted or
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: anything like that, sow like plain roasted peanuts or what's
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: even better because it helps with their teeth, are mass
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: nuts again like pecans, walnuts, that kind of stuff. But
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: a lot of people say don't feed squirrels because you're
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: actually what you're doing is, as we've seen, if squirrels
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: know that there's a lot of food.
• 45:15
  Speaker 2: They're going to mate mate mate mate, and.
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: There's going to be a lot of squirrels, and they're
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: going to become dependent on that additional food supply, and
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: they might start showing up at your neighbor's house, they
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: might start burrowing into your attic. There's just a lot
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: of there's a lot of things that to take into consideration.
• 45:33
  Speaker 4: I guess, yeah, well, the family camp, there's nothing but
• 45:35
  Speaker 4: would so I hope we get overrun.
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: So I agree with you. So you've found a couple
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: of cool things, including why squirrels like seem to dash
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: in front of your car when you're driving.
• 45:47
  Speaker 4: Right, Yeah, So and again I love that we've just
• 45:51
  Speaker 4: finally found answers for this stuff, because this is kind
• 45:53
  Speaker 4: of a fun, non obnoxious fact to jump on to
• 45:57
  Speaker 4: drop on someone. If you're driving around a neighborhood and
• 46:01
  Speaker 4: the squirrel does that thing and people go, why do
• 46:03
  Speaker 4: squirrels do that, we can say, well, it's actually an
• 46:06
  Speaker 4: evolutionary instinct to get away from a predator. So if
• 46:11
  Speaker 4: you run out and you initially freeze when there's a predator,
• 46:15
  Speaker 4: the predator is sort of like a football player waiting
• 46:18
  Speaker 4: for the defensive player to make their move, and then
• 46:21
  Speaker 4: you go the opposite way with a little juke, And
• 46:24
  Speaker 4: that's what the squirrel's doing. They go out, they freeze
• 46:27
  Speaker 4: when they see that car, and if it was a predator,
• 46:30
  Speaker 4: they would wait on the predator to sort of make
• 46:31
  Speaker 4: a move and then they can quickly go in a
• 46:33
  Speaker 4: direction that really comes in handy when it's a predator.
• 46:37
  Speaker 4: When it's a car that's going, you know, generally in
• 46:40
  Speaker 4: a big, hulking straight line, it's not the same thing.
• 46:43
  Speaker 4: But a squirrel has a squirrel brain and it doesn't
• 46:45
  Speaker 4: realize that. So that's why a squirrel will jump out
• 46:49
  Speaker 4: in a street, see a car and just stop They're
• 46:51
  Speaker 4: not dumb. They're waiting on you to make some hawk
• 46:55
  Speaker 4: like move, which doesn't happen in the car. So what
• 46:58
  Speaker 4: you do is you just slow down and check your
• 47:02
  Speaker 4: rearview mirror. Don't see him on the brakes or anything.
• 47:03
  Speaker 4: But you know, they're everywhere. And I've hit I think
• 47:07
  Speaker 4: maybe two squirrels in my adult life, so it's not
• 47:11
  Speaker 4: like the most common thing to run over a squirrel.
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I ran over one once and my brother in
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: law said that he was on his way to buy
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: a birthday present for his young kid who was waiting
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: forever for their dad to come back for his birthday
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: present for his party.
• 47:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it was not helpful.
• 47:30
  Speaker 4: And what about these black squirrels. Emily and I were
• 47:33
  Speaker 4: taking a walk through Brooklyn one day and saw a black, black,
• 47:37
  Speaker 4: black squirrel, not just a hint of black, and it
• 47:40
  Speaker 4: was the coolest thing I've ever seen. And I've since
• 47:42
  Speaker 4: seen a few more here and there in New York.
• 47:44
  Speaker 4: And we had the answer there too, right.
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: Yes, they seemed to be so they used to think
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: that they were freaks of nature. I think, as one
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: naturalist put it, like years and years ago, and somebody said,
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: I don't know if that's true. I think these actually
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: might have been the dominant version. They seem to be
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: closely related to Eastern grays, if not just a type
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: of Eastern gray, like a different breed of that species.
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: But they were saying they used to possibly be the
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: dominant version and they got edged out by the Eastern gray,
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: and so's they're there, they're just kind of infrequently. They
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: infrequently appear, but there are parts of North America where
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: they seem to populate more than others, like New York.
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: You mean, I used to see them in DC, Toronto.
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: They're all over Toronto, in Ontario in general, from what
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: I understand. So it seems like from what I could tell,
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: that they think that they're they were there already and
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: now we're just kind of seeing them in like this
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: kind of moment in time where their numbers have diminished tremendously,
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: where if we went back in time we might see
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: a lot more. Is Does that seem accurate?
