Squirrels, Ahoy!

that stuff. Yeah for sure. Um, so we're talking not about the BC Boys. Surprisingly, we're talking about squirrels in the morning. It's squirrels. Every evening. It's squirrels. Squirrels to syllables, right, I don't care however you want to say it the little squirrel sure or Boston I guess probably they say it similarly as well. But if you want to get fancy, you can bust out their Latin name. They're members of the Road in Order, but for their family, their scure

a day, Secura day. Nope, security day. I look this one up, all right, Sierra die like my more. Okay, did you just toot on my renovation? Yeah, even though it was correct? Did you give me a bronx cheer? How? How is it? Siura die? Well? Let me do the person online? Sierra die okay? Is that Emma who said that? Or Sierra Day was another? But I think we've heard from people that d A E. S die okay? And that's fine. Um, if that's what it's called, I'm just

gonna call them squirrels from now on. But there's actually exactly three hundred species of squirrels, and it's it's kind of hard to wrap your head around because usually if you live in a place with squirrels, meaning you live on a continent outside of Antarctica, yeah, like everywhere, Basically, they're probably a lot of squirrels living around you, and they probably all look basically exactly alike, because it seems like when they fill an ecological niche, brother, they fill

it and there's not much room for competing species, it seems like from my experience. Yeah, I mean there are And who helped us with this was this? This is a grabster. Yeah, so grabs your points out that you know, you can find mountain squirrels and city squirrels and forest squirrels and jungle squirrels and desert squirrels. You can find squirrels in Alaska that hibernate with the lowest body temperature of any mammal, that have body temperatures below freezing at times.

You can go to Africa and find one of the cutest squirrels, the African pigmies squirrel, which is as small as the tiny little mouse. Where you can go to Bhutan and find the giant flying squirrel of Bhutan that with their head and body and is over two ft long. With that tail, they're huge, no two ft long. Without

the tail stressing they're distressingly large. Yeah, because the squirrel tail will get into this, but that's one of their signature features generally, although depending on the species, because there are three hundred species, like you said, more than are almost three, some of those tails are a little diminished. But usually when you think squirrel, you think of that big bushy tail. Yeah, and not only when you think

of squirrel you think of the tail. But the Greeks themselves, somebody decided that a Greek term would make sense, but scurrios or scurios, which roughly means something like shadow tail ed says shady Butt, also saw shadow tail, which is a reference to how squirrels sometimes high in the shadow cast by their own tail. It's pretty pretty clever, but the squirrel is usually kind of the bushy tail of

the squirrel is what makes a squirrel of squirrel. One of the other things that really differentiates it from other rodents is the way that its jaw and muscle are attached to its skull. There's actually a name for it, sirio morphous zygo massoteric system. They look at you hooked on phonics works for me. You even recorded the new pronunciation. You worked it right in there with a syria die I adapted, Yeah, because you should have heard it before

when I was work shopping it. That was the first take. Everybody, we're not lying, so um so uh. Those are two things that really kind of differentiates squirrels. But as we've really um gotten better and better at at taxonomy with the introduction of UM genome mapping, we can see like, oh, this animal that doesn't look anything like this animal is actually really closely related and with as with just about every other animal we've studied using modern genetic m taxonomy,

UM squirrels are. Our understanding of squirrels has really kind of changed shape of who's related to whom, who's descended from who. But there's there. We're kind of going to go the old school way, which is differentiating them based on their habitat and their behavior. So there's three groups of squirrels that we're going to cover, even though there's technically five subfamilies now ground squirrels, tree squirrels, and flying squirrels.

And before we go any further, I officially dedicate this episode to Momo, one of the great lovers of squirrels of all time, who changed changed me in my heart towards squirrels. I used to be a squirrel hatter, chuck squirrels. You remember the bird feeder Momo pointed out to me, said, Dad, squirrels are great. I'm going to teach you to love them.

And she did. Yeah, dogs and squirrels. It's what was the Disney It was either Pixar Disney had animated movie where the dog would just stop and go squirrel anytime there's a squirrel. I can't remember which one it was. I don't remember. It wasn't that long ago. But before

we move on, to ground squirrels. Uh. It is kind of fun to learn that because of that DNA analysis that we now have at our fingertips and fossil evidence, we know that squirrels uh went to western North America forty million years ago because squirrels like to get around. As we will see, they crossed a land bridge to Eurasia about ten million years after that, and then as soon as they could, as soon as Eurasia met up with Africa about twenty million years ago, they went all right,

we're in Africa now too. Because squirrels like to get around. They as you will see. Um, well we'll just tease that and say, squirrels like to get around. Yeah, I mean, you put one tree next to another, squirrel is going to go from tree a treat, but another tree is gonna go the next tree. And if you put trees all the way across one continent to another, they're going to micrate. That's just what they do, and that's what

