Squirrel Gazer

But how do they decide when to eat an item and when to store it?

"​When a squirrel finds a food item it can choose to eat it right away or store it by burying it underground to eat later. The burying of items by squirrels for future use is typically called 'caching' by Squirrel Gazers 🐿👀The decision to eat or cache something is a complex one that is influenced by many different factors including the food item's quality, size, and condition.

What are the results of this experiment?

That is a great question! You will have to subscribe to find out! This was a pilot test meaning it was a practice run to make sure our methods would work because as CP3O demonstrated in the video above, not everything we plan for the squirrels always works out. Based on the microchip scans and hours of footage from the past two weeks, the future of this experiment looks bright!

Are these squirrels albino?

No! Although some squirrels are white due to albinism a condition that causes the complete absence of color pigment, these two squirrels are not albino. Albino squirrels can be easily distinguished by a lack of pigment in their eyes causing them to appear red. The fact that these two squirrels have brown eyes and some coloration in their fur means their white color cannot be attributed to albinism.

This squirrel only has a white tail, does it count as a white morph?

Photo by John Waidner It is clear from the photo that this squirrel has leucism which is resulting in limited color pigment in this squirrel's tail causing its white or blonde like hue. However, whether or not squirrel gazers would refer to this as a "white morph" is an interesting question.

Any idea of the white morph frequency across the entire U.S. squirrel population?

More research in this area needs to be done to figure out exactly how rare it is to see a white squirrel in a normal population squirrels. Based on Nelson's data, out of the entire population of eastern grey squirrels that have some white coloration about 30% are albino and about 70% have leucism.