Just curious about your thoughts. I live in a decent Chicago burb, with curbs and sidewalks. There is a public middle school at the south end of my block. At the north end of our block is a home that recently went through a pretty pricey makeover. They have 2 grade school aged kids who I believe go to a Catholic school within walking distance.
We walk our dog around the neighborhood every morning. On Monday morning, there was a dead squirrel in the middle of their sidewalk, maybe 5 feet from their driveway. Clearly visible from their front window, front porch, or driveway when pulling in/out.
Seemed pretty fresh. School is in session, so kids will be walking/biking along that sidewalk. Folks appeared to be home, so would expect them to go in/out of their front door/driveway for errands, kids to go to school, etc. We have several fox and hawks in the neighborhood, so perhaps you might expect the carcass to be scavenged.
My wife wanted to pick it up. I wanted to leave it, and see how long it stayed there.
My question for you is, if you had a dead squirrel on your sidewalk, how long would it be before it was removed? And what do you think would cause someone to let it stay there longer?
If it were on my sidewalk, it would quickly be relocated to my compost heap. I’d expect something to scavenge it by the next dawn, but wouldn’t bother to check.
Day 2 - Tuesday morning. It has been pretty warm up here lately. Squirrel mighty juicy, with impressive clouds of flies. So maybe they just didn’t notice it all day Monday…
A few weeks ago a bird collided with my window and died. I didn’t feel like dealing with it, so I left it on my patio. The next morning, there were some feathers where the bird had been, but no more bird. I assume some scavenger (or one of the neighborhood cats) dragged it off somewhere and ate it. Nature dealt with it for me!
A squirrel got killed by a car right outside my front gate yesterday - I picked it up with a bag and put it in the domestic waste (mainly because it was collection day). Otherwise I might have tossed it in the woods for the crows and foxes to find.
Normally a dead small animal like a squirrel or pigeon will be taken away by scavengers within less than 24 hours if they can get at it. If it’s in the road, that might not happen before traffic flattens it into a sort of meat and fur veneer.
I don’t have a sidewalk. But on the path it would be gone, maybe in front of me. If Dillon the villain was home.
If I lived in a neighborhood I would be nice and remove it before the local kids decided to play with it.
We don’t have squirrels, but I don’t expect dead animals to hang around too long. The city usually cleans them up within a few hours, if the cats or crows don’t get to them first.
I also have crows and coyotes and feral cats and the occasional escaped dog so yeah, not long at all. Matter of fact, when I have my annual early winter Rat Rodeo I take the trapped ones out to the gravel street and leave them in the same spot every time and the crows absolutely appreciate the rodent buffet. A dead squirrel in my yard would elicit a tired side eye at the dogs and a “Really, guys? AGAIN?” before I dragged it out for the crows to clean up.
Data point here: A few summers ago, the route I walk to work through one of the most expensive neighborhoods (not my own!) in my small Northeastern US city was ornamented by a dead SKUNK on the treelawn* of one of the fancier corner houses.
Those shiftless irresponsible pampered slobs left that carcass rotting there for literally MONTHS. In the summertime. Skunks don’t get any better-smelling once they’re dead, either, and they are apparently much less appealing to carrion eaters than other roadkill.
(In case any of those shiftless irresponsible pampered slobs happen to be reading this and feeling a twinge of familiarity: yup, I mean you, on the north side of the upper corner of Avon. No, I haven’t forgotten this incident. None of your neighbors will ever forget this incident.)
