Longtime listeners of Stuff You Should Know are well aware that I've come a long way with my feelings on squirrels. Time was I saw them as a common pest who invaded my.
Bird feeders at Baby se Red.
But then along came my precious four legged daughter, Momo, who taught me to appreciate squirrels and ways I never thought possible. Now Momo takes me and her mom to feed the squirrels in the park every morning, and now a day goes back and I don't lift my gaze to the skies and thank Mother Earth for our squirrel friends. Squirrels are great squirrel's.
Ahoy, Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
Hey, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Josh, and there's Chuck and Jerry is here, and this is one of the greatest episodes we'll ever do as far as I'm concerned.
Squirrels.
Oh, I really want to squirrels. I've been seeing that all day.
It's so wonderful. That is so wonderful.
It is that song isn't But you.
Know, uh yeah yeah.
If you go back and listen to BC Boys, you're.
Like, Wow, they come a long way. Though, and renouncing that stuff.
Yeah, for sure. So we're talking not about the BC Boys, surprising, and we're talking about squirrels in the morning. It's squirrels there evening, it's squirrels.
Squirrels two syllables, right.
I don't care however you want to say it the squirrel sure or Boston I guess probably they say it similarly as well. Yeah, but if you want to get fancy, you can bust out their Latin name. They're members of the rodent Order. But for their family, their squore a day, scure a day, Nope, secury day.
I look this one up, all right, Sierrade.
Like mine more?
Okay? Did you just toot on my renvation?
Yeah, even though it was correct.
Did you give me a bronx cheer?
How? How is it? Suride?
Well, let me do the person online? Sierra diye?
Okay? Is that Emma who said that?
Or at Sierra Day was another? But I think we've heard from people that Dae is die.
Okay, And that's fine if that's what it's called. I'm just gonna call them squirrels from now on.
But there's actually.
Exactly like 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 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 enough who helped us with this.
This this is a grabster.
Yeah, so Grabster 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 and Alaska that hibernate with the lowest body temperature of any mammal, that have body temperatures below freezing at times.
That's so cool.
You can go to Africa and find one of the cutest squirrels, the African pigmy squirrel, which is as small as a tiny little mouse. Where you can go to Buttan and find the giant flying squirrel of Button that with their head and body and is over two feet long with that tail, they're huge.
No, two feet long without the tail, oh, without stressing, Yes, 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 or almost three hundred, 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, right, somebody decided that a Greek term would make sense. But scurios or scourios, which roughly means something like shadow tail ed, says shady Butt. I also saw shadowtail, which is a reference to how squirrels sometimes hide in the shadow cast by their own tail.
It's pretty clever, but.
The squirrel is usually kind of The bushy tail of the squirrel is what makes a squirrel a squirrel. One of the other things that really differentiates it from other rodents is the way that it's jaw and muscle are attached to its skull. There's actually a name for it, seriomorphous zygomasoteric system. They look at you hooked on phonics works for me.
You even recorded the new pronunciation. That's right, you worked it right in there with a syria dye.
I adapted, yeah, because you should have heard it before when I was workshopping it.
That was the first take. Everybody, we're not lying.
So so those are two things that really kind of differentiate squirrels. But as we've really gotten better and better at taxonomy with the introduction of geno mapping, sure we can see, like, oh, this animal that doesn't look anything like this animal is actually really closely related. And as with just about every other animal we've studied using modern genetic taxonomy, 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 hater. Chuck, do you remember squirrels? You remember?
Oh? Yeah, 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 an animated movie where the dog would just stop and go squirrel anytime there's a squirrel. I can't remember which one was.
I don't remember.
It wasn't that long ago. But before we move on to ground squirrels, 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 went to western North America thirty five to 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, Well, we'll just tease that and say, squirrels like to get around.
Yeah, I mean, you put one tree next to another, squirrel's going to go from tree to tree. Put another tree, squirrel's going to go the next tree. And if you put trees all the way across one continent to another, they're going to migrate. 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 plenty 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 our huge, big, beautiful oak in our front yard. I'm 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.
Yeah.
I take my daughter to school this morning, and I 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. It is, But they're everywhere in Atlanta, And it hit me a while ago about how easy it is living here 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. We're 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 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. They're just so great.
Chuck.
Remember my famous squirrel attack not too long ago, and when I went outside, 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 gonna 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 first break. Okay, we're so squirrel positive that, I mean, that'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 to 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, flying, or aerial. And I propose that we start with the ground squirrel. Sure, many species of which you probably not you, but I mean you, dear listener, and may all include two I didn't realize were 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, Yeah, chipmunks. What about a groundhog?
