[HN Gopher] Squirrel stores thousands of nuts inside man's parke...
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Squirrel stores thousands of nuts inside man's parked truck
Author : ohjeez
Score : 67 points
Date : 2021-09-28 22:03 UTC (56 minutes ago)
(HTM) web link (local12.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (local12.com)
| jasonhansel wrote:
| I've always been curious as to why squirrels have never been
| domesticated and bred to serve as pets. A wide variety of other
| rodents (mice, rats, hamsters) are already available as pets,
| having been domesticated over many generations, and it isn't
| obvious why no one has ever tried this with squirrels.
|
| Some quick research shows that a big part of the problem is diet:
| squirrels require a surprisingly complex and varied diet that is
| hard for pet owners to replicate. Getting them enough physical
| activity is also an issue.
|
| (Of course, one might suspect that it would be cruel to keep
| squirrels in such unnatural conditions, but the same could be
| said of most pets.)
|
| [edit: Apparently keeping _wild_ , undomesticated squirrels as
| pets was popular at one point
| (https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/pet-squirrel-craze ). That
| article doesn't say why the trend died out, other than...all of
| the obvious reasons.]
| lapetitejort wrote:
| > And to think this just happened over a few days the truck was
| parked.
|
| Suddenly the viral pictures of communication dishes packed to the
| brim with nuts becomes so much more believable.
| b0tzzzzzzman wrote:
| This is nuts I tell you.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| You know how you know this is a nice neighborhood? Because the
| squirrel lived long enough to cause such problems (also because
| this made the news).
| songzme wrote:
| Does anyone know what would happen to the squirrel if he/she
| realizes their entire year's of investment is gone? Does it have
| feelings to feel angry / sadness?
|
| Would the Squirrel likely starve (or if it was a breadwinner
| would the whole family starve), or would another squirrel help it
| out?
|
| If anyone has interesting resources to learn about squirrels that
| could help me investigate more please share.
| BlasDeLezo wrote:
| Yes. They do that.
| tomcam wrote:
| In tangentially related news, I have a huge, 250+ year-old black
| walnut tree here in Seattle. It bears one walnut a year, and this
| time a local chipmunk got it before I could. He then carried it
| up next to my second story deck and tormented me with it while I
| watched helplessly a roof away.
| Arrath wrote:
| Similarly, a pack rat once stripped all of the wire insulation
| foreword of the firewall and used it to built a nest in the
| engine bay of my dad's truck. Rather rude surprise to find when
| opening the hood to figure out why it wouldn't turn over.
| lightlyused wrote:
| I had squirrels put black walnuts inside my engine, including the
| space in the hood so that they rolled out when I opened it to see
| the engine covered in nut pieces. I think they were responsible
| for the wiring issues I had with that car. Also found several
| boxes filled with black walnuts in my garage. I hate red
| squirrels.
| tyingq wrote:
| Yes, it's common for squirrels to eat the wiring harness. More
| expensive these days since cars are so full of tightly packed
| wires in hard-to-get-to places.
| asdff wrote:
| It's a big problem now that manufacturers use soy insulation
| for wires, which I guess is tasty if you are a rodent.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| If you can figure out how, you can use it against them. Create an
| inviting place for a squirrel to store nuts. Let the squirrel
| harvest the nuts for you. Then collect them from the squirrel's
| stash. It's easier than gathering them off of the ground yourself
| every day.
| Stampo00 wrote:
| I don't know how this got to #2 on HN of all places. But it makes
| me happy that it did.
| lapetitejort wrote:
| A friendly reminder about the massive, yet commonplace, scale
| of nature that often goes unnoticed, until it inexplicably
| ruins someone's day.
| entangledqubit wrote:
| Maybe they need to wrap their truck in a tarp. :-)
| https://www.nps.gov/seki/planyourvisit/marmots.htm
| latchkey wrote:
| "Wrapping vehicle in chicken wire is no longer advised."
