Don’t forget that squirrel are wildlife, too (please don’t bother pointing out that they are a). pests, b). displacing red squirrels, or c). can be enjoyed as a meal).
From reader Susan:
Breakfast of champions? Squirrel enjoying the last of the freeze dried crab apples outside our front window.
What a darling trapeze – like acrobat !
Lovely snap, Mz Susan.
Blue
Fabulous!
Human beings are pests, displacing red squirrels, and can be enjoyed as a meal.
Aside from hurting the poor squirrels,you wouldn’t want to get mad-squirrel disease and go all squirrely…
!
Do we taste like chicken?
Pork, apparently. But as I have been vegetarian for a long time, I can’t even remember what pork tastes like.
People
Soylent Green
Wrong (ref: “The Reluctant Cannibal”, ‘Eating people is wrong’, ‘He used to be a regular anthropopagi’)
Meat (same ref – it’s hilarious – ‘If the Ju-Ju had meant us not to eat people / He wouldn’t of made us of meat’)
Chicken (if the pork and the chicken are sufficiently badly cooked)
Tofu (if the pork and the tofu are sufficiently badly cooked)
I’m sure other answers are available.
Darling shot, Susan!
One of the reasons I enjoy having squirrels around is just to witness such acrobatics.
“displacing red squirrels”
It’s the gray squirrels that do that — this looks to be a fox squirrel.
But, leaping red squirrels are so cute, aren’t they? Fox squirrels are OK too, of course. And I very much like gray squirrels too — in their place.
Anyone have photos of the Kaibab squirrel? Those may be the most dramatic of the lot.
It depends where you are & your views on invasive species. Too late in most places – look at mosquitoes in Hawaii for example – introduced by humans & wiped out native birds with avian malaria – or zebra mussels & lampreys in the Great lakes & so on – the list is long. Eventually a new ecosystem will emerge with new species mixes, but it will take a long time & mean a lot of extinctions. Some argue we should accept that.
Not sure we have much choice in the matter. With our huge population and constant travel, opportunistic species will continue to spread; as with the economy, the ecosphere is globalizing.
It’s very sad and I salute those who try to preserve threatened native species, but I’m quite pessimistic overall.