Latest / NaturallyScott / E74 John Koprowski – Squirrels: Tiny Athletes, Brilliant Survivors & Backyard Geniuses 🐿️🌳

Transcript

E74 John Koprowski – Squirrels: Tiny Athletes, Brilliant Survivors & Backyard Geniuses 🐿️🌳 · NaturallyScott

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to Welcome.
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_01: I'm Scott Harris, your host.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_01: That's my podcast, Natalie Scott.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_01: And uh today we're gonna have some fun.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_01: We're gonna be talking about squirrels.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_01: I'm really excited about that because I happen to love squirrels, as does the general we're gonna be talking to.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_01: So if you're a regular listener, you know that naturally scott.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_01: We run about 30 to 40 minutes.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um we try to pick fascinating animals and fascinating people and hear some great stories, maybe even learn a little bit and have some fun.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_01: And then, John, I don't know if you know, but in the on the alternate weeks, I do something called Naturally Scott Adventures.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I'm fortunate to get to travel a lot, and so I do about half-hour shows on uh on different uh places that I visit and the things I see and the people I meet.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_01: So um, this is fun today.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_01: This is the human show.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_02: Great, great.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_01: So, John, welcome.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for joining Naturally Scott today.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_02: I'm pleased to be here and uh only talking squirrels for 30 or 4 minutes, 30 or 40 minutes, Scott.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_02: We may we may have to double that today.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, I think someone's gonna have to cut me off.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I'll probably cut you off, which I had to, I told you earlier, I just recorded uh uh an episode on orcas, and the last thing we did was make plans to do another one because there's so much more.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_01: And my guess is that there is about squirrels as well.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_01: You know, every once in a while I feel like I kind of have to stretch to get to the 30.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_01: I don't mean any disrespect, um, but I have a sense this won't.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_01: Now, I happen to love squirrels, and one of the things we'll talk about today is as a birder, that puts me in a distinct minority.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, birders often seem more obsessed with squirrels than they do with birds, and I want to talk to you about that.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_01: But tell me why squirrels.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_01: A man picks a career and he spends a lifetime studying something, and you chose squirrels.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_02: So for me, a big part of it was just their accessibility.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_02: I I grew up in Cleveland, Ohio.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_02: I, you know, a kid where I loved being outdoors.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_02: My my parents loved to fish.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_02: I like to fish.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_02: So halfway through the day, I'd spin off and go catch frogs or you know, walk around and look for squirrels.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_02: And it really comes from just, you know, they're just such a wonderful gateway in into the natural world.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_02: And they're something that's common enough for so many people in the world.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_02: You show them a silhouette of a squirrel, they know exactly what you're talking about.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_02: They all almost all have stories.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_02: It's something little kids can watch.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, and so they're kind of wonderful for that entryway, uh, and just to learn how to watch animals and and all the kind of intriguing things that they do.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_02: And then as I continued on, I I went to Ohio State University, uh, didn't have a car, uh, had to do projects on animals, and darn if those squirrels weren't everywhere.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_02: So I used those, started to think of them more from a scientific standpoint.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_02: And then ultimately, because they're common, um, well, many species are common, some are very rare, so they're you can study them on kind of both ends of the spectrum.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, they're very well known, they're great for education, as I mentioned.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_02: They it just became apparent that it was a lot easier to, you know, to follow 50 squirrels in a project than 50 grizzly bears that, you know, were a little more wide-ranging and that kind of thing.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_02: Still love grizzly bears and and um you know kind of work on other things too.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_02: But it it was for that reason, just they're you know, they they were such a fascinating way to learn about the national natural world, and they're great for connecting to all parts of the world, um, except for Antarctica and Australia, um that and Australia has inner-D squirrels, so they literally are just about everywhere, and the scientist in me kind of took over then as well.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_02: But they they had a a formative role in that becoming a scientist, no doubt, as well.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_01: Well, that's fantastic, John.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_01: I'm that's exciting.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_01: Do you remember the first squirrel?
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_01: Did you have a spark squirrel?
