10/26/2022 0 Comments Album cover finder squirrelOne was sighted a stunning 160 kilometres out of Perth in the wheat belt town of Pingelly, having hitched a ride in the roof of a transportable house. The squirrels, however, kept turning up further afield. "As a department we had an exclusion zone that we set up - basically a 30-square-kilometre area around the zoo - and said, 'OK, we know they're in there and they're not doing a lot of harm, we'll keep them in that exclusion zone.'" The population peaked at about 1,000, according to Lindsay Strange, a biosecurity officer with the WA Department of Food and Agriculture. ( Flickr: Olivier, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)īut they persisted in the area around the zoo, and radiated slowly outwards, initially into the adjacent golf course then onto suburbs. The shy and diurnal palm squirrel is considered an invasive species and potential pest. There simply was not enough food to support them all. But when holidays kicked in and the kids took their banana skins and sandwich crusts to the beach, numbers dropped. In the 70s, at nearby Como High School, the palm squirrel population remained strong during term. If that wasn't bad enough, seasonal changes in diet were having a major impact on the rodents. In 1972, an honours student studying the squirrels found those inside the zoo were being eaten by captive hawks and brolgas, while those on the outside had to deal with rats, cats and Nankeen night-herons. Survival of the fittest is the law under which the squirrels live." Leopards also take part in the slaughter of unwary squirrels. If they are given a piece of meat, they will reject it in disgust it has to be killed by their own hand to be acceptable. Quick as they are, many are dragged inside to be devoured. One moment they are scurrying nimbly roofwards and the next a monkey's hairy, muscular arm shoots forward. This innocent and playful act is often their last. "Every now and then they skim recklessly up and down the iron bars of the cages of unfriendly animals. In 1941, a reporter for the Daily News in WA wrote: It's active during the day, and eats seeds and leaves throughout the year and fruits and insects whenever it can.Įven while confined to the Perth zoo, palm squirrels faced some serious dangers. Survival of the fittestĪlso called the palm squirrel, it's no bigger than a rat, but it has a bushy tail which is often carried aloft, curled into a question mark or straightened in exclamation. Not all of the animals managed to survive, let alone thrive, but after escaping from the Perth Zoological Gardens, palm squirrels managed both. There was even a release of deer, a gift from the royal family, into the state's south-east.
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