Everyone knows I like to count things. My latest enumeration fetish
involves road-killed squirrels. I doubt I'll ever do this again, but on a
recent trip to (Friday) and from (today) southern ME, I decided to count
squirrel carcasses along the route. I divided up the census into 4
sections, and here's what I found on the two dates. Nearly all were gray
squirrels.

I-91 Hanover-Norwich to I-89 exits -- 22 on 9/21, 15 on 9/24
I-89 from W. Lebanon to I-93 -- 149, 112
Route 101 from I-93 to I-95 -- 349, 455
I-95: north side of Piscataqua bridge to Wells-Sanford exit: 114, 188

We even found a bloated gray squirrel carcass on the beach in ME! That was
a first.

I'm sure others have noticed a lot of "clumping" of carcasses, which
probably relates to the distribution of oaks. Surprisingly, there seem to
be no scavengers like crows feeding on these roadkills.

I promise to recalibrate back to birds on future posts...

Chris

________________________

Chris Rimmer
Vermont Center for Ecostudies
PO Box 420 | Norwich, Vermont 05055
802.649.1431 x202
http://vtecostudies.org/

<http://vtecostudies.org/>


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