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_02: So for me, the first squirrel that uh the the my early memories are of being maybe six or seven, and my parents telling me that I was out in the backyard trying to, you know, trying to figure out um how I could I I had a one of the old cantaloupe crates that back in my day were were wood, a little stick and a string, and I was putting different baits in there and just trying to pull that string and trying to so uh you know that those are my my really strong memories um you know kind of kind of started there that really did, you know, uh spark my interest.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_02: But uh yeah, and again, you know, I it I've continued, I haven't been able to get away from them.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_02: Um they're they're so fascinating, it's still so much to learn.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_01: I you know, I think first of all, they're just fun to watch.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, my birding friends spend hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars coming up with really just toys for squirrels to get through before they get to the food.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_01: And and for me, we have I live in South Carolina, so we've got the Eastern Grays.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_01: And um, I gotta tell you, I hope none of my birding audience is watching because I'm not sure that I don't enjoy watching the squirrels.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, if I'm gonna watch something eat the nuts, the squirrels are more fun than the blue jays.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_01: And so not only don't I try to prevent the squirrels, frankly, I've set up a couple of things that the squirrels have taken over and they're theirs, and I'm fine with it.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_01: They're not there are things now that the birds can't get into, but the squirrels can.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_01: And I sit on my front porch with a cigar and watch those squirrels and take a look around, make sure no birders are driving up, and and uh doggone if they're just not a blast.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_02: Well, and and I agree, I knew I liked you, Scott.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_02: Um, that to me, you know what you're seeing when someone has a feeder of some type, uh, you know, you're seeing the battle that is waged every day, you know, that's the these animals live together and they're both really good at at doing what they do.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_02: Uh you know, the birds able to fly to their next uh food source, you know, gives them a little bit of a mobility advantage, and and things at that one spot probably don't mean quite as much.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_02: But you've seen the determination of squirrels kind of you know, Olympic athletes of moving around in in the trees.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_02: And when we think of squirrels, you know, tree squirrels are to me, you know, kind of the most amazing example.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_02: They they haven't changed when you go back and look at fossils, they haven't changed.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_02: Um about as far back as you can go, you can recognize, oh, that's the skeleton of a squirrel because they do what they do so well.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_02: You know, they're they have to be able to move around those tree limbs.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, they rely on smell, uh, eyesight, and sound, um, you know, to be able to locate food and jump between branches.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_02: And then when you just look at their skull, you know, it is just um they have the ability to get in anything.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, and I think that's what what frustrates and marvels uh people in various ways.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna fall on the marveling side because I've read too much and seen too much, and even if I was to fight that battle, I was gonna lose it.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_01: And so why not just embrace it and just say, you know, and and uh so that that is what happens now there are what is it, 321 species of squirrels around?
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not that smart.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_01: You sent me a note.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_01: I I just happen to remember it.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_01: 321 species of squirrels around the world, right?
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_01: Some of these some of these squirrels are on every college campus and rural, urban, and suburban areas, and others are endangered and living in microhabitats and fighting for their very existence.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_01: Walk me through why that is.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_02: Well, squirrels have been incredibly successful at what they do.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_02: Anyone who's watched a bird feeder, um, you know, the more complex, the more challenging, but they often solve the puzzle.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_02: And, you know, they are all about finding foods that are often available in pulses, like tree seeds, acorns, you know, that are developing now, pine cones, things like that.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, if you're a ground squirrel, grass and you know, that lush vegetation pops up but disappears pretty quickly.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_02: And so it is all about capitalizing on that and finding ways to survive the rest of the year on when food is relatively scarce.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_02: So they have to be good at finding it during those short during the periods of food shortage, but also great about storing it.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_02: Um, like the eastern gray squirrels that you mentioned, you know, they they're burying seeds, they have a really amazing spatial memory, so they can relocate them along with a great sense of smell.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_02: If you're a red squirrel out here in Wyoming, you're you're collecting 30 to 40,000 tones and piling them up to be able to make through make it through the winter, putting on a lot of fat to make it through, or you may be hibernating.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, you know, if you're one of the ground squirrels or or you know, the woodchuck and and uh the groundhog, the whistle pig, uh, you know, uh that is a great bourbon, by the way.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_02: And so um they're good at what they do, and there are those kinds of environments and challenges pretty much around the world.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_02: So 321 species all throughout North and South America, all throughout Asia, Africa, um, and Europe, and it really is uh, you know, the they do what they do and they just continue to do it really well.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and so that success that's uh uh uh doing something well, probably a good reminder that someone like me should figure out how to do something well in life.