Squirrels, Love em' or Hate em' at Least They Have Clean Teeth

One of my favorite couples from church asked me a question the other day about squirrels. I get quite a few questions about squirrels. Many of them have to do with how to keep squirrels out of their bird feeders (which I don't have the definitive answer to). But this question related to squirrels chewing their white pine boughs to the point that the branches drop to the ground. Why do squirrels do this? I was stumped since I had never heard of nor observed this behavior. So I said I would do research, which led me to learning a bit more about the mammal that we see most often and don't always appreciate.

Squirrels belong to the order "Rodentia", the largest group of living mammals.
There are over 365 species of squirrels, 3 of which we have in our immediate area; the gray squirrel, the red squirrel and the northern flying squirrel (a few New York counties have the fox squirrel).

Squirrels are quite active this time of the year as it is the beginning of mating season. We see males chasing females, as well as other male competitors. Females will usually only mate with an individual male once over her lifetime. She will gestate for around 60 days and the approximately 4 young are born naked, blind and very small (about 1 inch long) in early spring. They may have another litter in mid-summer if abundant food and decent weather allow.

I have noticed color variation in our most common gray squirrel. In fact they come in shades of gray and brown as well as white and black. The smaller more reclusive red squirrel can also have a black coloration.

Gray squirrels eats nuts, seeds and fruit as well as bird eggs, insects, and if there isn't anything else to be found, road kill. They may also be found by the sides of the road consuming road salt as they need this mineral in their diet.

SOOO...why do squirrels chew my friend's pine branches? They are practicing good dental hygiene! They chew the branches to clean and sharpen their teeth. Not so different from what the Native Americans did to clean their teeth. This behavior can be deadly to squirrels though when they decide to sharpen their teeth on power lines.
They also practice "dodging and weaving" when they are on the road and see a car, hoping to confuse the car into changing direction, which obviously often backfires. Not too smart, but what can we expect from an animal with a brain the size of a walnut?

Squirrels. You may love them or hate them, but they are intersting and fun to watch if you take the time, and don't shun them because they are rodents, they are actually the cleanest rodents of all 1600 types (and opposite of humans, male squirrels spend twice as much time cleaning/grooming themselves as females). Clean bodies and clean teeth, way to go squirrels!