We take you now to the training center of NASA (Naturally Aerodynamic Squirrel Astronauts), where would-be space travelers use this elaborate state-of-the-art simulator to overcome the difficulties of eating in zero-gravity conditions…
2011: A Squirrel Oddity
June 14, 2011 By
LOVE EET!!! The music goes perfectly with the video!!
I agree entirely re. the music. I kept waiting, expecting to see elegant ladies and tuxedoed gentlemen begin waltzing about the grassy forest fields ….
Shouldn’t have watched that with food in my mouth (guiltily wiping off screen).
I don’t say this often: the music for this vid was PERFECT.
Name the squirrel Ducky? Love the way he sits on top, plotting another route (or revenge).
Whoa. I feel dizzy now.
The whole time I was thinking how glad I am not to have to go through all that just to get a snack.
i’d prolly be skinny!
Bleen!
where’s Theo when you need him?
So wrong.
Squirrels make me happy.
Make that Bleen -4.
Silly sqwerrl. Still hasn’t mastered The Principals of Counterbalanced Dynamically Rotational Systems 101. When will he every learn?
Hah!
Squirrel is undoubtedly hating the human race all through that ordeal… “you guys just have to make everything complicated, don’t you?”
I was thinking the whole time, he probably loves it! So much fun! Carnival ride AND free dinner!
Poor squirrel. So sad baby couldnt get a nibble or two.
Watch again. This squirrel was getting a bite every go around.
Steppy, I think he DID get some. It looked like he would climb aboard the rotating thing just long enough to grab a bite, then climb off long enough to eat what he had grabbed, then repeat the entire process.
Who knew that Strauss wrote that waltz just for skwerlz?
Yes, he wrote many compositions in tree/four time.
Says here in the COL Wiki that it’s tree fort time.
Double WIN!
Do not like!
Poor squirrel just wanted to have a snack! He could have gotten his paw stuck!
I was feeling dizzy myself.
Kept waiting for squirrelio to figure out that if he just sat on the side of the tree and stuck his paw out, he could stop the swinging stick, then grab a bite. I guess that is a human thought. I hope the sq. enjoyed the ride and didn’t have to vomit afterwards (dizzy memories of fair rides…..)
The engineer should hook up a camera on the food side for a close-up squirrel face shot. Ah… the look on its face as the pole starts pivoting
This is Ground(hog) Control to Major Sqerl: Can you hear me Major Sqerl?
HAHAHAHAHAHA!
LOL!
look at all the oak leaves- prolly plenty of acorns near if squirrelly gets tired of rotating 8D
Persistence–thy name is Sqwerl!
He’s going to puke!
I thought the same thing. I was feeling a bit of “empathy nausea” while watching.
Wow!
Also: Why??? At first I thought this was supposed to be some kind of (failed) anti-squirrel device–you know, like people do to try to keep squirrels out of their bird feeders. Is it actually just for amusement? Humans’ and/or squirrels’?
Both? Skwerl and human enrichment?
I suspect the gadget is called “Messing With Squirrels”
Pre-cisely. What’s the point?
That squirrel has a short term memory problem, like Dory in “Finding Nemo!”
What are the food items on the end of the stick?
@Skip: it’s prolly an ear of corn. Skwerls do like corn…. It just seems like it’s an awful lot of work for a moufful of corn, tho’.
I figure if you’re gonna end up feeding the squirrels, you might as well make them work for it. You get amusement, they get stimulation, everybody wins.
Cue that vid of the guy who made an obstacle course that involved pedal-powered cable cars and then set up a camera on a tripod.
Also: At one point my parents found a squirrel baffle that worked…until they (the squirrels, not my parents) started jumping from the roof to the feeder. One got his tail stuck in the feeder somehow. Dad got heavy gloves and went out to rescue him, at which point he proceeded to power-chew his tail off. Mom took the baffle back off immediately after. Three years later and the tailless squirrel is still a regular visitor. He’s healthy and fat, and he wears his injury like a badge of honor–The Red Badge of Squirrelage.
