Influence of Predatory Bird Sounds on the Eastern Grey Squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis)

• Quinn Girasek

  Juniata College

  Author

The eastern gray squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis) are very common in many parts of the globe, especially North America. A few prior studies have examined how squirrels recognize predators. In this study, predatory bird calls from the red-tailed hawk (Buteo jamaicensis) and the Swainson’s hawk (Buteo swainsoni) were played to squirrels. The northern cardinal (Cardinalis cardinalis) call was played as a control. The goal of this research was to determine if S. carolinensis are able to recognize native predatory birds from non-native predatory birds. After running chi-square tests and t-tests, it was determined that while the squirrels were able to differentiate between B. jamaicensis and B. swainsoni, they were not able to distinguish between B. jamaicensis and S. carolinensis significantly. They also froze for a significantly longer time when either hawk sound was played compared to the call from C. cardinalis. These results suggest that S. carolinensis may group hawk sounds together.

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