On my bike ride to school today, I saw one too many dead squirrels splayed on the road. Three gray squirrels (Sciurus carolinensis) and another oversized rodent (possibly a fox squirrel and hopefully not the endangered Delmarva fox squirrel) lay mangled disagreeably. The gray color is helpful camouflage in the woods but unfortunately does not offer enough contrast to be detected by speeding motorists on gray asphalt roads.
The images kept haunting the conservationist in me but intrigued the theorist. This no mere coincidence!!
I admit that I do not have the roster of squirrel deaths due to unnatural causes in north College Park for adequate days to plot distributions and draw statistical inferences. Nevertheless, a couple of my typical surmises. Was it a day when single male squirrels went out seeking those females advertising their availability - and in the heat of the moment scurrying around and prancing about, oblivious to human traffic on shared territory? Oh, how I wish I had that roster with gender on it. Or could it be harvest season? But I see no abundant proffering of wild edibles. Some behaviorists might postulate that it could have been a bad day for drivers in the area (longer wait at red lights, collision in vicinity) who pushed up speeds considerably, transforming cars to squirrel squashing metal contraptions. Could it be that serial squirrel carcases is indeed routine (to even think of that is disquieting). Maybe for once I was looking out onto the road and not being self absorbed in earnest disquisition about some fuzzy idea.
All said, a trivial statistic for most of us, a death knell for four magnificent squirrels.
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