I’m having a good time imagining your parents jumping from the roof to the feeder!
That’s kind of a sad story, Blue Footed Booby, but I’m glad it all came out okay for the little fellow.
yea, and your dad power-chewing his tail off is a pretty nifty image, too…
He must do ALOT of yoga to be that flexible!
oh, God … i was waiting for the stick to BAP! him in the head when he stood beneath the contraption
What kind of sick, twisted, sadistic human would do this to a poor little squirell?
MY kind, that’s who!!
Hysterical!
Squirellio sure has a steady stomach, huh?
NOT FUNNY!!
It makes me sad and sick to see defenseless animals get teased and tricked like that by humans.
I couldn’t even watch the whole video.
It drives me insane to see an animal unnecessarily struggle for a treat on a device that some a-hole made just to get a laugh.
Um Pamela, the squirrel is not in a cage or chained to the thing. Squirrels run away from stuff that bothers them all the time. They are very good at getting away from things. So if that squirrel wanted to get away from that horrible torture-device, I bet you he could.
Oh, climb down. There is no chain holding the squirrel to the tree. He’s free to quit and go somewhere else anytime he wants to.
Absolutely. If he/she didn’t enjoy the ride he/she would have left…could have found plenty of buried nuts around.
Pamela, agreed!
Thanks for the affirmation, Winston.
So many “thumbs down”! Sad.
My hypersensitive love for animals is genetic. My mom couldn’t watch the video either.
We, as humans, seriously underestimate animals and their tenacity. As well as their brains. I agree that if this squirrel was being tortured or hurt, it wouldn’t even get near the device. Not only that, but if it even couldn’t get a bite of the treat, it wouldn’t even bother. Besides, it’s not like he was actually struggling. He did get a few bites of the treat during his revolutions. I must also note that squirrels are stubborn and thrill-seeking creatures. I’ve seen them try to get into trickier contraptions.
Actually this gadget probably made this squirrel’s IQ jump up at least 10 points!
Unless you’re claiming that all interference with animals (including eating them and keeping them as pets) is wrong, this seems pretty innocuous.
Even if the squirrel couldn’t do anything else, this doesn’t seem to be causing it distress.
Relax.
“Hal, please make the stick stop spinning.”
“I’m sorry but I can’t do that, Dave.”
I’m glad to see SOMEBODY knows that music was used for the first view of the space station in 2001: A Space Odyssey. Honestly, kids today!
I can never hear “The Blue Danube” WITHOUT thinking of 2001, regardless of what other image may be presented on screen to me. That being said, this squirrel video is pretty awesome when combined with the music!
It’s the Vomit Comet™, and that astro-skwerl definitely has the Right Stuff.
I’ve never understood people who go through such lengths to make sure only birds get to eat. Squirrels are far more entertaining! Then again, we have two acres with a large “Park” attached to our house, so throwing some rodent feed over there doesn’t bring them that close to home.
Unless, of course, you just like to trick the squirrels to enjoy watching THEM outsmart you.
That’s because while birds come to the feeder, peck peck peck, and fly away, squirrels will empty the thing. They’re little furry PEEGS!
I wouldn’t be so sure. We have some odd-looking black/brown birds around our house and they eat like Oprah before Hibernation Season.
I broke the law of comedy watching this squirrel go round and round.
You supposed to laugh OR disapprove of the joke but I kept giggling like a fool AND saying “that’s mean” at the same time.
I laughed so hard I cried… love the motion with the music
I’m not sure if it’s dizziness or a subliminal message.. watch the twirling corn cob.. you WILL feed the squirrels
Frustrating animals for fun is not cute.
What don’t you repost the smiling dog from Japan while you’re at it.
I promise, when the torture finally becomes too much, somehow– just somehow– the squirrel will be able to unchain himself from the stick.
Did you try to pick up a glued down quarter as a child?
HAW!
Ditto.
squerl torture!!
but so funny, and the music perfect.
The unintentional side effect is the rapid evolutionary intelligence of squirrels. This guy has the blueprints for this device back in his tree.
