Nuts for Nuts

Have you ever laid eyes on a dead squirrel that wasn’t flattened by a car, mauled by a cat, or chard from electrocution? I haven’t. Presumably squirrels can die from old age, yet I have never seen a dead one without smoke coming off its carcass or bodily fluids oozing from its wounds? Do they prefer the comfort of a hole in a tree to take their last little breaths? And though I’m sure family and friends will visit to mourn and sit vigil, at some point those who shared the den have to get rid of the rotting corpse.

This might seem like a ridiculous notion, however let me drop this little nutly nugget on you. As a squirrel gathers nuts in preparation for the winter frost and subsequent hibernation, do you think he is aware of the last nut that he gathers for the day? Like, “let me make one more run for some nuts and then head back to grab some shut-eye.” Surely they don’t return to their crib with full intensions of going back out to get more nuts only to collapse and wake up the next morning having no idea how they got there. I wouldn’t say they keep a detailed daily planner, but at some point an instinctual thought process can lead to premeditated behaviors. They may be more like us (humans) than we may like to admit.