Admit It, Squirrels Are Just Tree Rats
theatlantic.com
theatlantic.com
"ABC" and "Abc" are the same, if we ignore case, and so it goes.
You can't fix it with absolute equivalence, because absolute equivalence requires that some entity A is only equal to that same entity A, and no other entity; that is then inapplicable if we want to use equivalences for division into classes that have more than one member.
I often wonder how anyone could dispute out origin when you look at a chimpanzee then look at a human. The similarities are incredibly striking.
On the other hand... squirrels can also carry disease. Around here it is not unknown for them to carry bubonic plague.
Here's a Douglas squirrel adding to a stash she had in my garage [1]. I've seen her adding to that particular stash at least a dozen times. Here's another one I've seen her add dozens of peanuts to [2].
I went to get a towel from a box of shop towels once and found a dozen peanuts. She went to add another one to that stash, but I was standing right next to it which caught her by surprise [3], so she instead added it to a little pile she kept on a nearby windowsill.
[1] https://www.amazon.com/photos/shared/LBXYRIUDT-C0OvwPtaqdgA....
[2] https://www.amazon.com/photos/shared/lD9SWB1cQ4ycTT6CC7ZrgA....
[3] https://www.amazon.com/photos/shared/jNo-VW4vQVaMUsBQmhyn0w....
I flashed lights, waved, & honked enough for the driver to pull over. I tell him what I saw coming out from under his car and there was a distinct burning smell we could both smell even just being parked next to him. He pops the hood to see if there's a fire and sees a bit of smoke and I would guess about three hundred or more pine cones, chestnuts, and acorns rammed into every available space under his hood.
We both had a good laugh, and I wished him luck and went on my way.
I'm an animal lover so it weighed on my conscience for a while, but I think there probably is a difference between the two. I was happy to feed the squirrels because I knew they wouldn't get into the house or damage my property. On the other hand a rat investigation can be a nightmare. Rats are cool creatures, but there's a reason people don't like them.
Infestation?
Rat nests are better protected against predators because they are underground.
Both will feed off of accessible food. Do not spill food and keep it in sturdy containers to avoid infestation.
The Atlantic is great, but it is in no league with The New Yorker. I wouldn't have called it "dumbed down" but it's still not as sharp and that is ok. The world appreciates both.
The New Yorker has 'better' writing, but I can't stand it.
I completely and categorically disagree. The New Yorker has derailed on many fronts. It has become an ideological hell hole. If you have access to a public library, you can browse pre-2000's New Yorker on archive.org which was a totally different publication all together.
Obviously they are just as hungry as rats for your clicks onto their ads so they can continue to write up more nonsense like this article. Perhaps there's not enough rats subscribing to the Atlantic today?
So it doesn't surprise me to see the comments to this article here and that Atlantic is now turning their attention to doing hit-pieces on squirrels? Oh dear.
It really is garbage in, garbage out, for all the rats to read it and give them ad money if you are not paying. No wonder that article is free; and many others.
They are known to spy on each other and to steal each other's "investments." (Also, if one notices that another is watching, it will pretend like it's hiding the food here and then take it someplace else.)
They've dug holes in my lawn, killed a sapling by digging into its pot. And they are so tame you have to chase them off from close quarters.
The other thing I've done is set out a small water bowl and another bowl with some pumpkin seeds for them. Given the presence of my homemade mace, they usually choose to just forage in the 'safe' seeds and water and leave my plants alone.
But if they ever lose that distaste, the next option will be nuclear.
Yes, they have many similarities. Both are rodents.
I suspect some of the fear of rats is that they generally give off the vibe of "I'll bite you if you get close" vs. the skittishness of squirrels who will scurry off up a tree if you even try to approach.
That's 99% of it.
We can talk about behaviour, or aggression, or disease, but i think even if rats acted like squirrels in every way, but still didn't have the bushy tail, we'd prefer squirrels.
Rats indeed.
On the other hand, survival youtubers discuss how they are delicious and don't taste like rat at all.
The biggest annoyance are racoons here, still loving them.. rats, especially fat ones, ugh.. but they also just want to survive :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqo_GbzCjmg#squirrelmelts https://www.google.com/search?q=huntress+squirrel+melts
We seem to be the minority though. I know multiple people in real life who have an absurdly irrational reaction to rats. They react to merely seeing a rat or mouse scurrying around the way you might if you suddenly felt a tarantula crawling up your neck. Interestingly my wife is one of them, and my daughter once thought mice and rats were cute (I agree!) until she saw mom freak out, and now she's just as jumpy. Makes me wonder if this response is in-built or learned behavior.