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but squirrels, you know, I think that's what we kind of admire about them, and that plan, that body plan, you know, that kind of behavioral plan that they use to exploit these resources is why we see them in spots like a university college campus where they're highly visible.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_02: They often like the same thing humans do.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, on those college campuses, those big old trees that we love because they provide shade.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_02: They look really nice on the drive-in for prospective students.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_02: Also provide those large seats because those trees are mature.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_02: They've got a bunch of cavities in them, those, you know, the broken off limbs or um, you know, otherwise often damaged parts of the tree.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_02: That's where they prefer to nest.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_02: And so they often have many things in common with the kinds of things we like to live around.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_02: They're really good at exploiting.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and then there are bird feeders.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_02: And, you know, that's that's where some people draw the line, I know.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_01: You know, um, until about six years ago, my wife and I lived in Southern California.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_01: We retired to South Carolina, but we had bought an RV, and there's a place in Ventura County called Rencon Beach, and the RVs line up there, and it's a great place to spend a weekend.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_01: And I went up there one weekend, I was by myself and and uh hadn't been doing it very long.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_01: And there's a lot of ground squirrels that live in the rocks.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you've got the the protective rocks there on shore.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_01: So I had brought some peanuts and I was, you know, I hand fed them a couple of them, but I had a nice um uh nice pot set up outside uh that I a hammock.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_01: I had a hammock set up that I could take a nap in.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_01: So I fell asleep, you know, and and uh apparently disappointed the squirrels when I did.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_01: And so I woke up and I could feel something on my chest, and I looked up and I am face to face with a squirrel that's nibbling on my forearm, not drawing blood or anything, saying, Hey, there should be peanuts here.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_01: So I I got up to go back in the RV to get peanuts, and there were three squirrels on my kitchen counter because I had left the door open that had pried open the bag and were eating the squirrel, uh eating the nuts.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_01: I'm thinking, what an industrious.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_01: I I get that they've probably done this a dozen times or dozens and dozens, but what an industrious animal.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um go ahead.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_02: Sorry, Scott.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_01: I did you I just I'd never woken up with a squirrel on my chest before.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_01: I have to say that was a a first-time thing.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I'm used to disappointing squirrels pretty much on a daily basis.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_02: So, you know, join the club.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_02: Uh they are that industria, you know, the drive to be successful at what they do, to find food, all their senses are tied into that.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_02: You know, they have a really good sense of hearing, uh a good sense of vision that's really focused on the colors of ripe fruits and nuts and grasses.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_02: And then they have an amazing sense of smell.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_02: So, you know, they can they can pick up things from a great distance.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_02: There are I've seen them do this, but there are records by scientists of of foxquirrels and other species that's kind of in parts of um the southeastern U.S.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_02: and throughout the Midwest, and they've been introduced on the West Coast, including California.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_02: They've been known to go eight to ten miles, um uh come uh follow the smell of a fruiting black walnut tree from that far away.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_02: They find females who are only in heat for about half of a single day.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_02: They'll find them from miles away, just picking up these really faint scents.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_02: And then I mentioned their success in uh the uh in the winter and preparing for the winter.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_02: They bury those nuts and they basically remember an area where they bury, and then they they burrow down through three or four feet of snow, even, and they're doing that um uh it and they use their sense of smell to kind of hone in on okay, I know I buried nuts in this, you know, between this tree and that tree, and they get the you know, then they use their sense of smell to figure out exactly where they where they buried it.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_02: So they are all about exploiting sleepy folks like you who don't have enough peanuts at their side.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_01: Well, it was my bad.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's funny because my wife probably has a hundred potted plants.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_01: We've got a couple acres here on a lake.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_01: And um we are she is constantly pulling up peanut plants that are growing.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_01: The squirrels bury the peanuts because we feed them unshelled.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_01: So they bury the whole, you know, and and then pretty soon we have a plant.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_01: It's kind of fun.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_01: Now, the flip side of their, I would consider it genius, the ability to survive, is they are often predated.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, they are primary or secondary food for raptors and foxes and coyotes and and snakes.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_01: And so even as talented as they are, and all those highly sensitive senses, they still get munched pretty often, don't they?
