The darlings of residents of country houses and townhouses in forested areas - wild squirrels are by no means uncommon for Russia. The habitat of these animals is very wide, but squirrels live for a very short time.
Natural habitat
Squirrels live mainly in coniferous and deciduous forests, mixed forests, in the taiga. They can often be found in urban forest park areas. In natural conditions, a protein lives for three to four years. Mortality is especially high among young animals that have not survived the winter.
Squirrels are fertile, the female brings offspring two or three times a year, provided that she lives in warm southern latitudes. On the server, squirrels reproduce only once every 12 months. As a rule, two to eleven squirrels are born. Cubs are born helpless, they are blind and without wool, so the first weeks of life are entirely dependent on the mother, who warms them up and feeds them with milk. Within a month, the cubs grow stronger, see clearly and begin to show great curiosity, more and more often looking out of the nest. At the age of two months, the squirrels already become independent. Male squirrels are polygamous and do not take part in raising offspring.
When there is a poor harvest of nuts and cones in the forest, red animals migrate, huddling in large flocks.
In nature, proteins have many rivals that share the same diet as proteins. Basically we are talking about rodents - voles, chipmunks, - bears, sables and small foxes, as well as about birds - crossbills and woodpeckers. However, some of them are useful, for example, crossbills throw massive cones from trees, from which it is easier for squirrels to get nuts, and females arrange nests in abandoned woodpecker hollows.
Squirrels often die from the claws of predators, forest fires, disease, hunger and frost. This is perhaps the main reason for the short life span of these animals.
Proteins in nature reserves
Squirrels live in captivity for nine to twelve years. There are cases when some even lived up to sixteen years. But a squirrel lives for so long in captivity only if it has the conditions suitable for that: healthy food, enough movement, its own cozy nest-shelter. Usually she has several nests at once and lives in all in turn, with a frequency of two to three days.
The squirrel is an active animal, it is important for it to move, therefore, in zoos and reserves, these animals are not kept either in cages or in open-air cages. She feeds protein herself, even in captivity, but the zoologists leave the necessary amount of minerals and vitamins for the animals in special feeders. Squirrels adapt well to humans, becoming almost tame. Studies, by the way, have shown that productive communication with humans prolongs the life of this animal for another couple of years.