I had a squirrel fall down the fireplace chimney and roam the house while we were on vacation. My friend checking on the house discovered her after she'd been trapped inside for a couple of days. Squirrels poop everywhere they go, so I could tell everywhere she went. She explored the whole house, but spent the most time looking out the ground floor windows. The fireplace ashes on her hands revealed things she touched. There were black marks all over the window cranks, but few marks on the window sashes. It looked like she had tried to operate the window cranks. I appeared she understood that if she could move them the right way, she could open a window and get out, but she had been unable to move them. She found a bit of peanut butter to eat, and she shredded our curtains. Apart from that she did very little damage and the mess was limited. The poops are pretty dry, and she only peed in a couple of specific locations, not everywhere. I did a cleanup before my wife returned home, and as I cleaned up, the things I observed caused me to develop a lot of empathy for the trapped and frustrated creature, who didn't want to be there. As for the mouse, that was an experience I doubt most of you would believe.
Edit: Relevant - http://toddmitchellbooks.com/twelve-things-about-squirrels-t...
> Squirrels in North America used to migrate in massive numbers, following cycles of bountiful acorn harvests. When settlers first arrived in this country, they reported squirrels being so thick in the trees above during a migration that they nearly blocked out the sun. The best part — squirrels could do most of the journey from the East coast to Indiana without touching the ground.
> But as settlers started to clear the old growth oak forests, the great squirrel migrations became fragmented. Where squirrels had to cross fields, they were killed by coyotes, foxes, and other predators, including people who reported killing hundreds of squirrels (and getting three pennies a pelt). The last great squirrel migration was in 1968 in Wisconsin, when hundreds of thousands of squirrels were seen migrating (and dying on the highway and in lakes). One fisherman reported a wave of squirrels swimming toward his boat and nearly sinking it as they ran over him. Since then, this mass migration behavior has gone extinct.*
I wonder if the right wildlife corridors were setup would the migration patterns resume? Or is this part of squirrel culture and once eradicated is gone?
Invariably in the center of the circle is a tree stump of a GIANT old-growth redwood that existed before the forest was clear-cut.
But people keep eating them in this multiverse.
At least they are not eating spiders like in the previous one.
> The scientific name of the American red squirrel, Tamiasciurus hudsonicus, translates to “the steward who sits in the shadow of his tail.”
here's my sketch framework
1. Pets - vassalized companions who accept human hegemony
2. Prey - harmless food, too dumb to realise what we have in store for them
3. Predators - resistant to human hegemony, dangerous competitors which need to be contained
4. Pests - resistant to human hegemony, not direct competitors but more invidiously have figured out a way to uniquely exploit the system we have set up exclusively for human benefit. To be exterminated
I also haven't yet had a squirrel carry dog poop onto my deck, thinking its a great way to build a nest under the deck.
I haven't yet had to clean squirrel poop while thinking about how much fun it would be to catch the hantavirus while the healthcare system is overloaded with covid.
If a squirrel decides to partake in these activities, I will also start treating them like rats.
I don't understand it. I think mice and rats are cute :\
The data which fit that theory better came from London and some city in Scotland (Glasgow? I'm not sure.) Basically there were houses which shared gardens (where rats would live) but the disease didn't spread between the two houses. Likewise in London there was a poor district that got hit hard, and a rich district next door that saw very few infections. Due to the way the sewers were laid out, the rat population was the same between the two. But the lice wouldn't have transferred without close contact, which of course rarely happened between rich and poor.
The more damning evidence was out of Scotland where the doctor making a very detailed study showed that the disease only transferred between people who shared close living quarters. And in particular, during a lockdown with all-day curfew it didn't transmit at all. But where beds were reused, the new inhabitants got sick.
But the genetic evidence sealed the deal. I'll have to look up that French study later.
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1715640115
And a news article presenting an interesting overview about various research on the causative agent for Black Death, including genetic studies:
https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna44489863
I couldn't find any genetic studies showing that lice was the vector for spread, so maybe I was misremembering or conflating the two points.
Squirrels are obviously very different from, and much smarter than rats. Their appearance and grooming are a reflection of this deeper fact, not simply a gimmick or an accident.
What a silly article.
Maybe, it is wrong tests, there are some discussion in this field how we (humans) should asset animal intelligence.
But squirrels do, too, especially in the warm months. And never eat the brains!
木鼠 (ki-nezumi) squirrel
木 tree 鼠 rat