• 48:56
  Speaker 4: Yeah? I mean, it's just genetics. It's a recessive gene
• 48:58
  Speaker 4: that causes an ab normal pigmentation, and you will you know,
• 49:03
  Speaker 4: you're you're only going to get more of that recessive gene.
• 49:06
  Speaker 4: If these squirrels or any you know, creature is reproducing
• 49:11
  Speaker 4: in a in a smaller area. So if you've got
• 49:14
  Speaker 4: to contain population, like let's say an island like New
• 49:17
  Speaker 4: York or apparently Roosevelt Island has a lot of them, Yeah,
• 49:22
  Speaker 4: you're just gonna see more of them. So, uh, DC
• 49:26
  Speaker 4: is a little not inexplicable, but it makes more sense
• 49:29
  Speaker 4: in New York because you're just gonna get more, you know,
• 49:33
  Speaker 4: more of this recessive gene happening in a area.
• 49:37
  Speaker 2: So not at all my explanation.
• 49:39
  Speaker 4: Then, no, it's your explanation. Now you nailed it. And
• 49:42
  Speaker 4: this was an article the Mysterious Black Squirrels of NYC
• 49:46
  Speaker 4: from what turns out to be a really good website
• 49:49
  Speaker 4: called Untapped Cities dot com and writer Michelle Young. It's
• 49:52
  Speaker 4: it's really cool read.
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so you got anything else on squirrels?
• 49:58
  Speaker 4: Nothing and hug a squirrel, Embrace the squirrel.
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: But don't do that. Don't if you do feed them,
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: don't don't let them.
• 50:05
  Speaker 2: Meet out of your hand.
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because they'll bite you. Even though they're grateful. There's
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: still bidy. And since I said that, everybody, it's time
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: for listener mail.
• 50:18
  Speaker 4: That's right, And It's a great listener mail because we
• 50:20
  Speaker 4: get to say hello to a kindergarten class, which is
• 50:24
  Speaker 4: always fun. Hello, Hi, mister Chuck and mister Josh. My
• 50:30
  Speaker 4: name is Katie. It's either Fink or Finky, and I'm
• 50:34
  Speaker 4: emailing with my kindergarten class in Baltimore City. We sometimes
• 50:37
  Speaker 4: listen to your show, and we were so excited when
• 50:39
  Speaker 4: you heard you mentioned the Three Sisters in the recent
• 50:42
  Speaker 4: watermelon episode. We actually spent a whole weekend learning about
• 50:45
  Speaker 4: the three Sisters this fall and wanted to share with
• 50:48
  Speaker 4: you our excitement. We hope you do a short stuff
• 50:50
  Speaker 4: on them soon. We definitely will if you need some
• 50:53
  Speaker 4: Three Sisters experts. We want to tell you these facts
• 50:57
  Speaker 4: that we learned this year. Oh yes, and here's a
• 51:00
  Speaker 4: little short list. Native Americans would plant fish first in
• 51:03
  Speaker 4: the ground to prepare the soil and make it healthy
• 51:06
  Speaker 4: and rich. Love that the corn grows so tall it
• 51:10
  Speaker 4: holds up the beans, and the squash keeps the soil moist,
• 51:14
  Speaker 4: so the other two sisters have enough water to stay hydrated.
• 51:18
  Speaker 4: And finally, all three of the sisters are dried so
• 51:21
  Speaker 4: that people can save them to eat later in the winter,
• 51:23
  Speaker 4: which is a great benefit, So we really want to
• 51:27
  Speaker 4: share our knowledge in case you do a short stuff
• 51:29
  Speaker 4: thanks for reading, love Miss Finkies or Miss Fink's kindergarten class.
• 51:35
  Speaker 4: And like I said, this is in Baltimore City.
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: Man, that's really impressive. Like I remember in kindergarten, I
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: was learning Red Red.
• 51:47
  Speaker 2: Red.
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: I wasn't learning about the three sisters and groundcovers like
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: keeping them moisture in place for the other two. I mean,
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: come on, that's really impressive this week. I think it
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: was more like that month.
• 52:04
  Speaker 4: February is red month. Right, Oh that's great.
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: Well, thank you Miss fink or Finkey's class.
• 52:11
  Speaker 2: Hats off to you guys.
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: Keep it up, and yes, we will definitely do a
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: Three Sisters episode someday dedicated to you guys, right.
• 52:18
  Speaker 4: Chuck for sure.
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: If you want to get in touch with us, you
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: can too via email at stuff podcast at iHeartRadio dot com.
• 52:29
  Speaker 3: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
• 52:32
  Speaker 3: more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
• 52:36
  Speaker 3: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.