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's right.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_02: You know, being a small mammal, that's one of the one of the risks of being small, right?
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_02: You know, you have access to lots of resources, you can hide maybe a little bit better, but you you're a tasty morsel of protein.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_02: And if you're out there invisible and paying a little too atten too much attention to, you know, finding those acorns or or burying them, you know, just you're you're that much more at risk.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_02: And so, you know, there there is a pretty especially young squirrels have a pretty high um predation rate upon them.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_02: Often less than 50% of young of the year will survive.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_02: And that's just because they're a little dopey coming up, and you know, uh, you have one chance to learn um, you know, from the talons of a hawk.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_02: And usually, you know, that's a very short lesson.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_02: So uh after they get a little bit of experience and some of that wariness, and they do pick that up from other squirrels, they there's some evidence that they learn from not only their their mother, who they typically stay with, the the males usually not involved in in rearing young in the vast majority of species.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_02: So they can learn from their mother, but they can also learn from other squirrels in the population.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_02: And in many cases, they give alarm calls to kind of you know warn that a predator's been seen.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, and those ears, those eyes are you know great at picking up uh, you know, a hawk that's that's moving above.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_02: So they they become incredibly wary.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_02: And once they make it through that first year of life, survivorship is almost about always about 95%, 90 to 95 percent.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, you get some natural mortality in there, you know, picking up a disease or um parasites and things like that along the way.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_02: But once they make it through that first year, year and a half, um, they actually are pretty good um, you know, at avoiding being that that next meal.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_02: But enough of them, you know, there are enough out there and enough of them succumb to the jaws of a fox or the talons of a hawk that you know they're that they are a pretty reliable food item for all those all those species.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_01: So, what is the life expectancy of a squirrel that makes it through the first year?
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_01: Let's say an eastern gray.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_02: So once you made it through that first year or so, which includes you know, surviving, you know, just learning everything about being outdoors and lots of predation there, then if you are a male, uh 100% of the males disperse from where they're born.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_02: So they in the early fall, they'll start to take off kind of during a period of a food of food abundance.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_02: And eastern gray squirrels are actually one of the more social squirrels.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_02: We don't really see that much because they're all they spread out and forage during the day.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_02: But females tend to stay where they're born and often like over winter or on cold nights, will nest with a couple of other generations.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_02: So it's not uncommon to have you know a grandmother, her daughter, and then the daughter's daughter, the granddaughter, all nesting together and kind of making it through the winter, in part one of those strategies to survive on the kind of the body heat of your other relatives.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_02: But what so they have to make it through all of that?
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_02: Once they make it through that, where that's where you get that really low percentage, even sometimes as low as 25% on average, then it hits 90 to 95 percent, and that'll go on for several years.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_02: And so when you look at uh the potential longevity of squirrels in the wild, I've seen eastern grays and fox squirrels that are over 10 years old, uh, and sometimes getting up to 12 or 14, and then zoos or or people who've had pets in the past when that that kind of thing was permitted, have reported uh most species of squirrels, uh the larger tree squirrels and some of the the larger ground squirrels at over 20 years in um you know in their in captivity, I'm going to say in this wow.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_01: So the again, we'll just I'll just throw out the Eastern Gray.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we've got females here on the property, obviously, because we get baby squirrels and stuff.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_01: What what is their range?