You already said groundhog?
Did I yeah, okay, I'm swirling. I'm swirling still. And my love squirrel prairie dog. Yeah, well that's what was coming out of my mouth next.
To Patty Dog.
Yeah, prairie dog didn't know it.
What about that meerkat?
I didn't know that.
Well, that's because.
They're not but okay, prairie dogs, chipmunks, and what's the other one, marmots? Yeah, marmots and brought them in groundhogs. Those are all ground squirrels. They're squirrels friends, and that makes them pretty awesome. But one of the reasons why they you wouldn't think they're squirrels is because in a lot of those species they lack that characteristic bushy tail. Yeah, 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 need to, you know, for a brief time, if they're trying to find food or something or 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 chipmunks for just speaking for them,
are pretty solitary unless they're trying to reproduce. But I know that you've found some stuff, was it on the prairie dog that have their big families and colonies.
Yeah, I mean that's one of the main characteristics 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's bigger there, But it was a
colony of black tailed prairie dogs. And this town, Chuck, stretched one hundred miles wide, wow, by two hundred and fifty miles long, and contain four hundred million prairie dogs. My gos again, crownd squirrels all living in this kind of large community. Jeez, I mean that's it's like a Chinese megacity or something like that times ten.
Yeah, So are these the ones that tend to stay grouped with their own sex?
No, those tend to be either tree squirrels or flying squirrels. These are more the because they live in communal groups and kinship is a big deal. Ground squirrels, like prairie dogs, tend to have a really good ability to smell the scent of other ground squirrels, so they can tell like who's a blood relation who's not. They've done studies to see,
you know, like if a ground squirrel. They have a lot of really sophisticated calls too, because they're alerting others to the presence of a rattlesnake or a hawk or something. So they're really talkative and they have a lot of sophisticated different communication and they found that like a prairie dog that will stand up 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 its blood relations among all these other you know, extended family members in the town.
There's not much cuter than a squirrel up on its hot rear haunches. Yeah, 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 cute.
It's little busy hands. Goodness me. Yeah, all right, So we can move on to our tree squirrel. This is they're known as arboreal 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 dyed in the wool. Cute, little fluffy tailed sort of you know, they're called gray, but there's sort of a light brownish color generally, although the colors
do range, as we'll see. And these are the ones that you're gonna find all over Atlanta, jumping around, climbing around, leaping it podcasters in their front lawn. Yeah, they spend most of the time. I mean, you see them on the ground plenty, but they live in trees. They nest in trees called drays or drays or Drey's spelled with a year an a right.
And you probably if you've ever looked up and seen a mass of like sticks and twigs and a leafless tree in the middle of winter, you're looking at a squirrel's nest called a dre And this is where you were you were asking about them staying in like same sex groups apparently in the winter. Even though the tree squirrel does not live in a communal society like a ground squirrel does, they're still social. They still interact with one another. They play, they chase, they chase one another off.
They like mate. But when it.
Gets really cold, tree squirrels will kind of group their heat together by staying in a dre communally up to like thirty members. It's able, Yeah, it is very adorable. I want to do a little exercise here real quick, Chuck. I want you to use your imagination.
Close.
Imagine a very cold winter day. The wind's blowing, snow's being carried on the wind, and it's passing by just outside a woodpecker hole, and we're inside that woodpecker hole's dark. The light is very very faint because it's it's kind
of an overcast, snowy 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. Oh boy, isn't that amazing?
I almost fell asleep. You're real, Robert Fross, my friend, Thank you.
Thank you. I like to think Robert Redford crossed with Robert Cross.
But sure, well you know Robert Redford if you look in the mirror, but Robert Frost when you pick a.
Bent up with the touch of Robert Goolay if.
You say it surely, Oh man, that really did almost put me to sleep. 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 little resistance, it's 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 if you ever watched one do that up close, sure, so anytime I've seen that there, if you look their legs because they're turned around and it kicks kind of their elbows out a little bit, uh huh, and 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'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 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 is, and there are two or more squirrels that are they seem I don't know what they're doing. It seem like I have a beef with one another. But maybe they're just playing chase. But when they're really boogying 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. It's a part of the mating ritual.
Oh Okay, so that's embarrassing for them, right.
I don't know if that's across the board, but I saw that in at least one.
Place, all right.
I like knowing that. Here's another cool thing about squirrels. All kinds of squirrels have scent glands, and it depends on the species where that scent gland is located. It can be 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, they have their scent glands on their feet and sweat glands on the bottom of their feet. And they are a squirrel that buries their food over large.
Large areas sometimes like up to twenty five 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, 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 its 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 there was a study that found that 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 see that? Yeah, I think I'm good.
