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echelon

I've always known squirrels to eat birds. The fact that scientists are new to this fact is what is surprising.

It might just be that the headline is bad and the literature is simply describing vole predation.

Anecdata:

https://www.reddit.com/r/zoology/comments/2bypwd/i_saw_a_gra...

https://www.reddit.com/r/birding/comments/1d1ddnv/birdhouses...

https://www.reddit.com/r/WTF/comments/14715zj/squirrel_eatin... (graphic video)

https://www.reddit.com/r/WTF/comments/dsws02/a_squirrel_eati... (different graphic video)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9F-lnJtkDA (graphic video eating a mouse)

etc.

The really graphic stuff you tend to see when you look for it is the raptors eating the squirrels. Bird eats squirrel eats bird. The circle of life.

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> It might just be that the headline is bad and the literature is simply describing vole predation.

Correct!

From the article:

> Any supplementation of their vegetarian diet was historically believed to primarily occur through eating insects or, on occasion, nest predation of eggs or young hatchlings (Bradley and Marzluff 2003).

> Roughly 30 years ago, Callahan (1993) radically altered our perception of squirrels by characterizing as many as 30 species of the family Sciuridae as facultative predators of small vertebrates capable of killing and consuming adult fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals (Table S1).

The study is itself a detailed breakdown of changes in foraging behavior linkedin to "food pulses" (which I guess means the times when various food sources are available, a la acorns in the fall and sprouts in the spring).

In the context of H5N1, this gives some new insight of the likelihood of the virus jumping species. Birds are everywhere, squirrels in urban environments moreso.

> In the context of H5N1, this gives some new insight of the likelihood of the virus jumping species. Birds are everywhere, squirrels in urban environments moreso.

The H5N1 hype is not new. They have just reactivated now. My opinion is that the revenue of pharma giants has decreased after Covid, so they are looking at new sources of revenue.

Maybe the scientists should have done a quick google before declaring nobody has seen this behavior before.

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