Jackie Shober, age 9, of Superior, Wisconsin, for her question:
Do squirrels hibernate?
Winter is a fine time to bundle up in warm water proofs and take a walk in the wild woods. The ground may be under a white blanket of snow, most of the trees are leafless and the twigs may be wearing glassy gloves of ice. Everything seems quietly sleeping. That is, unless your eyes are very wide awake. Then you notice signs of life. There goes a fluffy squirrel, frisking from bough to bough. He is hunting around for those nuts that he stored in secret hiding places.
Most of our pretty squirrels cannot hibernate, even if they want to sleep through the winter. They are related to the ratty rodents and all these animals have special front teeth. Such teeth are just fine for gnawing their favorite foods. But gnaw¬gnaw gnawing tends to wear down the world's best teeth. So the squirrels have special ones that keep on growing. As the tips wear down, the roots below make them grow longer. This way a squirrel's teeth stay just the right size for cracking shells and nibbling nuts.
Most of our tree dwelling squirrels have front teeth that grow quite fast. They must keep gnawing or those teeth would grow too long for comfort. Who knows, if some of these squirrels hibernated, their front teeth might grow down over their chins. This is one good reason to stay awake all winter and eat a few nuts every day. It also may explain why many squirrels hide stores of nuts.
In the fall, the pretty red squirrel gathers nuts and seeds from beeches, pines and other trees. He usually stores each one in a separate hiding place. The neat grey squirrel usually hides collections of nuts in all the likely places he can find. These tree dwelling squirrels also prepare cozy winter hideaways for themselves. As a rule, they find hollow boughs, high enough to be safe from foxy prowlers. There they curl up and doze when the wild winter storms howl around outdoors.
In summer, many tree squirrels get used to hunting for food at night. The dainty little flying squirrel hardly ever peeks outside during the day at any time of the year. But many of his larger cousins change their shopping routine when winter comes. Then we often see them hunting around doting bright, frosty mornings.
Not all our squirrels live in trees and dine on nuts. Some live in burrows where there are no trees in sight. One of them is that big fat lazy woodchuck. He spends his summer nibbling weeds and basking in the sunshine. And everybody knows that he hibernates through the winter. After all, we expect him to wake up on Groundhog Day to give us his report on the weather.
Sooner or later everybody wonders whether a busy squirrel remembers where he hides his stores of nuts. Actually, he tucks them away in all the likely places he can find. There is no need to remember just where, because when winter comes, he goes looking in all the likely places. And sure enough he is bound to find enough of his hoard to last him through the winter.