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Western Gray Squirrel Videos
Experiment to find the optimum tube size
Hannah Edwards is working on an experiment to compare different lengths and widths of sampling tubes. We suspect that longer tubes may hamper access to the bait, stimulating squirrels to gnaw the tubes. Initial results from several experimental set-ups seem to bear this out, but they haven't answered the converse question, which is that if long tubes don't perform as well, do shorter tubes perform better?
In this experiment, we also set up a remote camera at one of the experimental tube stations. What we got was nothing short of amazing.
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Western gray squirrel takes the outside nuts, explores tubes, and goes into a tube to get a nut. A composite of several video segments. Taken Aug 11, 2011 in the Chewuch Watershed. |
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In this video the nutes are gone but the squirrel returns and searches for more nuts. Taken Aug 11, 2011 in the Chewuch Watershed. |
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In this video the western gray squirrel tries to get the nut from a 9" tube and then retrieves a walnut from the 15" tube. Then it sits outside the tube and eats the nut. Taken Aug 12, 2011 in the Chewuch Watershed. |
More information about the western gray squirrel project is available here:
- Western gray squirrel background information
- Forms for volunteer sampling
- Western gray squirrel volunteer information
This is a partnership project with Washington Dept of Fish and Wildlife.
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