Tod was watching. I better not drop the nut in this hole. He'll come along.
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 the 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 as far as sense 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. Oh wow, chew it up and rub it on themselves to give themselves a rattlesnake scent to throw off rattlesnakes.
They camouflage 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 granted it is roadkill. But have you ever seen the pictures of the squirrel roadkill with the little G I Joe action figures? No, just look it up, I can. They aren't squirrels at some one killed. 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.
I'll have to check 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, one guy or.
Kill a squirrel to do that. But maybe just took 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. Okay with a ghost of that squirrel. Yeah, that will introduce to your attic you go.
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. 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 an adult, I realized that the cat ate the squirrel. Oh man, yeah, just to recap that
childhood trauma. That's well okay, 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. 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 one hundred and fifty feet. I saw three hundred in some cases.
Wow.
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 a skin flap that is you know the batsuit that people like you know, skydive with.
That's that is based basically one.
Hundred percent on the flying squirrel's membranes between its front legs and hind legs 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 one hundred and fifty feet in a pretty purposeful direction too.
Did you say what the name of the flap was?
No?
Do you want to?
No?
I probably screwed it.
I'm gonna go with potagium.
That's great. What do they call that? Pada gayum?
I wonder what they call that in the in the Flying Suit Bizz Extreme Flying Suit Biz. I don't know, and.
I think they call them batsuits, but that's that's a misnomer.
If you ask me those 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 oh, I know, as humans have come I think to flying it feels like agreed.
Yeah, I would have to have.
Probably a lobotomy to 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 run jump into a batsuit?
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. 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 freeway crossings.
Yeah.
I just read today there's one in LA that's opening up that's like one hundred and sixty feet wide. I can't remember the name of it. 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 for squirrels in that they found tagged like radio tagged 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.
That actually kind of leads us to a quote I ran across Chuck because if you put like I was saying, if you can kind of connect a 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. That there was an old saying that before, well not too long ago, I think 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, where did we cover that in?
Was it?
I don't remember?
I remember that Factoi. That's a great one.
So it really kind of goes to show like there used to be a lot more forests in the United States, but there were also a lot more squirrels because there's a there's a positive correlation between mass producing trees, which are chestnut, beech oak trees that produce nuts that squirrels and other forest animals eat, 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 base bursting.
Yeah, and they you know, bursting with food because 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. Yeah, they
eat roots. They have they have found little tiny eggs and little tiny birds and little tiny lizards in the guts of squirrels, so they you know, technically are omnivores, which is just to say squirrels are remarkable. That's staying alive, and they will eat your garbage. They will eat whatever they need to, 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 they're suited for nuts, or that nuts are suited for them, is because they have two sets of incisors. I believe it up and a 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 fang.
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 a 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. 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 and 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 Squirrels can learn by observing other squirrels doing something, particularly finding new ways to get food. Their adept at that.
Oh 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 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 SIPs 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 it would be an Indian palm.
Yeah.
Well, 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 in the nineteenth century, which is actually a trend, as we'll see. But I say before 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 a massive numbers of squirrels basically stampeding. Yea, they call them squirrel migrations, and they have been documented enough times that 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 used to be so many of them that every once in a while, thousands to tens of thousands to 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 or I guess historically, when that was followed by a really bad year 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. And they're opportunitists, 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 fields, they'd be swimming across rivers, and apparently, in at least one account, I saw they would be gulped up by bass in the rivers. And I can't imagine seeing anything worse than a squirrel being eaten by a fish.
That seems unnatural.
Yeah, but there were so many of them. And this is also at a time where squirrels were roundly among basically everyone living in America viewed as vermin as invaders, as things that were unwanted, but also a tasty food source too. Yeah, So anytime there was a squirrel stamp, 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, 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 gamey from what I'm told, I'm never going to 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 you know, real need, you know, small rodents would come in handy on the menu back then. But 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 Olmsted, who by the way, deserves his own podcasts, came along and really introduced the idea of these really large city parks and urban parks. 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 them in a big way to urban parks.
Yeah, and 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 the city, and people started going crazy because there weren't green spaces. So that brought the parks in, and then the idea of adding animals to the park just to kind of naturalize it even more. That squirrels played a huge role in that.
And not only you know, in Central Park, but also it started out and I believe Philadelphia and then followed by Boston, and 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 they weren't vermin anymore. Don't
you them, Please try not to hit them with a 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 got a little kid. That little kid wants to hit that squirrel with a stick so bad because kids are awful like that.
Good luck.