| lapetitejort wrote:
| Animals are too smart. Designs for bear boxes used to carry
| food for backcountry camping have to be regularly tested as
| given enough exposure, bears will figure out how to open them
| and eat all the tasty granola bars inside.
| pvaldes wrote:
| Squirrel can't stop and will not stop. Needs the vault to survive
| in winter. The man could consider to put a big squirrel box near
| on a tree from the garden and put all the nuts inside. That would
| made a nice Christmas history.
|
| Is amazing how many nuts the squirrel has harvested.
| sushisource wrote:
| Sort of hilariously overkill. Was the little guy really gonna
| chow down on _thousands_ of nuts each of which is probably a
| days meal for him?
| cryptonector wrote:
| Not just winter.
|
| Oaks produce huge numbers of acorns about one season every 7
| years. My yard had thousands and thousands a few years ago, for
| example, but very few since. Oaks seem to do this to overwhelm
| squirrels and ensure that a few acorns manage to germinate.
| Squirrels that can save acorns for years will do much better
| than squirrels that can only save enough for each winter.
| ravenstine wrote:
| Squirrels are really interesting critters. I have a funny memory
| of my then-girlfriend's brother and his wife showing us home
| video of their trip to America and her family was totally
| fascinated with the 20 minutes of squirrel footage. At first I
| didn't understand why anyone, even those in New Zealand (where
| there are no squirrels), would see squirrels with the same awe
| one would show on a trip to a zoo, but I thought about it more
| and realized how weird they are.
|
| For one, they seem to _love_ roughhousing. Everyone has seen
| videos of squirrels being flung off of bird feeders by anti-
| squirrel devices, yet they love to come back for more. They 'll
| go through great lengths just to get a single peanut, they're
| really daring too, but they're not stupid. My parents for a while
| constructed a squirrel obstacle course in their backyard and at
| first the squirrels are skeptical; they'll investigate, back off,
| come back and get a little closer, back off again until they get
| comfortable and then they figure it out. There's an unused dog-
| door at my parents' house and I suggested they extend part of
| their squirrel maze into their house through it. It was such a
| good idea they actually did it, and the squirrels did indeed come
| all the way into the house! They must have reasoned at some level
| that because those maze structures led to peanuts in the past
| that there could be a peanut inside the house where the maze
| lead. Of course this also lead birds like scrub jays observing
| the squirrels and entering the house as well!
|
| For creatures that are relatively vulnerable to predators, they
| will relax out in the open in really cartoonish ways. It's
| humorous when they lie on the edge of a fence with their limbs
| dangling over both sides.
|
| Periodically, my parents have to trim the pods off their palm
| trees which are quite tall now. Many of those peanuts the
| squirrels won from the obstacle course ended up at the top of
| those palms. It almost seems excessive given the amount of energy
| they seem to expend getting that food.
| chmod775 wrote:
| > and her family was totally fascinated with the 20 minutes of
| squirrel footage
|
| What place did they come from that didn't have squirrels? I
| thought they're native to pretty much any place that isn't
| Australia or the poles.
| ravenstine wrote:
| New Zealand.
| Lamad123 wrote:
| Squirrels have been prepping before preppers were a thing!
| bloat wrote:
| I had a box of bird seed on a shelf in my garage, next to a box
| of nails. One day I go in, and see that all the nails are in a
| layer in the bird seed box, covering up the seed. I can only
| assume a squirrel did this.
| mosfets wrote:
| Oh no, who caught me?!!
| adamredwoods wrote:
| Last winter, we had a rat create a nest in our car. We would
| drive around during the day, so it would take advantage of the
| heat from the engine. We tried clearing the nest out night after
| night, but it kept building it in different areas near the
| engine. We even tried mint extract to keep it away, but that only
| worked for short periods of time and it would still come back.
| Traps were useless, even with peanut butter.
|
| Luckily, one day after a fresh snowfall, we noticed a trail of
| rat footprints, and then at the end of the trail, a dead, bloody
| rat. From the tracks we saw, it seems a feathered predator saw
| the rat and took care of problem.
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(page generated 2021-09-28 23:00 UTC)