they did. But if I thought I loved squirrels before, now that I know that they're actually native from thirty five million years back to North America, I just think that's that's just the tops. Yeah, And we talked about it before when you were having your bird feeder issue. But you know, Atlanta is a city in the forest, and we have tons and tons and tons of squirrels. Kind of everywhere along the East Coast does, but Atlanta

just has a lot of squirrels. And as I was reading, you know, from my upstairs office, there's a window not right in front of my face but sort of above me, and are huge, big, beautiful oak in our front yard. Um doing this on squirrels. I just look up for a second and I see four squirrels running around that tree together, playing like circling it like a barber pole. I take my daughter to school this morning and count

the squirrels that I see on the way. I counted twenty two squirrels that I just saw on a you know, twelve minute car ride. You hit one of them there, I have before. It's the worst thing ever. But they're everywhere in Atlanta. And it hit me a while ago about how easy it is living here, just or anywhere where there's a lot of squirrels, just to sort of be like, yeah, the squirrels. But it kind of hit me like how crazy it is that there are these

little mammals. They're not hiding in holes generally like mice and stuff like that. Like, they're just out all over the place at all times. Were surrounded by these little mammals. Yeah, out and proud. And if you come close too close to one of their trees when you're walking by and the squirrel doesn't like it, he's gonna sit there or she uh and chatter at you and basically tell you to beat it, you punk, get away from my tree. That's how. That's one of the great lovable things about squirrels.

They have such huge personalities, just so great. Chuck. Remember my famous squirrel attack not too long ago, and that when I went outside on I got it on my doorbell camera and that squirrel leaped through the air and hit me in the leg. It was a complete accident. Of course, I don't think the squirrel was trying to kill me, but you don't know. They're just they're all

over the place. We're gonna get to all the fun stuff about the black squirrels of New York and why squirrels stop in the middle of the road when they go to across the street. Like there we found reasons for all this stuff, which I love. It's not that squirrels are dumb, and we're going to reveal all that in this episode. Okay, I'm a little excited. I'm a little worked up. I know it's a ted early, but we're so squirrel positive that, I mean, it's a great way to put it. Chuck, all right, so are we

taking a break? I say, all right, I need to calm down too, And I guarantee you I'm gonna go like blow my nose in the other room. I'm gonna see a squirrel. I'll be right back, all right, Chuck. So, as promised, we're gonna break squirrels down into three groups crown, tree, uh, flying or aerial um. And I proposed that we start with the ground squirrel, many species of which you probably not you, but I mean you, dear listener, and me

I'll include too. Didn't realize we're actual squirrels like groundhog, Chuck did not know that was a squirrel, chipmunk. I had a feeling that might be a squirrel. Gosh, they're so great too. What about a groundhog? You already said groundhog? Did I? Okay? In a list of four things, I'm swirling, I'm swirling still if my love is Yeah, well that's what was coming out of my mouth. Next, Yeah, prairie dog didn't know what about that mere cat? I didn't

know that. Well, that's because they're not but prairie dogs, chipmunks, and um, what was the other one? Mormons? Yeah, Marmattan brought them in and groundhogs. Those are all ground squirrels. They're squirrels friends, um, and that makes them pretty awesome. But one of the reasons why they you wouldn't think they're squirrels is because and a lot of those species they lack that characteristic bushy tail. But then also they live almost a totally different life from their tree dwelling

more famous cousins. Yeah. I mean they might climb a tree, but generally you're not going to see a groundhogger prairie dog up in the tree if they knew, if they need to, you know, for a brief time, if they're trying to find food or something or uh like on the run from something trying to kill it, they might go up in a tree, but they generally hang out on the ground, hence the name. They love their rocky terrain. Uh. Chipmunks, for speaking for them, are pretty solitary unless they're trying

to reproduce. But uh, I know that you've found some stuff. Was it on the prairie dogs that that have their

big families and colonies. Yeah, I mean that's one of the main characteristics of of ground squirrels in general, aside from a couple, but that they're much more communal than tree squirrels, and in particular, the largest town a prairie dog town is what they're called the largest prairie dog town on record is in Texas, because of course everything is bigger there, but there was a colony of black tailed prairie dogs and this town, Chuck, stretched a hundred

miles wide by two hundred and fifty miles long and contained four hundred million prairie dogs. Again, crownd squirrels all living in this kind of large community. I mean that's like it's like a Chinese mega city or something like that. Time's tend yea. So are these the ones that tend to stay uh grouped with their own sex? Uh No, those tend to be either tree squirrels or flying squirrels. These are more the um because they live in in

communal groups and kinship is a big deal. Ground squirrels, like prairie dogs, tend to have a really good ability to send to smell the scent of other ground squirrels, so they can tell, like who's a blood relation who's not. And they've done studies to see, you know, if a like if a ground squirrel, they have a lot of really sophisticated calls too, because they're alerting others to the

presence of a rattlesneak or a hawk or something. So they're really talkative and they have a lot of sophisticated different communication um and they found that, uh, like a prairie dog that will stand up and and take the time to risk its own life to alert others, it's actually alerting the others that it's alerting are actually related by blood, and the groundhog or the prairie dog knows this because it can smell it's blood relations among all

