Brought forward from November 2005:
I think squirrels get away better when you try to hit them. They are used to linear predators chasing them, and their leaps are effective getting away from that. A car trying not to hit them is something they’re not designed for. They freeze at the ambiguous threat and could leap anywhere.
So far so good. I have been driving using this theory for 8 years. No squirrels hit. Of course, the day this doesn't work I'm going to feel like crap.
Update: Still no squirrels hit with this method. However, it emphatically does not work with chipmunks.
Well, it's been a while since you left your comment Reginleif so I hope you've gotten over the guilt by now. But just to let you know, even if you decapitate a rodent with a guillotine (instant death), the body will flop around for a while. They also ejaculate into their bladder. I believe it's called a retrograde ejaculation. Weird, huh?
ReplyDeleteYou're not trying hard enough. It takes at least a 3/8 turn of the wheel to get one of those things.
ReplyDeletePossums? Just drive straight. They'll run into you. Ditto for deer.
Ditto armadillos. They run to your car then go straight up into your bumper.
ReplyDeleteI think its a mating game where the male squirrels show their prowess.
ReplyDeleteIf you want to test this hypothesis, next time you hit one check for nuts!
Yes, all very well an good, but if what you say is true AVI, then the Darwinist would say that you should try to miss the squirrel, so that only those sqirrels that are good at dealing with ambiguous threats will survive, thus strengthening the species...
ReplyDelete... or something like that...
Nah, just drive. Don't try or not try, be unmoved by squirrels.
ReplyDeleteI've been trying to teach the rest of the family this for years. Just drive straight. It's the animal's job to dodge, and they're generally good at it, especially when the "predator"'s course is predictable.
ReplyDeleteDeer are another matter, of course--they don't seem to expect to dodge.
I was riding a bus one day when a dog ran out from between two cars, spotted the bus, and managed to spin about on one leg to miss the wheel by about two inches.
I wondered if there was a kind of effect happening in which the crazy-dodging squirrels who evolved by natural selection weren't being replaced with ones that ran straight because of the new natural selection pressure of cars everywhere. Then, the hawks should enjoy even more squirrels because we'd weed out ones who knew how to dodge them (and the ravens will still glut on the ones we hit on the road).
ReplyDeleteI still see a lot of squirrels, one way or the other.
I have wondered the same, and concluded that instincts that basic probably take a long time to be effectively selected for. If there had been a 5% change in the last century, would we notice it. They still have other dangers besides cars.
ReplyDeleteDoesn't work with opossums, either. They just make up their little minds that they're going to run across the road, and off they go in a straight line, commending their souls to the great 'possum in the sky. If they get hit, they get hit. If they don't, they don't. Que sera, sera.
ReplyDeleteI've greased several possums running straight down a rail without jumping off.
ReplyDeleteWell, Jerub, if humans get involved in the selection process, is that really natural selection anymore? (Don't tell the social Darwinists that, of course.)
ReplyDelete"Get OUT of the f*yaaaay* BIRDFEEDER, you little power outage waiting to happen!"
ReplyDelete