If you live near squirrels, then you\u2019ve probably witnessed their suicidal tendencies around roads. It can seem like they are waiting for a car to approach before darting across the asphalt, sometimes changing direction multiple times or freezing in the middle of the street, only to be straddled by a car\u2019s wheels. Or, in some unfortunate instances, not.<\/p>\n
Squirrels\u2019 attraction to roads isn\u2019t just something you\u2019re imagining. It turns out these fluffy-tailed rodents, paradoxically, feel safer near roads with lots of traffic. It\u2019s another illustration of how the \u201clandscape of fear\u201d has been scrambled in the Anthropocene.<\/p>\n
The findings \u201cseem counterintuitive, but show while roads can present a risk of being hit by a vehicle, squirrels living near roads appear to perceive the risk of being caught by a predator as lower,\u201d said Kristin Thompson<\/a>, who shed light on this phenomenon while earning a Ph.D. at the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom.<\/p>\n Ecologists coined the phrase \u201clandscape of fear\u201d to describe how animals modify their behavior based on how risky a place seems, particularly when it comes to encounters with predators. But the things species evolved to fear might be a poor match<\/a> for a world where humans have altered risks in myriad unnatural ways.<\/p>\n Thompson discovered just such a dynamic among gray squirrels living in southeast England, according to a new paper<\/a> in the journal Oikos. To gauge how urban squirrels differed in behavior from their country cousins, the scientists visited six locations with differing levels of human presence such as roads and buildings. At each one, they placed a series of small trays bearing bits of peanuts. Some of the trays were next to large trees, enabling squirrels to make a quick escape if a predator such as a fox arrived. Others were placed out in the open.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n In theory, squirrels should devour more of the peanuts on trays near the safety of a tree, because they will be less fearful and skittish. And that held true in the new experiment. But the scientists noticed an odd dynamic. The difference between the \u201csafe\u201d and nearby \u201crisky\u201d trays was significantly reduced when the site was close to a road. And the louder the road, the smaller the difference. The squirrel behavior suggests they felt less in danger amid the din of nearby traffic.<\/p>\n The researchers surmise this is likely because squirrels perceived that predators were less likely to be around when noisy people and cars were in abundance. \u00a0But the authors note that this perception \u2013 whether real or not \u2013 has to be balanced with the danger of becoming roadkill.<\/p>\n \u201cOur findings suggest human activities have a double-edged impact on urban wildlife like the gray squirrel<\/a>,\u201d said Sasha Dall<\/a>, a University of Exeter ecologist.<\/p>\n Now, said Dall, they need to study how proximity to roads and urban life influence survival rates, food supply and reproductive success of these critters.<\/p>\n That might help answer the question of whether the squirrels really are making a canny choice by hanging out near roads, or are miscalculating how dangerous it is to play near traffic.<\/p>\n Thompson, et. al. \u201cUrban noise and its predictability moderate perceived risk associated with roads in grey squirrels<\/strong>.\u201d Oikos. Oct. 15, 2025.<\/p>\n Photo by Jeremy Hynes<\/a> on Unsplash<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If you live near squirrels, then you\u2019ve probably witnessed their suicidal tendencies around roads. It can seem like…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":152288,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[273],"tags":[28678,89122,18,19,17,133,89123,461],"class_list":{"0":"post-152287","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-daily-science","9":"tag-ecology-of-fear","10":"tag-eire","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-science","14":"tag-urban-wildlife","15":"tag-wildlife"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115459974940276549","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152287","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=152287"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152287\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/152288"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=152287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=152287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=152287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}