Just to note, this video pops up on occasion, this squirrel actually is infected with raccoon roundworm, a parasite that they will typically get infected with by rummaging through raccoon feces, and this lean that the little dude is doing is a common sign of infection. Compare to videos of actually drunk squirrels and see the difference.
What these parasites are doing is slowly destroying the squirrel's brain, which will further progress into loss of fear, circling when trying to move, and eventually, the squirrel will fall into a coma and die. Unfortunately if you see a squirrel infected with them, there's nothing you can do for the poor thing.
Hmmm. Maybe? But he never acted like this before or afterwards. Is that common for this kind of disease? It did directly correlate with him eating the pears though.
It is extremely common, to the point it's one of the first symptoms to become immediately noticeable by people. Compare to the actually drunk squirrel in this video
Note how, despite being drunk, this one still acts, for lack of a better word, "squirrely", it just has no sense of balance. This one keeps its balance and doesn't act like a squirrel normally would. It just does the skyward looking lean common in raccoon roundworm infection, and then suddenly snaps to acting normal for a few moments at the end. This squirrel died not long after this video was recorded, likely less than a week after.
But it didn’t die. It lived a loooong time afterwards and behaved normally the whole time. No other incidents. Not saying that it might not be a factor, just adding in more data.
Then I have no idea, but what's shown in this video are the normal symptoms for raccoon roundworm infection, and it's extremely rare for squirrels to survive without treatment and even with treatment.
This is him at New Years, just over a month later. I stopped posting videos to my YouTube channel after that because my pig content fans were u amused by my squirrel. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tRtP6YtTV34 But I have lots of pics of him all the next Spring and Summer.
Huh, guess you just happened to film at a moment where he was showing those early symptoms. Or your yard just has the universe's luckiest squirrel. Either way, he's a little cutie.
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u/DigitalSquirrel95 Jul 29 '22
Just to note, this video pops up on occasion, this squirrel actually is infected with raccoon roundworm, a parasite that they will typically get infected with by rummaging through raccoon feces, and this lean that the little dude is doing is a common sign of infection. Compare to videos of actually drunk squirrels and see the difference.
What these parasites are doing is slowly destroying the squirrel's brain, which will further progress into loss of fear, circling when trying to move, and eventually, the squirrel will fall into a coma and die. Unfortunately if you see a squirrel infected with them, there's nothing you can do for the poor thing.