these other you know, extended family members in the town. There's not much cuter than a squirrel sitting up on its rear haunches, whether it's I mean, obviously those prairie dogs, you know, they do it for a living, but even our eastern gray squirrels sit upon those back legs. If they want to work a nut with their little front pop ads. Yeah, or a chipmunk on its back legs. It's doesn't get much cuter as little busy hands. Goodness me. Yeah, alright,

so we can move on to our tree squirrel. This is they're known as our boreal squirrels, obviously because they are tree squirrels. And this is when you're talking your eastern gray squirrel. This is not a groundhog. This is not a prairie dog. This is your died in the wool, cute little fluffy tailed sort of you know, they're called gray, but they're sort of a light brownish color gener only,

although the colors do range, as we'll see. Uh. And these are the ones that you're gonna find all over Atlanta, jumping around, climbing around, leaping it podcasters in their front lawn. Uh. They spend most of the time. Uh. I mean you see him on the ground plenty. But they live in trees. They nest in trees called Drey's or uh Drey's or Drey's spelled within a year in a right. Um. And you probably if you've ever looked up and seen a massive like sticks and twigs in a leafless tree in

the middle of winter. You're looking at a squirrel's nest called it dre um, and this is where you were you were asking about them um staying in like same sex groups apparently in the winter. Um. Even though the tree squirrel does not live in a communal society like a ground squirrel does, it's they're still social. They still interact with one another. They play, they chase, they chase

one another off. They like mate. Um. But when gets really cold, tree squirrels will um kind of group their heat together by staying in a drey communally up to like thirty members. Um. Yeah, it is very adorable. I want to do a little exercise here real quick, Chuck. I want you to use your imagination. Imagine a very cold winter day, the winds blowing, snows being carried on the wind, and it's passing by just outside a woodpecker hole,

and we're inside that woodpecker hole, and it's dark. The light is very very faint because it's it's a kind of an overcast sunny day to begin with. But we're also inside a tree, in an old woodpecker hole, and it's lined with a bunch of different leaves, and there's half a dozen or so squirrels all kind of snuggled together, sleeping, sharing their warmth as the winter day passes by outside and they snooze an afternoon away fat on acorns that

they all just ate. Boy, isn't that amazing? Almost fell asleep here, real Abert Frost, my friend, Thank you, thank you. I like to think Robert Redford crossed with Robert cross but well, you know Robert Redford if you look in the mirror, but Robert Frost. When you pick a bin up with the touch of Robert Gooley, if you sang it, surely, uh oh man, that really did almost put me to sleep. Um, that's quite nice. I love that scene. So here's a

little fun adaptation that squirrels have. If you see a tree squirrel running down a tree face first with uh, with little uh resistance, just like it was made to do it, it's because it is. And they have those little claws of course that really helps. But if you look closely, or if you look up a picture rather and you see like a still image, you will notice that they have the ability to and Ed says, they

can turn their feet around. They really kind of just turn their whole back legs around backwards to where those claws are gripping on the way down, and that's why they're you know, it's like the perfect adaptation to be able to run up and down a tree. So, um, have you ever watched one do that up close? Sure? So any time I've seen that there, if you look their legs, because they're turned around, it kicks kind of their elbows out a little bit and though they climb down,

it looks a little different. And I've noticed that it triggers the part of my lizard brain that's like a spider alert. It's like that comes that it's it's triggered by that. So it's like a giant, furry spider is coming down to some little part of my brain that sends off an alarm and it's really off putting sometimes until I you know, the larger part, the executive functioning part of my brain is like it's a squirrel, don't worry,

But there's that one just zap of. Like this is weird and scary for a second, but it happens to me from time to time when they come down the tree like that. Well, it can be a little startling, you know, if you're going to take out the trash or something. And your trash can is next to a big live oak like ours. And there are two or more squirrels that are They seem like, I don't know what they're doing. They seems like I have a beef

with one another. But maybe they're just playing chase. But when they're really boogieing up and down and around a tree right as you walk upon it is it can be a little bit like, Oh, okay, I read that when one was chasing the other. Um, it's a part of the mating ritual. Okay, So that's that's embarrassing for them, right, I don't I don't know if that's across the board, but I saw that in at least one place, all right, not like knowing that. Um. Here's another cool thing about squirrels.

They have all kinds of squirrels have scent glands, and it depends on the species where that scent gland is located. It can be uh, near their little bum hole. It can be near their mouth in the corners of their mouth,

can be on their back. But in the case of the tree squirrel, um, they have their scent glands on their feet and sweat glands on the bottom of their feet, and they are a squirrel that berries there uh their food over large large areas sometimes like up to acres can be their habitat where they're bearing and hiding food. And they are literally every time they walk to bury something, they're leaving a little scent trail that they can go back and pick up. Ideally, but it's not a perfect system.

