Squirrel Fishing

I was online when I first came across the idea. I found a site that demonstrated "Squirrel fishing". It was an experiment conducted by a computer science Harvard student. I thought the idea was too irresistible, so I vowed to try it. A week later, I called up my friend Anna. She thought it was a good idea too, so we decided to go squirrel fishing over the Thanksgiving vacation. It was Saturday that we planned to meet at the park near my house. The weather was sunny, but cold. This was not very good weather for squirrel fishing because our fingers became stiff from the freezing air so it was hard for us to tie the nuts to the string. And speaking of equipment, we brought some Christmas gift-wrapping string, some nuts, and a mini-light as a weight (for accuracy in throwing the bait). Shortly after this, we began our anticipated experiment on squirrel performance.

First, we gained the squirrel’s confidence by giving away free nuts and bread. Then we tied the walnuts to the string and we threw it at the squirrels. But that didn’t work because we throwing the bait scared away the squirrels. So we tried a different approach. We decided to blend in our bait with some free walnuts; this way, the squirrels are less suspicious. Much to our amazement, it had worked!!!! Our first squirrel finally took our "camouflaged" bait after taking 3 free walnuts. I was holding on to the string, and the squirrel put up a fight. Both me and the squirrel were playing a mini tug-of-war game. But finally, since we didn’t tie the nut to the string very well, the squirrel took off with the walnut. Moments later, the same squirrel came back for more. We got him again. Almost the identical thing happened. The only difference was that the squirrel held on longer, and it was showing clear signs of frustration from the prolonged lack of success. But when we got to our third squirrel, things got more interesting. I let Anna hold the string this time. The moment the third squirrel took the bait, instead of waiting for the squirrel to fasten it tight in its mouth, Anna just yanked the string. Of course, this is a bad thing to do because the bait is just going the come right out. The squirrel was startled because it had never encountered nuts that disappears from its mouth, so in a quick reflex reaction, the squirrel did a flip sideways. The squirrel got freaked out by the experience and ran up the tree. But I have to admit that our most memorable squirrel was the last one. I was holding the string this time (3 out of four times I held the string, selfish, eh?). A wary squirrel took the bait and ran off. Unfortunately, the Christmas string accidentally wrapped around its neck. Being the nice person that I am, I ran with the squirrel to prevent it from choking. This dramatic scene was somewhat like walking the dog, except that I’m running and it’s not a dog. The squirrel ran up the tree to finish the walnut that was still fastened to the string. I had to wait for the squirrel to finish eating. After savoring the meal, the squirrel threw back the mini-light (which almost hit me). That was the end to our squirrel fishing adventure because we were running out of time.

From this memorable experience I learned that squirrels are among the dumbest rodents in the world. This is probably due to the prolonged cushioned lifestyle it leads. If the squirrels were smart, they would’ve just bitten through the string instead of run away with it. Rats and mice are much smarter. It also leads me to conclude that not enough research is done on the squirrels. Squirrels are the least researched rodent of all. It has also taught me many aspects of squirrel behavior that we find all too common in humans.