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_01: I mean So about the size of a football field.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_02: Uh oh, so it's really my property.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_02: They're yep, it's probably your property.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_02: They do overlap.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_02: So females, when they when they have young, become territorial.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_02: They may nest with you know a couple of generations the rest of the year, but they go off into their own nest.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_02: And that that can either be one of those cavity nests that I mentioned earlier in a tree, or they can make them those kind of volleyball, basketball-sized um, you know, balls of leaves uh and twigs.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_02: Uh they can make those.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_02: They prefer the cavities to when they have young, but they'll split up.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_02: Uh they'll they'll um they'll work through you know a month ish of gestation, so you know, a pregnancy, then they'll nurse.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_02: For usually six weeks or so.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_02: And and during that time, during the time they're nursing, they start to come back together.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_02: But there's always a lot of overlap in the in eastern gray squirrels that you have.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_02: And so while their their range may be, you know, one football field in kind of semi-natural habitat, they will overlap a lot.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_02: So, you know, if you if you've ever been to Lafayette Park across from the White House in Washington, DC, highest density of squirrels ever reported on earth.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and they are they pack in in places where there's um high concentrations of pretty dependable dependable and defendable foods.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and a lot of people feed there and um and there are a bunch of those, you know, kind of beautiful old oak trees and things like that.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_02: So um on average you're looking at something like a football field in ur in urban areas, uh truly urban areas, they get much smaller, like a quarter of a football field.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_02: Uh yeah, but there's always a great deal of overlap.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_02: So you're seeing many, many individuals coming through.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_02: And as I mentioned, you know, going after food, you know, they'll they'll travel sometimes miles, males during the breeding season, which for eastern gray squirrels, um, kind of starts Thanksgiving-ish, Christmas time um here in the US.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_02: And they can they can breed anytime into the early summer, usually kind of waning about now for a couple of months.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_02: You don't see too much reproduction.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_02: But uh you know, they during that time you've got males, you know, literally traveling miles looking for females who are only in heat for that half a day.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_02: So they have to they have to be monitoring a female to you know to have a chance to to father any young.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_02: So you're you're you're seeing lots of squirrels on your property.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_02: So on average, that's enough range for for one um squirrel uh to you know to uh for its spatial needs to get to get what it needs as far as food.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, all right, fantastic.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_01: What's the most surprising thing you've learned?
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_01: Or a surprising thing about squirrels in general or specifically?
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_02: So you you're breaking up just a little bit, Scott.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_02: Um but I think you asked the most surprising thing, or what are some surprising things?
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, so to me the the scale at which they move that I just mentioned, um, you know, always surprise me for such a small animal, you know, going seven or eight miles to find a female or find a a tree that's in fruit.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_02: They're the ab the way that they depend on scent, I think, probably surprises people that mammals are just you know, that's their their TQ.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_02: So when I think of squirrels, not only the ability to find things that far away or that far under the snow or you know, buried in the ground, but they they recognize each other by smell.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_02: Um, if you go out and look at some of the bigger trees around your property and look at the underside of branches that are kind of protected from rain, usually on the uh you know on the protected size of a side of a tree, or even just two or three feet above the base, there are scent marks that they where they go through.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_02: You'll see a spot where it looks like something rubs some of the bark off.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_02: And if you look really close, you'll often see the incisors of squirrels.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and if you smell it, you'll usually smell the kind of you know, the musky, gamey scent of uh of scents that they rub from their cheek glands, and they recognize each other, may recognize dominance rank, may recognize reproductive condition from doing that.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_02: So uh just the way they're keyed into senses.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_02: As humans, we're probably one of the mammals with the least uh you know effective uh ability to determine things by scent.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_02: We rely on other scents and then our social nature too, but um I yeah, I think we underappreciate how mammals are cued into scent and especially squirrels.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and then finally just that ability to, you know, be a bit of an Olympic gymnast in the trees.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_02: I've seen them um run and clear maybe twenty feet uh you know from one branch to another.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_02: And then I've also seen them swing and miss on those jumps and fall as much as sixty feet, and they hit the ground and they bounce a little bit, they kind of compress, their ribs are really easily, they're very compressible, and you know, they get up, shake it off, and then run right back up the tree.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_02: So just like you and I would.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, exactly.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_02: But for the rest of your audience, not as you know, nimble and uh Olympics, you know, level athletes such as ourselves, you know, I wanted to I wanted them to be able to understand Scott.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, you know what?