Sometimes they will lose stuff and not be able to go back. But what they have then done is planted a tree, yeah, which brings up their huge ecological role um, which is like planting new forests, like keeping forests healthy by forgetting about nuts. And the nut is actually a seed and it grows into a new tree that the squirrel helped move away from the tree. It's amazing splaining

it's range. They're known as the gardeners of the forest. Yeah, And we taught we did a whole short stuff on squirrels bearing nuts, and I remember one of the things that came up was, um, there was a study that found that if they if they know they're being watched by another squirrel, they'll fake dig a hole and then won't drop the nut in it. And then we'll go somewhere else and mislead a squirrel. It's that they think is watching them. Yeah, they'll look around first and be like,

did anyone seen that? Yeah? I think I'm good Todd was watching. I better not drop the nut in this hole. He he'll come along. Uh. So that's what the the I'm sorry, not flying, but the tree squirrels. That's how they use their scent. The ground squirrels, we should say, mainly use their scent glands to mark their territory. And you know, because they're all about their clan and their colony, to sort of mark their territory and find out if

someone is a part of their clan. Yeah. And then also, um, as far as scents go, I saw some somewhere that some kinds of ground squirrels that are prey to rattlesnakes will actually find shed rattlesnake skin rub it on themselves. I'll chew it up and rub it on themselves to give themselves a rattlesnake scent to throw off rattlesnakes. They camouflaged their scent. That's pretty cool. Yeah, I wonder if they ever wear it and just like fashion a couple

of holes and stick their arms through. Yeah, and they bragged that they killed it. Yeah. Have you, man, I shouldn't even mention this. Yeah, I'm gonna mention it, have you because it is it is roadkill. But have you ever seen the pictures of the squirrel road kill with a little G I Joe Action figures? No, just look it up. I can. They aren't squirrels that someone killed.

It's it's someone will take a roadkill picture of a squirrel and they'll take the little G I. Joe figures as if they were big game hunters, and they'll have their guns, and they'll have like one leg up on the squirrel's head as if it was their trophy. And the squirrel looks positively giant next to the Little Action figures. And it's kind of funny that one out. I don't

want to encourage people. Maybe I shouldn't have even said anything. Well, I don't know if you're encouraging people to like swerve onto a squirrel, you know, or kill a squirrel to do that. But maybe just look it up on the internet if you want to see that. Don't recreate it. If you kill a squirrel and we find out about it, we're coming to your house, I know, with a ghost of that squirrel. Yeah, that will introduce to your attic you so have we moved on to flying squirrels yet, Yeah,

let's do it. Those are you know the old story when we had one growing up for a little while. Uh, you probably don't remember, but my uncle gave us his flying squirrel to watch for a while, and he would leap from the curtains on the other side of the room onto my shoulder. And then when we went out of town, apparently they said the squirrel got out. But now that I'm adult, I realized that the cat ate the squirrel. Oh man, yeah, just to recap that childhood trauma.

That's wow. But for a little while, we had a flying squirrel in our home for a brief shining moment. That's the upshot. So a flying squirrel, and I thought this. I thought they were fairly rare. Um. Apparently they're as common as tree squirrels in some places. The reason that you think they're rare is because they're nocturnal, so we're usually sleeping when they're out and about. I love thinking

about those things just flying around all night. Yeah, and flying is right, man, I saw Ed says the thing glide up to aft. I saw three hundred in some cases. And that's what they're doing. They're gliding. They're not flying. They have no means of like propulsion. But they have a skin flap. They've evolved the skin flap that is, um, you know the bat suit that people like you know

skydive with. That's that is based basically on the flying squirrels membranes between its um front legs and hind legs. Um that it can you know, spread out when it jumps and it just catches the air and they can move it this way and that and use their tail as a rudder and go a hundred fifty feet in a pretty purposeful direction to Did you say what the name of the flap was? No? Do you want to now? I probably screwed it. I'm gonna go with a potagium.

That's great, had a gi um. I wonder what they call that in the in the flying suit bit is extreme flying suit bizz? I don't know, and I think they call him bat suits, but that's that's a misnomer. If you ask me that, I gotta say, I mean, I'm not into any of that stuff. I would never do it. But those videos are amazing, and it's is it closes humans have come I think to flying it. It feels like agreed, Yeah, I would have to have

probably a lobotomy to um to actually try that. It would take that radical of a personality change for me to try it well. And I mean sure that kind of thing that's the most extreme, like years and years of training, Yes, skydiving training and stuff like that, you know, like jump into a bat suit. No, no, no, definitely not. But even if you do, you know, once you get to that point, like I can't imagine how dangerous that is.

