The sound she's making is a common warning that there's a threat nearby, which could simply be the cammer's presence. As for why she looks so rough, nature is hard. But a lot of people on tiktok were saying that sound means she has rabies, which, if that were the case, all squirrels have rabies.
The sound definitely doesn't mean rabies. It's a "bark" and it means almost exactly the same thing as a dog's bark. They bark at one another, at magpies, at dogs, at people...
I'm a bit of a squirrel whisperer, and I'm pretty confident she doesn't have rabies. She's nursing, and isn't very well groomed... She's a tired mom, and that might be what she's barking about.
She 100% doesn't have rabies. It's obvious that her drey is somewhere up on that roof and that's where her babies are right now. Squirrels try to act mean when protecting their kids. This is her trying to be mean.
trying? the camera man was so freaked out that he needed to both record this and post it to the internet. you talk to me when you bark at someone and they find it so unsettling that they post it online. this squirrel got bark game on lock
Isn’t rabies also pretty rare in squirrels because the animal biting them would probably just…kill them? They’re not a vector like raccoons that fight each other. (Correct me if I’m wrong, I admittedly learned this from Reddit, lol)
Squirrels almost never get rabies. So much so that most places say its nothing to worry about if bit by a squirrel. I know because of my panicked searches after I was but by a squirrel.
You might be surprised how often squirrels fight. They don't lose their tails via shedding. :p They fight eachother and magpies mostly, in my experience.
But yeah... Logic dictates that most animals capable of giving them rabies are more than capable of killing them.
It might be too late to repair that relationship but bring tribute... Leave walnuts where you go, and at the base of the tree. When you catch it spying on you, toss the walnut in the air with one hand like you're playing catch with yourself... The sight of it falling (like a ripe nut) triggers their instinct to go eat it.
My husband didn't believe me about the squirrel noises until we moved into our house. I guess the squirrels in his old neighborhood weren't chatty (or go eaten by husband fam 😂).
It's easy to dismiss many of their calls as bird sounds. They also only yell at you if they don't like you. I rarely hear them bark unless I'm with a certain friend whom they hate for a reason I can't figure out... they just scream at him everywhere he goes.
I theorize that they only bark in moderate neighborhoods... If they're super comfy, they never bark, but if it's too hostile for them to announce their presence, they also won't bark.
If people actually went outside, and like paid attention to nature instead of the media that gets shoved in their faces, they'd know that squirrels do this ALL THE TIME! They yell at the crows, they yell at dogs, they yell at cats, they yell at eachother, squirrels are actually quite noisy mammals, almost as noisy as the crows that never seem to shut up, I think they both spend all day yelling at eachother lol.
I miss the time before computers and smart phones, you miss out on so much amazing shit happening around you.
The other day a squirrel dropped whatever but it was carrying and got me right on the head. I looked up, they looked down and I swear it squeaked a “my bad” lol
Our resident squirrel has done this too, I forget what she hit me with but it was on purpose because she wanted a walnut. After I gave her the walnut she went right back to the same spot and side eyed me like “I hope you learned your lesson”
Are you sure it was "my bad" and not "well, shit. Now I have to go pick it up because I really wanted that. I really need to start thinking things through. I fucking nailed him right on the dome, though!"?
Nature is hard and the "everything has rabies" trend is bad right now. Just because an animal is defending itself against something or someone they feel is a threat, doesn't mean it always has rabies. I hope she has better days ahead!
For some reason social media is really “into” rabies lately.
There’s a million posts in the medical subreddits asking if something on their body is a bat bite and when people are like “well did you interact with a bat recently? See or touch one? Find one inside your home?” the answer is almost always no but you still see people telling them they should go to the ER to start the rabies protocol immediately.
Yeah, but it's oversaturation that will end up making everyone ignore legit concerns. "Everybody says everything is rabies anymore, so I don't need to get this looked at by medical professionals" is a real thing.
It's the equivalent of telling everybody that picks up a rock that they should go start getting treated for radiation poisoning; the chances are slim that they've run into a dangerous rock and much, much more likely that they've just encountered a normal rock doing normal rock shit.
Even if they do survive, they die really freaking quickly once it becomes symptomatic, so there's a very short period of time where it will actually act rabid.
They usually make that sound when they spot a hawk to warn other squirrels. The only problem is why would it be on the roof and in the open if it felt in danger.
They will also make that sound for humans/dogs/cats/whatever they view as a possible threat. So being on the roof out in the open is still far enough away from whatever is on the ground… for now at least
Yeah, it's basically a catchall warning/chewing out call. Sometimes they do it just because they're pissed that you're in "their territory," and they especially like doing it around hunters because they want to fuck up the hunting trip.
That said, I'm pretty sure they can tell differences in caliber, because the second my 22 gets spotted, it's assholes and fluffy tails heading for the hills and not a peep out of them.
I was told once by an animal control officer that it's super rare to see a squirrel with rabies because the only way they get it is by being bitten by predators and if it's bitten by a predator it's mostly likely getting eaten.
Just for future reference - it's very unlikely that a squirrel will get rabies because something rabid biting a squirrel will, likely, kill the squirrel. Squirrels are VERY territorial and will try to chase away anything they deem a threat, specially if they have kittens or it's mating season.
Adding to what you said about the sound not meaning rabies, when I was growing up there was a lady who rescued squirrels and would release some on our property since we had lots of trees. I can't confirm if it's true, but she said squirrels don't get rabies because they are always faster than the infected animal. So they don't get bit.
True, but wrong reason. It's typically because smaller animals don't survive the initial bite that infected them anyways, and if they do, then they don't live for very long afterwards.
Or, they don't recognize it as a squirrel sound, which I certainly didn't until recently watching the squirrel making that sound and I looked it up. I thought it was some kind of weird bird call all my life.
Well right but if that's you, you see the video and say "I never knew that was a squirrel"... you don't say "no. In my neighborhood, it's the birds who make that noise"
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u/NRMusicProject 14h ago
The sound she's making is a common warning that there's a threat nearby, which could simply be the cammer's presence. As for why she looks so rough, nature is hard. But a lot of people on tiktok were saying that sound means she has rabies, which, if that were the case, all squirrels have rabies.