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_01: You were right early on when you said we work and have enough time and we don't.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_01: I'm throwing away cards that I'm I shouldn't throw away.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_01: I'll just save until the next time we do this.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_01: I've got two more before I let you go, John.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um and and these are these are the questions you must get at the cocktail parties, I would imagine.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_01: The standard, less scientific questions.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_01: Do you have a most memorable day or memorable encounter with a squirrel?
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_01: Is there one that stands out?
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm gonna share two really quickly.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_02: Um one I sent you a picture of that you that you might um enjoy.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_02: There's a park in Japan where they it's called Squirrel Village.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_02: You hike halfway up a mountain and they have squirrels there, they give you a glove and they give you a little bit of peanut butter, and the squirrels like come over and sit on your hand, and so uh there's an image that that I believe I sent.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_02: If not, I'll I'll send it to you.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_02: But you know, the squirrel just staring me down, kind of the same look they're probably giving you, Scott, when they realized you're out of peanuts, and just the determination and the true disappointment that I could see in that squirrel's eyes at that moment.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um in my life, I have to now add squirrels.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's right.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_02: The other the I think the most um to me, one of the most exciting experiences was I don't know if you've ever seen squirrels moving their young.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_02: Um, we've probably seen cats do that where they they you know they grab the cat off and by the the kitten often by the scruff of their neck and and carry them across.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_02: Squirrels um the mother will bite the bite the belly, uh that extra skin that's at the belly, and uh the squirrel rap the the young squirrel wraps itself around the mother's head.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_02: Kind of looks like there's a donut that you know the animal's feasting on.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_02: And that's how they move them, and and they'll jump, you know, uh eight, ten feet between branches if they have to to move a litter.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_02: And so I was out um doing some observations.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_02: There was a a nursing female who brought all five young down, which is a pretty big litter.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_02: Most tree squirrels, it the average is two to three, four is pretty big.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_02: She had five.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_02: Single litter per year?
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_02: Uh they can have two.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_02: Um in your part of the country where it's a little warmer and the seasons are a little longer.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_02: Um, two is a little bit more common than I grew up in Cleveland, Ohio.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_02: Up there, you typically only are they're only able to pull off one litter a year, but sometimes they'll get two.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and so she's moving these.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_02: She first takes all five down from a a tree cavity that I'd seen earlier, a male squirrel poking in, and she was defending the nest from that male.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_02: Um, she brought all five down to the ground one at a time, just at the base of that tree, and then would pick one up and then run across and climb up a tree, maybe 20, 20 yards across this grove.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, I was filming all of this and uh uh was well, I was taking still pictures of all of this.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_02: And when she took off running with one, one of her young um noticed me and just came running right over to me, and I was taking pictures of it as it came face to face with my toes, uh, and then climbed up um and uh to the point where I couldn't focus the camera anymore, and then jumped on my shoulder.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_02: The female came down, saw this, came running after me.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_02: Um and it's a good thing squirrels aren't the size of rhinos, because you know, a rhino-sized squirrel who was as angry as that as that mother would have would have scared me even more.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_02: Um but I ended up laying down on the ground so this little guy would jump off my shoulder.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_02: She grabbed it, took it to the nest, and then came back and just gave me a piece of her mind.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_02: Again, my the disappointment that I could see in her eyes.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_02: But just you know, to see all of that take place with a mother and its offspring, the you know, the kind of the naivety of a um, you know, of a new squirrel.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_02: You mentioned they don't survive all that well that first year.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_02: That's an example why.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_02: And then just the protective instincts of this mother who is willing to take me on.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and I had a few pounds on her.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_02: She was a big squirrel, but um, I you know, uh I think I could have taken her.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_01: Well, yeah, 50-50.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_01: 50-50.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_01: That's true.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_01: So good point.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um I'm throwing my email up right now.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_01: It's uh Scott at naturally scott.com.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_01: If any of you watching this have questions for me or comments, please send them.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_01: I love receiving them.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_01: If you've got questions for John, send them to me and I'll get them up to John.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_01: And John, I'm going to close out with something that has been nagging at me as I've been staring into your background.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_01: When is the last time you received a gift that wasn't squirrel related?