You know, if you smack into something you're going really fast, Yeah, yeah, your toast. Yeah, and that happens sadly. But I get the impression that it's the rush is worth the risk, that's right. Uh. And speaking of risk, there are endangered flying squirrels, the Carolina Northern flying squirrel. And we talked a little bit about these little land bridges that are starting to pop up in the United States over overpasses

and and freeway crossings. And I just read today there's one in in l A that's opening up that's like a hundred and sixty ft wide. I can't remember the name of it's named after someone, and to allow cougars and you know, mountain lions to pass and all kinds of animals. And they're using you know, they have done studies, uh four squirrels and that they found tagged like radio tag squirrels are foraging and building on the other side of these massive freeways thanks to these bridges. Like it's

been proven to work. Yeah, for sure. I think it's called the Robert Evans Memorial Animal Land Bridge. Baby. Yeah, if only so. Um. That actually kind of leads us to a quote I ran across chuck um because if you put like I was saying, if you can kind of connect the tree to another tree, which really ties into that rewilding episode because you're you're using you're connecting core to core via corridor basically is what they're doing

with that. Um that there was an old saying that before well not too long ago, I think in into the eighteenth century, maybe even early nineteenth century, that there was so many chestnut trees in North America that a squirrel could make it from Maine to Georgia without ever touching the ground. Yeah, what do we cover that in? Was it? I don't remember I remember that factoy that's

a great one. So, um, it really kind of goes to show like there there used to be a lot more forest in the United States, but there were also a lot more squirrels because there's a there's a positive correlation between masts producing trees which are um chestnut, beech oak um trees that produced nuts, the squirrels and other um forest animals eat um, and the number and population density of squirrels in an area you have a lot of mass producing trees, you're going to have a lot

of squirrels because again, they fill their ecological niche to basically bursting. Yeah, and they you know, bursting with food because uh, they are opportunistic eaters is what Ed says. And that's a pretty good way to say it. Because while they well, obviously if they can get fruit or nuts and seeds, that's the stock of their diet. But they will eat whatever keeps them alive. They will eat

insects and fungus and they actually spread fungus, which is great. Uh, they eat roots, they have they have found little tiny eggs and little tiny birds and little tiny lizards in the guts of squirrels. Uh, so they you know, technically are omnivores um, which is just to say squirrels are remarkable.

That's staying alive, and they will eat your garbage. They will eat whatever they need too, but that's only if they're not finding the nuts and the seeds and stuff like that, which there are generally plenty, plenty of in the United States. And one reason that they're um they're suited for nuts, or that nuts are suited for them is because they have two sets of incisors. I believe upended down is the technical term. And they grow constantly

throughout their lifetime. I think they grow something like is this even possible that I'm seeing it six inches a year? Well, I mean they're constantly grinding them down, so I think if a squirrel was in a coma, they could have six inch bangs. That's crazy. And then apparently if they don't continuously grind them down and they kept growing, they would grow through the top and the bottom of their face all at Lisa Simpson that time. She needed braces.

But that's crazy. So they use these very very hard nuts like a chestnut or pecan or walnut shell to impart as it's a food source, but as they're getting to the food source, they're keeping their teeth ground down, which apparently they have to do all the time. That's pretty amazing. Squirrels also like a little sweet treat every now and then. They have found red squirrels in Maine

that will tap sugar maple trees. They make little bite marks in the tree and then they just say, all right, do your thing, and they come back a few days later and that trap has hardened up and run out a little bit. And that is just a little tiny sweet treat for a squirrel. That's right, It's pretty awesome. They also found that um squirrels can learn by observing other squirrels doing something, particularly finding new ways to get food.

They're adept at that. Okay, so they see Todd doing something, they say, not a bad idea, let's give that a shot. Yeah, that Todd really came around. Yeah. And if you'll notice, I think we kind of skipped over this if we didn't mention Australia. Uh, squirrels I think used to be in Australia but aren't so much now. And is it a mystery or is it just the obvious that the

Australians were like it? It It was on mate. I don't know, I didn't see that anywhere, but I know that they introduced the Eastern gray and then in Perth they introduced the Indian palm, which is like if you mashed together an Eastern gray squirrel in a chipmunk, that would be an Indian palm squirrel. But apparently they both died out. I don't know if it's a mystery or not, like you're saying, but supposedly there's some feral colonies that escape

from zoos, at least in Perth. So there are wild squirrels in Australia, but they were introduced uh in the nineteenth century, which is actually a trend, as we'll see. But I say, before we we tackle all that, we take a break. How about that? All right, Well we'll take the break and we'll talk about squirrel migration right after this, okay, Chuck, so As I was saying, like back before pre colonial days in particular, but also even

into the nineteenth century. I think even the nineteen sixties, there were reports of massive numbers of squirrels basically stampeding. They call them squirrel migrations, and they have been documented enough times that that's it's not an anomaly, but they are fairly rare. And today they've kind of figured out that there aren't dense enough populations of squirrels to ever have a genuine like squirrel stampede like they had before.