You can actually use squirrels feeding squirrels as a way to teach kids to have compassion, to be upstanding morally, to have charity. 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, in introducing them to boys in general, would say, would cure them of their tendency toward 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 OLYMPI In sure, there's no way. Those things are so fast. But don't try to do it, kids, definitely.
No, don't even practice that. Don't try to qualify for the Olympics. And that because you'll show up to the Olympics and'll be like, we don't have that, that's not one of our sports is what.
Do you think you says Australia.
Right.
So these days, you know, we've kind of come full circle into just sort of letting squirrels be 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 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. I guess we can talk. I mean, we found a lot of extra fun stuff.
Let's talk about.
So we were talking about how they're viewed in America. Depending on where you are in the world, depending on the squirrel 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, where they call them Americans killer squirrels. 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. They've just out competed them. It's not like they've you know, choked them or anything like that. 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 Eurasian red 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 Squirrel's website. Go to Scottish Squirrels dot org 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 you 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.
That's pretty good.
It's better than a bass eating a 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 is a good thing to have. Not cutting down trees is a great thing to do if you can avoid it. Yeah, And then having squirrel safe bird feeders. And this means not that the squirrel 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, that's a big one too. They also kind of get into they get all Macbeth or Hamlet, which one was to be or not to be?
Why you asking me?
Because they get all Hamlet or Macbeth on whether or not to feed squirrels. You go, so they're like, you could feed squirrels, but really you shouldn't. And 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 and enjoy them.
That's right enough.
If you're like you know, me and Moe 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, which is masked, unshelled nuts like walnuts, chestnuts, acorns, hazel nuts, that kind of thing.
Some seats probably, huh.
Yes, but not black safflower seeds. I saw that if you were one of those people who can't stand squirrels raiding your 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're feeding squirrels or 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 them burying it. Elsewhere. So they said, if you're going to feed them fruits and vegetables shredded, because the squirrels is going to eat it there, it's not going to 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, have a campcam at the family camp trail cam, and it's 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 nice and almost every day, well every day I have squirrels, crows, and now daily turkeys visiting. Oh neat 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. One thing you want to be careful with with peanuts too, is giving them raw peanuts because peanuts can carry an aff litoxin, 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 carcin carcina just that can actually like just kill you on the spot neurologically speaking.
So you actually want roasted peanuts but not salted or anything like that, sow 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, and.
There's going to be a lot of squirrels, and they're going to become dependent on that additional food supply, 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 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've found a couple of cool things, including why squirrels like seem to dash in front of your car when you're driving.
Right, Yeah, So 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 do 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 is 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's 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 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, 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 a 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 rearview mirror. Don't see him 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.
Yeah, it was not helpful.
And what about these black squirrels. Emily and I were 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, they seemed to be so they used to think that they were freaks of nature. I think, as one naturalist put it, like years and years ago, and somebody said, I don't know if that's true. I think these actually might have been the dominant version. They seem to be closely related to Eastern grays, if not just a type of Eastern gray, like a different breed of that species. But they were saying they used to possibly be the dominant version and they got edged out by the Eastern gray,
and so's they're there, they're just kind of infrequently. They infrequently appear, but there are parts of North America where they seem to populate more than others, like New York. You mean, I used to see them in DC, Toronto. They're all over Toronto, in Ontario in general, from what
I understand. So it seems like from what I could tell, that they think that they're they were there 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 Does that seem accurate?
Yeah? I mean, it's just genetics. It's a recessive gene that causes an ab normal pigmentation, and you will you know, you're you're only going to get more of that recessive gene. If these squirrels or any 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, Yeah,
you're just gonna see more of them. So, uh, DC is a little not inexplicable, but it makes more sense in New York because you're just gonna get more, you know, more of this recessive gene happening in a area.
So not at all my explanation.
Then, no, it'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.
Yeah, so you got anything else on squirrels?
Nothing and hug a squirrel, Embrace the squirrel.
But don't do that. Don't if you do feed them, don't don't let them.
Meet out of your hand.
Yeah, because they'll bite you. Even though they're grateful. There's still bidy. 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, mister Chuck and mister 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 weekend learning 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. We want to tell you these facts that we learned this year. Oh yes, 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 it 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 we really want to share our knowledge in case you do a short stuff thanks for reading, love Miss Finkies or Miss Fink's kindergarten class. And 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. I think it was more like that month.
February is red month. Right, Oh that's great.
Well, thank you Miss fink or Finkey's class.
Hats off to you guys.
Keep it up, and yes, we will definitely do a Three Sisters episode someday dedicated to you guys, right.
Chuck for sure.
If you want to get in touch with us, you can too via email at stuff podcast at iHeartRadio dot com.
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