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It turns out that pulling a wagon laden with cat litter buckets and speakers around a small college town in the dead of winter can invite questions from strangers. When Oberlin College undergraduate Abby Parker explains to curious residents that she’s doing research on squirrels, she says, the response is often, “Squirrels? Plenty of those around here!”
Parker’s goal is to find out whether Eastern gray squirrels (Sciurus carolinensis) respond differently to the chatter of familiar North American birds than to unfamiliar species. Finding the answer will help identify what types of information the animals glean from other species’ utterances.
These squirrels are much more aware of their surroundings than I think most people would have given them credit for.
When Parker or one of the other students involved in the study finds a squirrel, they set up the two speakers 4 meters apart atop overturned ...