But there there used to be so many of them that every once in a a while, thousands to tens of thousands, two tends to tens of thousands of squirrels would pass generally in like a big wave over an area. And apparently it was quite a thing to see. I imagine it was. And this happened because there would just be a really big fruitful year for squirrel food, tons of availability, and they would, you know, they would boom in numbers

because they go to where the food is. And usually if that is followed by I guess historically when that was followed by a really bad year um like the rain you know, didn't work out so great for producing nuts and seeds and stuff and fruit, that all of a sudden, you've got a ton of squirrels in an area that are all looking around going, oh, what's the deal? Uh, and their opportunists. So they said, all right, we're getting out of here. We're going to where the food is

let's go everybody. And they would do it all at once, Yeah, all at once for some reason. And so there's migrations they would be they'd be running through the forest, they'd be running across the fields, they'd be swimming across rivers, and apparently, in at least one account I saw, um, they would be gulped up by bass in the rivers. And I can't imagine some worse than a squirrel being eaten by a fish. That seems unnatural. Yeah, but there

were so many of them. This is also at a time where worlds were roundly among basically everyone living in America viewed as vermin as um uh invaders as things that were unwanted, but also a tasty food source too. So anytime there was a squirrel stampede uh, the yokels would run out with their sticks and bags and beat squirrels to death and then cook them and sell their

pelts and do all sorts of things with them. And one of the reasons why they were viewed as vermin chuck is because on these squirrel migrations and other times where they were just you know, if you were unlucky with your planting, um, those squirrels might see as a food source the crops you just planted all those seeds and would dig them up and ruin your year's crops in a day or so. So people didn't like squirrels

for a very long time. And this idea of squirrels being everywhere, these little mammals living among us, like you were talking about earlier, that's fairly new, and that's actually very deliberate and purposeful, because squirrels were basically gone up until about the mid to late nineteenth century in America. Yeah, I mean between being hunted because people hated them on their farms, like you said, people and people still and like generally in certain parts of like Appalachia, still eat

squirrel on the menu. It is a little gamy from what I'm told, I'm never gonna eat a squirrel, but they still use pelts. But that kind of you know, just like they would eat any larger mammal and use their pelts. They would just get crafty with you know, as small as a squirrel. And certainly in times of uh, you know, real need, uh you know, small rodents would come in handy on the menu back then. But uh,

they were almost gone. We started growing more urban in the eighteen hundreds obviously, and they were killing squirrels as fast as they could. And in the eighteen forties and fifties, there were so few squirrels that they were introduced to city parks, but not many. At first. They were just like this weird curiosity where you would go out kind of like bird watching and you would like try to spot a squirrel running around because it was such a

novel thing. But then by the time Frederick law Olmstead, who by the way, deserves his own podcast, came along and really introduced the idea these really large city parks and urban parks. Uh, they introduced a lot of squirrels to these parks and they really really like that. That's kind of why we have the squirrels we have today was from this movement to reintroduce him in a big way to urban parks. Yeah, and um, I mean we talked kind of a lot about that whole idea in

our Central Park episode. This idea that you know, they just kept building the city and building the city and building city, and people started going crazy because there weren't green spaces. So that that brought the parks in. And then the idea of adding animals to the park just to kind of naturalize it even more. Um that squirrels played a huge role in that. UM And not only you know, in Central Park, but also it started out and I believe Philadelphia and then followed by Boston and um.

So by the mid to late nineteenth century, that's when squirrels started to re establish themselves and the way that people saw squirrels started to change too, And there was this idea that, um, they weren't vermin anymore. Don't shoot them, please try not to hit them with the stick. Instead, let's go to the park, spend some time outside and bring some nuts with you and maybe feed the squirrels. And not only you feed the squirrels, but you've got

a little kid. That little kid wants to hit that squirrel with the stick so bad, because kids are are awful like that good. You can actually use squirrels feeding squirrels as a way to teach kids to have compassion, to um, be upstanding morally, to have charity. UM. And that was kind of how the whole interaction between humans and squirrels was kind of framed around that time, like

the late nineteenth early twentieth century. Yeah, the boy Scout co founder Ernest Thompson's Seaton said that squirrels and introducing the two boys in general, would say, would cure them of their tendency towards cruelty. But I said, good luck a second ago. How do you hit it? I mean, I guess if there's a stampede. But you show me a kid that can get a squirrel and hit it with a stick, and that's a future Olympian. There's no way.

Those things are so fast. But don't try to do it, kids, definitely, no, I don't even practice that. Don't try to qualify for the Olympics and that because you'll show up to the Olympics will be like, we don't, we don't have that. That's not one of our sports. What do you think,

you say, is Australia right? Uh So these days, you know, we've kind of come full circle into just sort of letting squirrels be uh there are you know, if you're a hunter in the United States, and that may be the tradition in your family if you live out in the country, to start off your child with hunting squirrels with a little twenty two rifle or something two as practice to teach young hunters. I'm certainly not into that, but I'm not going to judge you if that's your thing.

