The Minds of Squirrels

by Chris Bateman

Do squirrels have minds? If we are inclined to suggest that the human mind is merely an illusion, either on some kind of Buddhist metaphysics or on a neo-Darwinian skepticism about free will, then it may be easy to dismiss the mental worlds of the little shadowtails (the translation of their Latin name ‘Sciurus’). The fact that most people consider them vermin - and some of my neighbours here in Tennessee would go so far as to consider eating them - does not give the poor squirrel much hope of a fair treatment in the court of existential opinion. Yet there is much to ponder in respect of these fluffy tailed rodents.

All my life I have had a keen eye for what was once called ‘natural history’, a phrase with a wonderful poetic bent to it. I have snorkelled with crabs, lobsters, and dolphins, collected insect specimens in the desert reaches of West Africa in my youth, and listened to birdsong in Tennessee to learn who my avian neighbours might be. Yet of all the animals I have dallied wit…