John Clayton
In the past five years I have gotten interested in observing
wild birds, and as a part of that I have put up some feeders in
the backyard to attract them. Our home is close to a river and
the variety of birds we have been able to attract has been
astounding. Our chief antagonists in our feeders consist of a
variety of squirrels who raid our bird feeders with remarkable
efficiency. We have tried putting the feeders high in the air,
putting buffers on the feeders, putting obstacles on the
approaches to our feeders and even tall slippery poles--all to no
avail. I have seen squirrels jump many times their body length to
reach a feeder. I have watched them hang upside down for long
periods of time to empty a food slot.
I recently attended a program in which studies of the brains
of animals were being discussed. The question of long term and
short term memories of animals were explained as being totally
random. Some birds seem to be able to find their ways back to the
same nesting site even though their migration pattern takes them
thousands of miles away in the winter. Squirrels have a partial
memory capability. Studies of the squirrel in our area of the
country have shown about a 20% recollection ability when it comes
to the food they store. Squirrels will bury nuts in the ground to
provide food for the winter months. About 80% of these food
supplies are not used by the squirrels, so they typically bury
much more food than they can possibly eat.
You might consider this to be bad waste of energy and even
food that might be eaten by other living things. The fact is that
the squirrel's bad memory is vital to the plants whose nuts the
squirrel eats. If the squirrel remembered every nut it might be
an advantage to the squirrel and might even improve his chance
for survival. The tree, however, would have its reproductive
capacity brought to a grinding halt. Squirrels are omnivorous
enough to shift to another food source; but the bad memory of the
squirrel is vital for the plants whose seed the squirrel eats to
survive.
The fact that some animals have total recall and others have
partial recall is no accident. In each case it is a design
feature that allows the world in which we live to function in a
beautiful way.
This article taken from: Does God Exist?, Jan/Feb 1999.
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