Every boomer with a bird feeder hates squirrels. I don’t understand.

  • Shadow
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    18 days ago

    Squirrels are an invasive species, they chew wires and mess with stuff.

    Birds are pretty, sound nice, and eat bugs. They also poop on everyone’s stuff, but somehow it’s good luck if you get shit on.

    • partial_accumen
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      2118 days ago

      Squirrels are an invasive species, they’re not native to North America.

      Just how many tens of millions of years do a species need to exist in a place before you consider it native to that land?

      “The earliest known North American squirrel fossil dates back to the late Eocene epoch, about 34 million years ago.” source

      • Skua
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        1118 days ago

        North American grey squirrels are an invasive species… in Europe. They seem to be able to outcompete the native red squirrels here

        • partial_accumen
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          518 days ago

          @[email protected] said “they’re not native to North America.” which is incorrect. North America squirrels may be invasive on other continents but certainly not in North America.

          • Skua
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            118 days ago

            Oh, I’m not disagreeing with you by any means. I just thought it was kinda funny that they had the direction of the invasiveness of that particular animal backwards

            • Shadow
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              218 days ago

              Yeah I caught that and edited it before I thought anyone saw it.

      • TechnoCat moved to lemm.ee
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        18 days ago

        Don’t forget the obviously non-invasive european starling and european house sparrow common at feeders. /s

      • Shadow
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        318 days ago

        Only about 300 years, from your own link you kindly provided:

        When European settlers first arrived in North America, they brought with them a number of animals that were not native to the continent. One of these animals was the eastern gray squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis), which was introduced to England in the early 1600s as a curiosity.

        The eastern gray squirrel quickly became popular in England, where it was kept as a pet and admired for its agility and intelligence. In the late 1700s, a group of eastern gray squirrels was introduced to New York City’s Central Park, where they quickly established a population.

        Over the next few decades, the eastern gray squirrel spread rapidly across North America, aided by its adaptability and ability to thrive in a variety of habitats. Today, the eastern gray squirrel is one of the most common squirrels in North America, and it can be found in every state except for Alaska and Hawaii.

    • Chemical Wonka
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      218 days ago

      Humans are an invasive species, especially if you are a descendant of an English settler and not a native american indian

      • @toasteecup
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        418 days ago

        Truthfully they were also invasive. We’re only native to Africa

        • Chemical Wonka
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          -117 days ago

          But when they arrived in the lands of North America, those lands were not inhabited by other human tribes

          • @toasteecup
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            16 days ago

            We’ve not talking about colonizing though, we’re discussing invasive species.

            Given humanity (Homo Sapiens) is currently thought to have evolved in Africa, that is the natural human habitat. All other habitats we’ve created we can be thought of as an invasive species.

            Please don’t virtue signal when it’s off topic like this, it’s really annoying.