Shaming Squirrels for Their Privilege

Science & Technology
1

Shaming Squirrels for Their Privilege

This is an actual study.

Writing Romance in the Closet: To the squirrel who ate my ...

A biologist at some super-left-leaning college in California, the land of needles and feces (a long way from milk and honey, I know) and two medical researchers from UCLA published a study examining, I redacted-you-not, “The nature of privilege: intergenerational wealth in animal societies.” They probably got a government grant for this.

You’ll quickly see from the study that the authors really, really hate squirrels:

For example, some (b) North American red squirrels (g1) transfer stores of acorns (middens) to one individual (g2) but not to others, imposing differential fitness outcomes on young squirrels that perpetuate across future generations.

In North American red squirrels, a mother may store spruce cones on her territory and privilege her daughter by bequeathing a rich territory to her; daughters who receive these resources survive longer and reproduce earlier than those without.

In discussing the study, the New York Times adds this unironic line:

Those young, pine-cone-rich squirrels, the scientists say, are children of privilege.

Here’s a graph from the study to visually explain the different types and levels of wealth inequity and privilege in the animal kingdom:

Salient examples of commodities privileged to some but not others via the intergenerational transfer of material wealth include access to land, shelter, and stockpiles of food. This differential access produces compounding effects over multiple generations (from g1 to g1+n) that privilege some family lineages over others. For example, some (b) North American red squirrels (g1) transfer stores of acorns (middens) to one individual (g2) but not to others, imposing differential fitness outcomes on young squirrels that perpetuate across future generations (g3). In a fish species (d), inheritance of high quality (larger) anemones privileges some clown anemonefish over others, influencing the fates of the next generation of fishes. Examples also involve birds, such as in the red grouse (c); sons gain privileged positions on leks, and thus mating opportunities, when their father is nearby and after he dies such that land ownership is passed on from one generation to the next via the paternal line (Photo by Craig Jones). In a social carnivore, the spotted hyena (a), offspring inherit their social rank from their mothers within the maternal line (matriline) and priority of access to ephemeral food within shared territories. As a result, full family lines within this species increase in their representation over time whereas other lineages decrease in numbers or even go extinct over time. Similar patterns exist in some social insects (e) for which some privileged wasps inherit nests while others do not, benefiting some lineages over others to further perpetuate the cycle of privilege. All other photos reproduced with permission through creative commons license.

As you can see from this scientific graph, hyaenas have more privilege than bees because, they’re $%^&#$^ hyaenas . No where in the study is concern shown for the nature of the co-dependent relationship between the clownfish and anemone.

The study’s authors also don’t hold a high opinion of wasps:

… some privileged wasps inherit nests while others do not, benefiting some lineages over others to further perpetuate the cycle of privilege.

Fit is really going to hit the shan when study’s authors find out about slave-making ants:

The observed behavior is surprising because invading ants and their victims often fight extremely fiercely. However, in several observed raids of the pillage ant, the attacked ants did not defend themselves.

The study’s authors are encouraged and pledge to look at other cases of “inequity and privilege” in the animal kingdom, which sounds like animal abuse. One author adds:

She stresses, though, that finding inequality in nature isn’t the same as justifying it. Her research “could be misinterpreted as saying, ‘Well, it exists everywhere, so we can do nothing about it,’” Dr. Smith said.

I can’t wait for these researchers to introduce CRT into the animal world. Perhaps they could start with lions on the savannah and film it. I’d stream that.

Side note: This whole thing would be a perfect skit for Gilda Radner (NSFW if you’re unfamiliar):

3 Points