Squirrel Appreciation Day

What the day is

Squirrel Appreciation Day is observed on January 21. It was started in 2001 by a wildlife rehabilitator in North Carolina, placed in midwinter when food is hardest to find.

Origin and background

The behavior worth knowing about is caching. Tree squirrels are scatter hoarders: rather than filling one larder, they bury nuts individually across hundreds of separate sites. This spreads the risk, since no single theft costs much, and it creates a retrieval problem the animal solves better than it is given credit for. Squirrels relocate caches using spatial memory and landmarks rather than smell alone, and their recovery rate is far above chance.

It is not perfect, and the failures matter enormously. Every nut left unrecovered is a seed planted at depth, at distance from the parent tree, by an animal that selected it for being sound. Oaks and hickories depend heavily on this, and squirrels are among the more significant forest regenerators in the northern hemisphere. Forgetting is the service.

They also deceive. Squirrels being watched will perform elaborate fake burials, digging and covering an empty hole while keeping the nut in the mouth, and they do this more often when another animal is visibly present. It is one of the better-documented examples of tactical deception outside primates and birds.

Two other points. Squirrels do not hibernate; they remain active all winter, which is exactly why the caches exist. And the teeth never stop growing, so constant gnawing is a physical necessity rather than mischief, which explains the chewed woodwork.

How to take part

• Watch one cache something. The fake burials are visible once you know to look.
• Put out water in freezing weather, which is scarcer for them than food.
• Feed sparingly if at all, since heavy feeding concentrates animals and spreads disease.
• Check whether your local species is native or introduced, which changes the conservation picture.
• Leave a fallen nut where it is. Something will plant it.