Importance of Returning Home

(Pico August 2024)

We have often talked about squirrels sense of smell and

how their nose and ears are their primary senses.

We've also talked about squirrel pee

and how they use it to mark safe places or routes.

That's how they are able to run through the tree tops at incredible speeds,

despite having poor eye sight.

That's because their routes are already pre-planned and marked by pee. That's why they can get extremely confused and disoriented when trees gets cut down or trimmed, their highway simply got cut off.

(Forgive my crude drawing, but this is what a Squirrel "sees", by smell)

Once a squirrel baby is ready to go home to his family,

they will be able to pick up their parents and siblings routes and markings.

They will immediately know where to go and what routes to take to get there. Where it's safe to sit, eat, sleep and run.

If they were released somewhere new,

they would have none of that,

they would basically be running completely blind and scared to death.

They wouldn't know what areas would be safe and everything else, without any markings on, would be labeled as: Highly Dangerous.

So a brand new area = Everything and everywhere would be, Highly Dangerous. It would be the equivalent of taking a blind human out of their familiar home and dropping them in the middle of the amazon rainforest, without a walking stick.

That's why it's so extremely important that rescue squirrels go home, where they originally came from. As a matter of fact, it's the law, for this very reason.