Finding a reason to like squirrels Election season can be tough on feeding and watching birds. Squirrels friendships, neighbors and our mental dominate a feeder, eat an expensive health. amount of seeds that we purchased for To distract myself, I rearranged my the birds, and keep the birds away. bird feeders for prime visibility from To add injury to insult, squirrels are my home office. Chickadees immedinest predators, and eat baby birds. I ately swooped in, while nuthatches can usually be philosophical about puttered around, squeakhow the food chain plays ing. They are both picky out in nature, but this one eaters, and tend to weigh rubs me the wrong way. each seed in their beaks beWhat is there to like fore tossing it curtly to the about squirrels? side, or flying off to peck at CONNECTIONS Well, I admit that they it from a perch. can be cute. Their antics Fat gray squirrels snuffled are entertaining. And like around under the feeder, all living things, they are picking up the leavings. an important part of their Then, while deep in ecosystem. an email, a knock on the My favorite role for window jerked my attention up. One squirrels, of course, is that they are of those dastardly gray squirrels had food for minks, foxes, bobcats, wolves, made an impressive vertical leap and coyotes, lynx, fishers, and red-tailed was hanging from a wildly swinging hawks – all animals I like more. But feeder. I felt my blood pressure rise. perhaps this isn’t a productive line of To calm down, I went back to doom thinking. scrolling through the news. Among Before they become someone’s the vitriol and uncertainty, a meme lunch, squirrels have positive impacts popped up about understanding and on another favorite of mine: oak trees. empathy for our neighbors who didn’t That squirrels eat acorns is cliché, but vote with us. HOW they eat them is more nuanced. As I stared off into the distance For example, squirrels treat the contemplating this, an adorable gray acorns of white oaks and red oaks difnose poked up above the bottom of the ferently. window. Squirrels eat white oak acorns on the “Damn squirrels,” I thought. And spot. Pick up a red oak acorn, and the then realized, maybe they are the squirrel will hide it away for later. neighbor I should start with. These habits are a result of two big If you’re one who already admires differences between the oaks. squirrels, then you might wonder what First, white oak acorns contain fewer I have against them. tannins, which are acids that interfere Well, there are objective reasons, with the digestion of proteins. That like the fact that they chew destrucmakes the acorns more nutritious for a tively on doorframes and deck railings. squirrel. They’re also causing the demise of naSecond, white oak acorns are protive squirrels in several European coun- grammed to germinate in the fall. If tries where they’ve been introduced, a squirrel were to cache it in a hole but let’s not borrow trouble. somewhere, the acorn would sprout, Then there are the subjective reasons and the baby tree would use up the I grumble at squirrels. energy stored within. My family has always enjoyed The highly acidic acorns of red oaks,
A dastardly gray squirrel eats all the bird seed from the author’s feeder. Photo by Emily Stone.
NATURAL EMILY
STONE
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on the other hand, need at least 4-8 weeks of cold stratification before they will germinate. In the wild, that means they wait until spring. A squirrel has the entire winter to get around to eating them. Now, it’s a common story that new oak trees grow from acorns that squirrels hid and forgot about, or died before they could retrieve. Sometimes, though, a squirrel will actually nip out the embryo of an acorn before they cache it, which prevents it from ever germinating. In contrast, sometimes a squirrel will eat more than half of an acorn – starting from the end with the cap where there are fewer tannins – and the seed will still be able to grow. One study actually found that partially eaten acorns had a better germination rate than intact acorns. Plus, squirrels can identify which acorns are infested with weevil larvae. Those are eaten, and the viable, uninfested acorns are cached. Squirrels can plant their trees and eat them too. And finally, one of the most fascinating things about squirrels’ relationship with acorns is how it impacts their interactions with other squirrels. Gray squirrels are scatter hoarders, which means they hide food all over the place, in up to several thousand locations each season. Experiments suggest that they retrieve their own caches using a phenomenal spatial memory, and not their sense of smell. Smell is helpful for finding and eating someone else’s cache, though. Stealing food is common among squirrels, which is why they are extremely sneaky while making caches.
If prying eyes are nearby, the squirrel will pretend to dig a hole, put in the acorn, and cover it up, all while hiding the food in their mouth. Then they’ll scurry to a new location – out of view of their rival – and actually cache the nut there. This may seem like an obvious trick to us, but it points to a type of intelligence that we don’t often afford to non-human mammals. It’s called: Theory of Mind. According to Wikipedia, “Theory of Mind is the understanding that others have beliefs, desires, intentions, and perspectives that are different from one’s own. Possessing a functional theory of mind is considered crucial for success in everyday human social interactions…” Wow. My little experiment in empathy worked. I suddenly have a lot more respect for the dastardly gray squirrel currently hanging acrobatically from my feeder and gobbling up all of the seeds. Emily’s award-winning second book, Natural Connections: Dreaming of an Elfin Skimmer, is now available to purchase at cablemuseum.org/books. Or order it from our friends at redberybooks.com to receive free shipping! For more than 50 years, the Cable Natural History Museum has served to connect you to the Northwoods. The Museum is now open with its Mysteries of the Night exhibit. Connect with us on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and cablemuseum.org to keep track of our latest adventures in learning.
42 November 12, 2020 DuluthReader.com
