No squirrels were harmed and I worshed my hands after.

EDIT: Also I feed the squirrels, we’re chill, that’s why this one was so comfortable having his back turned to the gate. He just got a little too greedy.

  • Triumph@fedia.io
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    1 day ago

    The squirrels on campus back in the day were so used to people. We’d go with a bag of peanuts and they would all come running. Some would sneak in and steal them out of the bag, others would eat them out of your hand, a couple would go wherever you led them, including on top of my head or in the palm of my outstretched hand. And then sit there and eat the peanuts.

    • P00ptart@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      We had some that were like that and some that were mean AF. Some would hide in bushes and leap out and attack you when you were walking by.

    • yucandu@lemmy.worldOP
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      1 day ago

      I did that with the chipmunks but they started trying to drag away my fingers like it was a really heavy peanut. And they bite hard.

    • wjrii@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      It certainly wasn’t THAT level of engagement, but when I was in college the students had to be told not to feed the on-campus alligators.

      • anon6789@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        As a trained squirrel handler, while it’s not impossible for a squirrel to get rabies, there is probably a single digit number of them out there at any given moment.

        At least in the US, no one has ever gotten rabies from a squirrel.

        Your rabies prone species are bats, coyotes, fox, groundhogs, raccoons, and skunks.

        That said, it’s unadvisable to touch any wild animals. (Though I’d still boop that squirrel.)

        • mojofrododojo@lemmy.world
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          9 hours ago

          Your rabies prone species are bats, coyotes, fox, groundhogs, raccoons, and skunks.

          and people.

          lol I actually have no idea if person to person actually ever happens, know it’s been an issue in transplants tho, which is like… how?

          • anon6789@lemmy.world
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            9 hours ago

            It looks like the organs/corneas were from people that died without knowing they had it. That seems to have been the only way it’s ever been spread human to human.

            This story of a girl who got bit, developed symptomatic rabies, and survived says she got bit by a bat and it didn’t even bleed, so her mom put peroxide on it and they thought she was fine. She was ok for over a month.

          • ouRKaoS@lemmy.today
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            9 hours ago

            I believe rabies has a pretty long incubation period before symptoms appear, so there’s a window where you might not know someone has it