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Squirrels, Ahoy! · Stuff You Should Know

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