And like I said, people still do eat squirrel in certain parts of the United States today. Um, I guess we can talk. I mean, we found a lot of extra fun stuff. Well, well, let's talk about So we were talking about how they're viewed in America. They're depending on where you are in the world, and depending on the squirl you're talking about, they're actually they can be

viewed quite negatively. I remember in our Rewilding episode we talked about how Eastern gray squirrels are considered an invasive species in Italy um where they call them Americans killer squirrels. Um. And there's also an issue with Eastern gray squirrels in Europe where they've killed off most of the Eurasian red squirrels over there. Um be they've just out competed them. It's not like they've you know, choked them or anything

like that. They they just they're like almost twice as big, they're a lot more ornery, and they've just kind of diminished the number of of Eurasian bread squirrels in the UK so much so that three quarters of the population lives in Scotland, and I would just like to direct everybody to the Scottish Squirrels website. Go to Scottish Squirrels

dot org dot uk and this is very important. Slash about and on their about page the header image is maybe the cutest squirrel you'll ever see in your entire life? Is that the one he sent me? And Jerry, Yes, isn't that the cutest squirrel ever? It's pretty cute. You

also sent something else. If you go to RSPCA dot org dot uk, slash Advice and Welfare, slash Wildlife, slash Animals, slash gray squirrels, slash feeding, or you could just google feeding squirrels and using nest boxes, you're gonna see a squirrel with a chicken wing in its mouth. Yeah, that's pretty It's better than a bass eating of squirrel, I'll tell you that. Yeah, that's a good article you sent because it talks about if you like squirrels around, which

I certainly do, creating a good habitat for them. Trees, obviously it's a good thing to have. Not cutting down trees is a great thing to do if you can avoid it. Uh, And then having squirrel safe bird feeders. Uh. And this means not that the squirrels can't get to that seed, because they, as you have attested, they will find a way. Life finds a way, but it don't won't trap the squirrel inside of it. No. Um, that's

that's a big one too. They also kind of get into um, they get all Macbeth or Hamlet, which one was to be or not to be? Why you asking me this? Because they get all Hamlet or Macbeth on whether or not to feed squirrels. You go, Um, So they're they're like, you could feed squirrels, but really you shouldn't.

In the RSPCA takes I think a pretty sensible tact, which is build a habitat for the squirrels and that you're planting the right kind of trees that provide a place for them to nest in a place for them to get food, and then just step back. I can enjoy them. If you're like you know, me and Mo, and you go on walks or whatever and you want to feed the squirrels. There are some things that are better for squirrels than others, and it's basically you want

to give them what they would naturally eat. Um, which is masked unshelled nuts like walnuts, chest nuts, acorns, hazel nuts, that kind of thing. Yes, but not black safflower seeds. I saw that if you are one of those people who can't stand squirrels rating your um bird feeder, black safflower seeds are they'll eat them, but they're not crazy about them, and most birds like them instead. So that's one way to do it. But you can also feed them vegetables too, and chuck. They included this little tip

that I didn't realize. But if you if you're feeding squirrels, you're leaving food out for squirrels in your yard, and you have a garden that you care about, you don't really want the squirrel taking the food and then burying it elsewhere. So they said, if you're gonna feed them fruits and vegetables shredded, because the squirrels is gonna eat it there, it's not gonna try to bury it. I

thought that was smart. Yeah, And if you have the nuts, don't give them like honey roasted almonds, like unsweetened, unsalted stuff. I have set up you know, I have a camp cam at the family camp trail cam and it's uh it's keyed in on my deer feeder that I got, which is corn, and I've seen one deer. But almost every night I have scores of raccoons and almost every day, well every day, I have squirrels, crows, and now daily turkeys visiting. Lots and lots of turkeys. So I don't

care that the deer aren't visiting. It's all kinds of animals are coming around. It's always fun to watch on the camp cam. That is very cool. Um. One thing you want to be careful with with peanuts too, is giving them raw peanuts because peanuts can carry um an affletoxin, which is very It's not good. It's not good for squirrels. It's not good for humans either. It's a type of fungus. I think that actually is not only carcinogen carcinogists that

can actually like just kill you on the spot neurologically speaking. Um, So you actually want roasted peanuts, but not salted or anything like that. So like plain roasted peanuts, or what's even better because it helps with their teeth, are mass

nuts again like pecans, walnuts, that kind of stuff. But a lot of people say don't feed squirrels because you're actually what you're doing is, as we've seen, if squirrels know that there's a lot of food, they're going to mate mate mate mate mate, and there's going to be a lot of squirrels and they're going to become dependent on that additional food supply. Um, and they might start showing up at your neighbor's house, they might start burrowing into your attic. There's just a lot of there's a

lot of things that to to take into consideration. I guess, yeah, well the family camp, there's nothing but would so I hope we get overrun. So I agree with you. So you found a couple of cool things, um, including why squirrels like seem to ash in front of your car when you're driving right. Yeah, so, and and again I love that we've just finally found answers for this stuff because this is kind of a fun, non obnoxious fact

to jump on to drop on someone. If you're driving around a neighborhood and the squirrel does that thing and people go, why the squirrels do that? We can say, well, it's actually an evolutionary instinct to get away from a predator. So if you run out and you initially freeze when there's a predator. The predator, it's sort of like a football player waiting for the defensive player to make their move, and then you go the opposite way with a little juke.