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_01: It just seems to me that just to be the easiest.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_01: What are we gonna get for Uncle John and you grab a squirrel cup or a stuffed squirrel or yeah, Scott, that's that's always been it.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_02: That's the go-to.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_02: Um, there's you see a paper up there.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_02: I did a groundhog day event, and one of the kids, you know, sent that to me.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_02: A bunch of uh stuffed squirrels.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_02: Those are often the case.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_02: I get a number of bird feeders that uh and squirrel feeders that keep birds out.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_02: Um I just want to know there is it's a much smaller industry for that side of it.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_02: It might just be you and me.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_02: It is um and I always enjoy them.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, you know, it's it's fun.
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_02: The collection has grown, and I do re-gift or at Groundhog Day event, a number of these go out there for the kids to select from and that kind of thing.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_02: But um, you know, if they're they're animals that I've enjoyed my whole life that, you know, kind of uh have part of my career's been built on them.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_02: I I owe them a debt of gratitude, and and when people recognize you for something relatively positive, unless you're talking to someone with a bird feeder, um, you know, then you know you you have to pay um tribute to them.
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_02: So always happy to get those.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you can put me down in the enthusiastic squirrel supporter category from from my object and stay up in the backyard, and love watching them.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_01: Especially love watching two circulars chasing each other up the tree and just the whole thing.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, if you're watching this on YouTube, do me a favor, hit the subscribe button.
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_01: Every time you do, YouTube pushes this out to more and more people.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_01: And come on, you know people are gonna want to watch what John has to say today.
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_01: And if you get a chance to drop a comment or hit like, so much the better.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but you know, we don't sell ads on the show.
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_01: It's just a hobby of mine and bringing in some great people, and I would just like more people to watch it.
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and John, as I'm thanking you, I will tell you I close each show the same way.
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_01: I encourage everybody in the audience to get outside.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_01: And and outside can be your front porch, your backyard, your local park, your international, whatever it is.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_01: But get outside, and when you do, stay safe and stay curious.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_01: And I gotta share one more thing when you mentioned the rhino.
• 35:27
  SPEAKER_01: My wife and I were down in Africa uh the summer before last, and we were in what now appears to me to be a very, very small Jeep.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_01: And we did get charged by a rhino.
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_01: And I will tell you, when I knew we were gonna survive when we got back and got on the computer, the first thing I did was look into adult diapers.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_01: Because that's that'll that'll change your whole body dynamic.
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um, because I'm not sure that there's I get elephants and lions and grizzlies and orchids and and angry squirrel moms, but there's something about a rhino that just looks like a tank.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_01: And they look impenetrable, like there's nothing that could hurt them.
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_01: And um anyway, I thought I yeah, and I thought about that when you were mentioning it.
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much for being a part of this today.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_01: This has just been an absolute treat.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I I will look forward to having you on again again.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_02: I'd love to be on Scott, really have enjoyed it.
• 36:33
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and everyone should keep squirreling, give squirrels a chance, you know, let them get a little bit of that food.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and uh, you know, I I I too hope that people get out, stay safe, and and are able to enjoy critters like squirrels that you know there are many stories to tell, and hopefully I gave you a little bit of insight there.
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_02: I did a cat from popping the future.
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks, Scott.
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna look forward to it.
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_01: I'm Scott Harris, the host of Naturally Scott.
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for joining John Koprowski and myself.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_01: I'll look forward to seeing you next week.
• 37:06
  SPEAKER_01: Have a great day.
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_00: You've been listening to Naturally Scott with Scott Harris.
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_00: Naturally Scott is hosted by Scott Harris, produced by Justin Harris, directed and edited by Frank Pierra.
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_00: Follow us on our YouTube channel at Naturally Scott and Instagram at Naturally Scott Harris.
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_00: If this conversation resonated with you, please follow the show, leave a review, and share it with someone who needs to hear it.
• 37:31
  SPEAKER_00: Naturally Scott, thank you for viewing and listening to this podcast.