Today I shot a Starling that was raiding our bird feeder. Later I looked out and found a squirrel eating it. I had no idea squirrels were meat eaters too. Did a bing search and found it is common. The squirrel comes to the feeder every day to eat the seed on the ground, which I don't mind since I would like the see the seed on the ground cleaned up. He can't get to the feeders on a count of how they are hung. Today he found a little extra protein.
Nice pic! I first saw squirrels eating meat a few years ago when we had the 17 year cicadas hatching. A couple of greys were in the parking lot at work picking up and eating the ones that were on their last legs and couldn't fly.
They would munch down for a minute or so, then run and get another.
I guess when the belly is growling, many things look a bit tastier.
Squirrels, rabbits and even deer will eat something we think is not on their menu. If they’re deficient in certain minerals then eating a starling cranium and brain might be the perfect multivitamin. 😉
Remember seeing a squirrel raiding a garbage can and gnawing on a KFC drumstick.
Local city park had a zoo with some whitetail deer in it. Same pen kept peacocks. In the spring, the peacocks hatched some chicks and a couple of the chicks got their head nipped off by the deer, so they had to separate them.
Fella I know who is a professor of Biology says all vegetarian animals would be carnivores, if they had the ability.
Think about it. Most will eat the afterbirth from having a baby. Lotsa protein and nutrients.
Squirrels, rabbits and even deer will eat something we think is not on their menu. If they’re deficient in certain minerals then eating a starling cranium and brain might be the perfect multivitamin. 😉
Makes since, just never thought about it. It surprised me when I saw it.
I've trapped a lot of nuisance squirrels, and the other squirrels will eat on the trapped squirrel a lot of times. It'll look like it was run over with a lawn mower
When we shoot them up in Oregon, It's not uncommon to scan back through the scope and see another squirrel chowing down on another one that had met the 17 earlier. Nasty little critters.
Some years ago, I heard a bird squawking loudly and incessantly in a patch of alders. Went over to it to find a robin hen about 3 feet from her nest raising the ruckus. There was a red squirrel in the nest eating the hatchlings.
Do not know much about tree squirrels. But we have been watching ground squirrels consuming their brethren since we learned to use ground squirrels for off season target practice.
Eastern gray squirrels eat a range of foods, such as tree bark, tree buds, flowers,[30] berries, many types of seeds and acorns, walnuts, and other nuts, like hazelnuts (see picture) and some types of fungi found in the forests, including fly agaric mushrooms (Amanita muscaria).[31] They can cause damage to trees by tearing the bark and eating the soft cambial tissue underneath. In Europe, sycamore (Acer pseudoplatanus L.) and beech ([bleep] sylvatica L.) suffer the greatest damage.[32] The seeds and catkins of gymnosperms such as cedar, hemlock, pine, and spruce are another food source.[33] The squirrels also raid gardens for wheat,[34] tomatoes, corn, strawberries, and other garden crops.[35] Sometimes they eat the tomato seeds and discard the rest. On occasion, eastern gray squirrels also prey upon insects, frogs, small rodents including other squirrels, and small birds, their eggs, and young.[2][24] They also gnaw on bones, antlers, and turtle shells – likely as a source of minerals scarce in their normal diet.[31]
35+ years ago I was a young kid walking around the Superstition Mountains shooting jackrabbits and cottontails with my .22. Right after hitting the trail one day I shot a running cottontail and thought I’d leave it and return later hoping to find a coyote or cat but when I returned I was surprised and a little horrified to see 3 other cottontails with bloody faces eating their fallen comrade. It was something a young boy didn’t expect to see, I dumped 2 more of those bloody cannibals.
I’m really kinda surprised at the surprise in this thread. How do paleontologist figure out what dinosaurs ate? They study their teeth! Ever taken a look at a squirrel’s choppers? 7mm
They'll sure eat whatever sits still long enough. If you ask a wildlife biologist or somebody from the parks and wildlife department, they'll swear up and down and sideways that squirrels and wabbits and such only eat vegetation, and there are no cats in the wild, and if there are any, they only eat rats and mice and such and won't hunt or take down a game animal, and coyotes and wolves only hunt old and sickly animals, and only then for food, and etc. etc.
The squirrels love to eat the notches on my log cabin. These are dovetail notches and there is a 6 inch overhang for every notch. These squirrels climb up there and chew the sharp edges of the notch.
I don't like to kill an animal that I don't have to kill, but when you go to eating the house I built, we have a problem. I have trapped and deported a dozen of 'em with the Havahart trap. But they keep coming back. You ought to see what a load of #8s in a 20 gauge will do to them at a range of 30 feet. I did shoot one with my Savage muzzleloader one time, a 250 grain bullet with 3,100 foot pounds of energy. Very effective squirrel round.
Hey PETA, nature is cruel, and hunting is the quickest and easiest way a wild animal will ever die. Deal with it....Even cute little squirrels will eat baby birds.......
Shoot a Idaho ground squirrel (whistle pig) then you can shoot his buddies that are eating on the carcus, sometimes several,
I am glad to find out that I am not alone, I thought I was the only person left who called ground squirrels whistle pigs. It must be a southwest Idaho thing because I have not heard it used anywhere else. I generally refet to them as gophers now which confuses some folks, there used to be some folks who called them picket pins but I have heard anyone refer to them as that in decades.
35+ years ago I was a young kid walking around the Superstition Mountains shooting jackrabbits and cottontails with my .22. Right after hitting the trail one day I shot a running cottontail and thought I’d leave it and return later hoping to find a coyote or cat but when I returned I was surprised and a little horrified to see 3 other cottontails with bloody faces eating their fallen comrade. It was something a young boy didn’t expect to see, I dumped 2 more of those bloody cannibals.
We've seen that several times. Just a few weeks ago we saw a Grey Squirrel chewing on a Chickadee. Always freaks us out. Where my mom lives there are always squirrels in the dumpster to her appt building. If/when you just open up the lid they will come flying out of there and it always makes ya jump even though you expect it.Yup fuzzy rats.
My theory, conspiracy theory if you say so, is that as fall and winter approaches, squirrels and some other "vegetarians" become omnivorous. I've observed it in reptiles too. It likely has to do with opportunity, nutritional demands and threat of starvation. One reason you don't see antlers, turtle shells, and bones all over the place is that. You'll see different size teeth marks on them sometimes.
OR it could be alien abductions to study earth creatures on the mother ship. Just a theory. 😉
Some years ago a Yukon Territory study showed that the #1 predator of hares under the age of two weeks old were red squirrels. I’ve seen them feeding on meat numerous times. The
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