Once at lunch, my dad suddenly stopped in the middle of his thought, and said, “You know, LIFE is just a bunch of unintended consequences.”
not a great video….
Loved the music. I bet the squirrel wasn’t even dizzy. Great animal enrichment!
LOL Okay, even though I was laughing pretty hard, I feel bad for this poor little guy. Whoever made this feeding stick has a sick sense of humor torturing our little furry friends this way. I have to give this little squirrel props – he wants that food!
Mike and Pyrit, you both make this animal blog the best on the interwebs !!!!!!!!!! Thank you !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It’s Skwerleoke! All together now…
*You spin me right round, baby
right round like a record, baby
Right round round round
You spin me right round, baby
Right round like a record, baby
Right round round round
WOW! Ultra-80s earworm!
I kind of felt bad for the little guy. I’d imagine he got at least a little dizzy and perhaps sick. I hope I’m wrong though, because it could be a fun ride, for sure!
From the looks of the squirrel and the area depicted in the video, the squirrel isn’t starving. Or even particularly hungry looking. So really, it’s not like it needs the corn to survive… animals are a lot smarter than some of you are giving them credit for. If the squirrel was really HUNGRY (as opposed to snacking on the squirrel equivalent of potato chips) it would go off and find food that was easier to reach if not quite as tasty and snack-er-riffic as field corn.
And at least this little one isn’t having to defend it’s head from a male robin with territorial tendencies, which is what my squirrels have to deal with right now. The robin doesn’t even want the corn, he just doesn’t want the squirrels to steal his eggs and chicks.
My Dad used to have one of these in his back yard, only with seed corn on both ends of the propeller. He called it a “Squirrelly-gig”. Oh, and the squirrels always managed to work to corn off the ends, eventually.
That’s mean. Either feed the squirrels or don’t.
All these anti-squirrel devices are just breeding smarter squirrels.
I saw it as a beautifully choreographed squirrel ballet!
I understood it better than yesterdays opera.
Johann Strauss II approves of this video.
It’s also a hit on DanubeTube.
HAW!
Nice one!!
We put a big bowl of peanuts UNDER the bird feeder SPECIFICALLY for the squirrels and yet they still LAY right across the bird feeder and munch to their hearts’ content. I see nothing wrong with this video and I would love one of these for my front yard – but somehow I would have to have that music playing too! That was perfect music for this!!!
there’s a little skwerl that comes t my window boxes
and i put out whole food unsalted nuts for him.
my cats love to watch him.
At 0.52..
Oh, thank goodness it finally stopped… Now I can go nibble some..
0.53 : Oh great! Here we go again!
The things that amuse humans…..
Ok, Im amused
I’d like to point out to those of you who believe this contraption is cruel to the sqwerls, do you think the surfaces squirrels usually climb on are rock hard and steady? It is perfectly natural for squirrels to climb unsteady and swinging tree branches, for example. Squirrels are incredibly good climbers, and to be honest, it didn’t really seem the one in the video was even much fazed by the swinging stick.
Oo, I’m in the mod lounge! Was it the term “rock hard”??
Oh, it wasn’t. Oh well.
When the Squirrel Revolution comes. The maker of this contraption will be allowed to live. So as to make more of these for his new masters.
This should be tagged as “Cute or Sad?”
Spinny thingy makes me think of this ride at Busch Gardens called “DaVinci’s Cradle”. You sit in it and it goes back and forth, then round and round…I can’t even WATCH people riding it without getting nauseous. Major props to Mistah/Miss Squirrel for his/her tenacity. My stomach salutes you.
When I was little I used to spin around and around and around in a circle until I got so giddy I’d lay on the floor and enjoy the world moving. I didn’t even used to get a treat!
The squirrel is not stupid enough to do something it doesn’t get rewarded for.
I remember seeing footage of the kea parrot in New Zealand riding on the rotating exhaust fans on the top of caravans, just for fun.
Squirrels LOVE challenges, folks. And a study showed they are the MOST adaptable animals in the world. Even with food available all around, they prefer the challenge: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWU0bfo-bSY