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Squirrels hunting and eating meat

gizmodo.com

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Re: Squirrels hunting and eating meat

#21

Post by tarboreus »

manquer wrote: post #8
thaumasiotes wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apparently cows are happy to eat nestlings if they happen to find a bird's nest while they're grazing. If you're an animal, there's no food better than meat.

That would only be true if you have the stomach biome to digest and extract the nutrients. What is the point of eating something that is hard to process and digest and has no nutritional value for you For herbivores, meat is objectively bad food .

It's plants you need a fancy setup for. Also, the microbiome thing, surprisingly, isn't universal, a lot of animals have no stomach microbiome to speak of.

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2020/04/animals-...

Re: Squirrels hunting and eating meat

#23

Post by lostlogin »

WorkerBee28474 wrote: post #12
manquer wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would only be true if you have the stomach biome to digest and extract the nutrients. What is the point of eating something that is hard to process and digest and has no nutritional value for you For herbivores, meat is objectively bad food .

You're wrong. Cows will eat meat, horses will eat meat, pigs will eat meat, chickens will eat meat, deer will eat meat. If they can get it in their mouth, they will eat it.

Mad cow disease didn’t just happen. Though the idea that cows would preferentially eat brain and spinal cord tissue doesn’t seem likely.

Re: Squirrels hunting and eating meat

#24

Post by lostlogin »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #15
lacy_tinpot wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should try raising cows on a carnivore diet.

The cows would be happy, but that would be significantly more expensive than feeding them plants. Note that mad cow disease came from feeding cows to cows. Giving them meat isn't exactly an innovation.

> Giving them meat isn't exactly an innovation.

True, but the results were.

Re: Squirrels hunting and eating meat

#25

Post by sandworm101 »

c22 wrote: post #5

Probably about 20 years ago, near Boston, I remember noticing a reddish-brown squirrel sitting in a tree gnawing on a fried chicken leg and found the sight mildly absurd.

Pizza rat is going to pizza. The most successful animals are generally those that will take calories from anywhere they can, with things like pandas and koalas at the other end of the spectrum.

Re: Squirrels hunting and eating meat

#26

Post by echelon »

Loughla wrote: post #18

At my parents house, the squirrels often kill and eat bluejays. I'm the winter they hide the wings in snow drifts. When the spring thaw comes there will be dozens of disembodied bird wings scattered around the yard. I thought it was common knowledge that squirrels are opportunistic. They're rodents. They eat whatever they can get.

I've always known squirrels to eat birds. The fact that scientists are new to this fact is what is surprising.

It might just be that the headline is bad and the literature is simply describing vole predation.

Anecdata:

https://www.reddit.com/r/zoology/comments/2bypwd/i_saw_a_gra...

https://www.reddit.com/r/birding/comments/1d1ddnv/birdhouses...

https://www.reddit.com/r/WTF/comments/14715zj/squirrel_eatin... (graphic video)

https://www.reddit.com/r/WTF/comments/dsws02/a_squirrel_eati... (different graphic video)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9F-lnJtkDA (graphic video eating a mouse)

etc.

The really graphic stuff you tend to see when you look for it is the raptors eating the squirrels. Bird eats squirrel eats bird. The circle of life.

Re: Squirrels hunting and eating meat

#27

Post by heavyset_go »

manquer wrote: post #8
thaumasiotes wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apparently cows are happy to eat nestlings if they happen to find a bird's nest while they're grazing. If you're an animal, there's no food better than meat.

That would only be true if you have the stomach biome to digest and extract the nutrients. What is the point of eating something that is hard to process and digest and has no nutritional value for you For herbivores, meat is objectively bad food .

> For herbivores, meat is objectively bad food .

We feed cattle the leftovers from processing meat. It's how we got mad cow disease.

Re: Squirrels hunting and eating meat

#28

Post by HankB99 »

PittleyDunkin wrote: post #20
manquer wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would only be true if you have the stomach biome to digest and extract the nutrients. What is the point of eating something that is hard to process and digest and has no nutritional value for you For herbivores, meat is objectively bad food .

I don't know but I once watched a deer eat a bird so they clearly have some incentive

I recall a study that identified deer as a major predator of bird nests. I don't recall if it was eggs or young that they went after.

I can't find a reference to the study at the moment.

Re: Squirrels hunting and eating meat

#29

Post by salynchnew »

echelon wrote: post #26
Loughla wrote: post #18

At my parents house, the squirrels often kill and eat bluejays. I'm the winter they hide the wings in snow drifts. When the spring thaw comes there will be dozens of disembodied bird wings scattered around the yard. I thought it was common knowledge that squirrels are opportunistic. They're rodents. They eat whatever they can get.

I've always known squirrels to eat birds. The fact that scientists are new to this fact is what is surprising. It might just be that the headline is bad and the literature is simply describing vole predation. Anecdata: https://www.reddit.com/r/zoology/comments/2bypwd/i_saw_a_gra... https://www.reddit.com/r/birding/comments/1d1ddnv/birdhouses... https://www.reddit.com/r/WTF/comments/14715zj/squirrel_eatin... (graphic…

> It might just be that the headline is bad and the literature is simply describing vole predation.

Correct!

From the article:

> Any supplementation of their vegetarian diet was historically believed to primarily occur through eating insects or, on occasion, nest predation of eggs or young hatchlings (Bradley and Marzluff 2003).

> Roughly 30 years ago, Callahan (1993) radically altered our perception of squirrels by characterizing as many as 30 species of the family Sciuridae as facultative predators of small vertebrates capable of killing and consuming adult fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals (Table S1).

The study is itself a detailed breakdown of changes in foraging behavior linkedin to "food pulses" (which I guess means the times when various food sources are available, a la acorns in the fall and sprouts in the spring).

Re: Squirrels hunting and eating meat

#30

Post by TheBigSalad »

echelon wrote: post #26
Loughla wrote: post #18

At my parents house, the squirrels often kill and eat bluejays. I'm the winter they hide the wings in snow drifts. When the spring thaw comes there will be dozens of disembodied bird wings scattered around the yard. I thought it was common knowledge that squirrels are opportunistic. They're rodents. They eat whatever they can get.

I've always known squirrels to eat birds. The fact that scientists are new to this fact is what is surprising. It might just be that the headline is bad and the literature is simply describing vole predation. Anecdata: https://www.reddit.com/r/zoology/comments/2bypwd/i_saw_a_gra... https://www.reddit.com/r/birding/comments/1d1ddnv/birdhouses... https://www.reddit.com/r/WTF/comments/14715zj/squirrel_eatin... (graphic…

Maybe the scientists should have done a quick google before declaring nobody has seen this behavior before.
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