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rule #1: be kind
Reminds me of the thing where Australians were eating a common species of fish that was previously unknown to science.
That happens a lot. Not specifically just eating, but a society, or any group of people, who often cross paths with some species that they don't think much about and it just happens to be unknown to science.
Red squirrels are the top predator of infant rabbits, and this has been known a long time
And this is why there are so few talking rabbits!
An article from last year:
https://www.ucdavis.edu/climate/news/carnivorous-feeding-squirrels-documented-california
This had been known since the 50's in urban areas.
If you give a mammal little choice and they are desperate, they will eat anything. Same with predator fowl like Hawks and Pelicans. This is all well documented. Rabbits are also known to eat meat if necessary.
The numbers suggest it’s not an act of desperation. Deer eat small birds. Pika eat meat. Apparently squirrels too.
I’ve read, many years ago, how the common grey squirrel ( which is ubiquitous in the eastern USA) will hunt mice and eat only their brains, presumably for missing nutrients
I live in a port city crawling with rats and mice. They are so many that it's common to see freshly dead rodents on the bike trail after they were hit by e bikes.
What's crazy is how quickly they get scavenged by crows and squirrels. They dissappear almost immediately.
Cervids will gnaw on bones they find, I don't know why but that creeps me out, like a lot.
Edit: accidentally put corvid. Also, I've seen my neighbors Corvette gnawing on a raccoon corpse. It growled at me when I approached.
There are numerous videos on YouTube of deer eating songbirds.
Squirrel 1: Hey have you ever noticed we have really sharp teeth?
Squirrel 2: Sure have, and our claws too.
Squirrel 1: Know what I'm thinking?
Squirrel 2: Yes. Yes I do.
“This was shocking,” Jennifer E. Smith, a biologist at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire and the study’s lead author, said in a press release. “Squirrels are one of the most familiar animals to people. Yet here’s this never-before-encountered behavior that sheds light on how much we still have to learn.”
What?
Squirrels eat mice all the fucking time...
They compete for the same food source, but they're drastically different sizes, it's like if a silverback fought a chimpanzee. And after the fight the squirrel doesn't waste the free meal.
Yeah, the biologist is sort of showing their ignorance for the free 15-minutes of fame to get into an article I suppose.
Grew up in Appalachia and this was common knowledge I thought. Everyone kinda knew that squirrels would sometimes eat meat, although there were guesses like opportunity or sickness as to why they did it.
I'm assuming it's a bunk article. No way this was just flying under the radar, unless the hunting part is new. Not sure I remember that being part of it.
Where I grew up, it wasn’t uncommon to see squirrels eating roadkill. Sometimes that roadkill was other squirrels.
Is it cannibalism if you eat your brother BUT he’s already dead and you didn’t kill him?
When it's not a matter of survival then we judge. I think most squirrels are pretty hard up for protein and they get it wherever they can.
Jeff Dahmer could have just bought a sandwich.
And baby birds. Nonsense article.
Was G.O.B. using squirrels in his latest act?
Illusion, Michael!