And that's what the squirrel is doing. They go out, they freeze when they see that car, and if it was a predator, they would wait on the predator to sort of make a move and then they can quickly go in a direction that is really comes in handy when it's a predator, when it's a car that's going, you know, generally in a big, hulking straight line. Uh, it's not the same thing. But a squirrel has a

squirrel brain and it doesn't realize that. So that's why a squirrel will jump out in the street, see a car and just stop. They're not dumb. They're waiting on you to make some hawk like move, which doesn't happen in the car. So what you do is you just slow down and check your review mirror. Don't say I'm on the brakes or anything, but you know, they're everywhere, and I've hit I think maybe two squirrels in my adult life, so it's not like the most common thing

to run over a squirrel. Yeah, I ran over one once, and my brother in law said that he was on his way to buy a birthday present for his young kid who was waiting forever for their dad to come back for his birthday present for his party. It was not helpful. Uh, and what about these black squirrels. Uh, Emily and I we're taking a walk through Brooklyn one day and saw a black, black, black squirrel, not just a hint of black, and it was the coolest thing I've ever seen. And I've since seen a few more

here and there in New York. And we had the answer there too, right, Yes, Uh, they seem to be so they used to think that they were freaks of nature. I think is one um naturalist put it like years and years ago, and somebody said, I don't know that that's true. I think these actually might have been the dominant version. Uh. They seem to be closely related to Eastern grays, if not just a type of Eastern gray,

like a different breed of that species. Um. But they were saying they used to possibly be the dominant version and then they got edged out by the Eastern gray, and so they're there's they're they're they're just kind of uh infrequently, they infrequently appear, but there are parts of um North America where they seem to populate more than others, like New York. You mean, I um used to see them in d C. Toronto. They're all over Toronto, UM

in Ontario in general, from what I understand. So it seems like from what I could tell, that they think that there they were, they're already and now we're just kind of seeing them in like this kind of moment in time where their numbers have diminished tremendously, where if we went back in time we might see a lot more. Is that Does that seem accurate? Yeah? I mean, it's

just genetics. It's a recessive gene that causes an abnormal pigmentation, and you will, you know, you're you're only going to get more of that recessive gene if these squirrels or any uh, you know, creature is reproducing in a in a smaller area. So if you've got to contain population, like let's say an island like New York or apparently Roosevelt Island has a lot of them, uh, you're just

gonna see more of them. So uh, d C is a little not inexplicable, but it makes more sense in New York because you're just going to get more, you know, more of this recessive gene happening in a certain area. So not at all my explanation. Then, now what's your explanation? Now you nailed it. And this was an article the Mysterious Black Squirrels of NYC from what turns out to be a really good website called Untapped Cities dot com and writer Michelle Young. It's it's really cool read um. Yeah,

so you got anything else on squirrels? Nothing and hug a squirrel, Embrace the squirrel. But but don't do that, don't know. If you do feed them, don't don't let them meat out of your hand because they'll bite you. Even though they're grateful, there's still bitey um. And since I said that, everybody, it's time for listener mail. That's right. And it's a great listener mail because we get to say hello to a kindergarten class, which is always fun. Hello, Hi,

Mr Chuck and Mr Josh. My name is Katie. It's either fink or finky, and I'm emailing with my kindergarten class in Baltimore City We sometimes listen to your show, and we were so excited when you heard you mentioned the three Sisters in the recent watermelon episode. We actually spent a whole week and learn about the three sisters this fall and wanted to share with you our excitement. We hope you do a short stuff on them soon.

We definitely will if you need some Three Sisters experts who wanted to uh tell you these facts that we learned this year. Uh, and here's a little short list. Native Americans would plant fish first in the ground to prepare the soil and make it healthy and rich. Love that the corn grows so tall that holds up the beans, and the squash keeps the soil moist so the other

two sisters have enough water to stay hydrated. And finally, all three of the sisters are dried so that people can save them to eat later in the winter, which is a great benefit. So, uh, we really want to share our knowledge in case you do a short stuff. Thanks for reading. Love Miss fink E's or Miss Fink's kindergarten class. And uh, like I said, this is in Baltimore City. Man, that's really impressive. Like I remember in kindergarten,

I was learning Red Red Red. I wasn't learning about the three sisters and groundcovers like keeping them moisture in place for the other two. I mean, come on, that's really impressive this week read. I think it was more like that month. February is red month. All right, Oh that's great. Well, thank you, miss Fink or Finky's class. Hats off to you guys. Keep it up. Uh and yes, we will definitely do a three Sisters episode some day

dedicated to you guys. All right, Chuck for sure. If you want to get in touch with us, you can to via email at stuff podcast at iHeart radio dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a production of i Heeart Radio. For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. T