Trash Collecting Squirrels
Names go here
modern age, the squirrel has become an
urban superspecies, dominating the
biosphere in our neighborhoods, and has
joined the status as pests along with rats and
pigeons. Squirrels possess something unlike
the previous two species, and that is their
ability to grasp simple objects with paws,
manipulate objects, and be trained. The
focus of this feasibility report will be to
explore the possibility of utilizing squirrel
behavior and their natural instincts to
survive, to use them to perform valuable
manual labor. While this idea and execution
can lead to a wide variety of able tasks for
squirrels to perform, this study will focus on
garbage collection. Garbage collection
involves the relocation of garbage to specific
drop locations with the incentive of food.
INTRODUCTION
Squirrels are domestic rodents that
live in forests and backyard trees. People
commonly see them as a nuisance and are
often killed by cars. Currently, in the densest
urban areas, there can be upwards to 3,500
gray squirrels in one square mile on average
in the southern United States [1]. Squirrels
can climb and access areas humans have
difficulty reaching. Squirrels can also be
trained to perform simple tasks and utilize
small tools and objects. Squirrels can be
conditioned to dispose of garbage using a
simple trash disposal bin that releases food
upon garbage being deposited. Squirrels
reproduce very quickly, with some urban
squirrels breeding two litters per year, with
up to 10 or more kittens. A surplus in food
will outpace local environmental
capabilities, and squirrels will rely more on
garbage collection to obtain food. Over a
period of a few years, an urban environment
can be completely integrated with squirrels
performing manual labor for garbage
disposal.
TECHNOLOGICAL FEASIBILITY
While the mechanism for dispensing
food for garbage collection is an objectively
obtainable machine, the compliance of
squirrels is a more difficult task to
accomplish. Popular Youtuber, and
professional NASA Engineer, Mark Rober
has complex obstacle courses to test the
intelligence and athleticism of wild gray
squirrels [2]. In many instances, these
squirrels displayed signs of intuitiveness,
adaptability, and learning potential. Wild
squirrels can quickly apply their knowledge
and abilities to solve complex problems
when there is enough incentive. To
maximize the efficiency of the garbage
collection system, the method for disposing
of the garbage needs to be as simple and
accessible for the squirrels. Unlike humans,
squirrels cannot reliably perform
complicated tasks, so their role in garbage
disposal needs to be kept as simple as
possible. In order to ensure simplicity, the
BACKGROUND
The Earliest Signs of Domestication
occurred with Canis Lupus Familiaris, the
modern dog, that began as early as 30,000
B.C.E. However, the existence of modern
civilization, the Neolithic revolution, and the
building of the first cities paved the path to a
new type of coexistence. As animals have
evolved many generations to adapt to the
changing landscape over billions of years,
artificial environments create new
challenges and habitats. Rats have coexisted
with humans in settlements since the era of
the Neolithic revolution, which brought the
practice of settling in one area and farming
for crops and resources. Like today with the
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mechanism will feature a trash chute that is
at ground level so that squirrels will only
need to push the trash directly into a chute
without having to traverse up a ramp. The
trash will then be collected in an
underground trash bin to be emptied and
replaced by human workers.
annually on garbage disposal with
$4,016,250 in labor and material costs for
maintaining public trash disposal [5]. With
the added costs of food and materials, the
total estimated costs of implementing this
system would be approximately $7,145,922
annually. In theory, this system would fully
replace any current required labor costs for
picking up trash manually. By utilizing
squirrel labor to such an effect, we save
roughly $8,372,034 more than the current
system that deals with litter disposal.
ECONOMIC FEASIBILITY
There are currently no incentives
other than food, which can be massproduced and distributed easily to large
squirrel populations. The current most
feasible food for this application would be
pumpkin seeds laced with small amounts of
sugar. Squirrels have an appetite for sugar
and sweet foods, and sugar is massproduced in a feasible quantity for largescale distributions. Small amounts of sugar
will increase food's addictiveness, further
incentivizing squirrels to perform garbage
collection for the reward. Squirrels eat, on
average, one pound of food per week per
squirrel. Currently, corn syrup costs $0.10
per pound at the market price [3]. Sunflower
seeds cost $0.43 per pound at the market
price [4]. The sugar to grain ratio for
sweetened sunflower seeds is 1g of sugar
per 4g grain, so the overall cost of food
would be $0.46 per pound of sweetened
sunflower seeds. Supporting 1 square mile
of squirrels at maximum would cost $300
per day and $2100 per week. For a test
scenario, the city of Richardson, Texas,
covers 28.66 sq mi. In the case of
Richardson, this trash system would induce
a cost of $3,129,672 per year on the food
alone, assuming that squirrels could pick up
150 pounds/square mile of trash daily.
However, manual human labor would be
required to maintain and service the
disposals. While it is almost impossible to
calculate the costs of maintaining such a
system fully, a comparable system would be
park and public trash can disposal systems.
A city like Richardson spends $15,517,956
Figure 1: Different types of nuts
LEGAL FEASIBILITY
While current laws concerning
squirrel feeding are drafted because of the
dangers to humans and the nuisance that it
causes, this system of implementation would
bypass this danger by adding a basis of
automation to the process. Currently, it is
illegal to feed squirrels, but the reasoning for
those laws is primarily tied to preventing
excessive contact between squirrels and
humans [6]. If humans were to feed squirrels
regularly, squirrels would no longer be
afraid to come into contact with humans,
which would lead to many problems.
However, in the case of our garbage disposal
system, squirrels are not required to come
into contact with humans. Neither the
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disposal nor the reward dispensing process
requires humans to interact with squirrels.
natural behavior. It may cause the squirrels
to be even more aggressive towards humans
in some capacity though it is unknown how
severe this effect will be if at all.
Other issues may arise as squirrel
populations increase, habitable locations
may not, and squirrels will burrow into
homes and buildings for shelter, as seen in
figure 2, causing a new nuisance to be dealt
with, which would cost money and create
damages. Squirrels already cause minor
damage to homes and trees. Still, a
significant population spike can lead to more
squirrels burrowing into homes and even
displacing the bird population from their
habitat.
ECOLOGICAL FEASIBILITY
The most considerable feasibility
concern for the usage of squirrel labor is
ecological. Squirrels have integrated
themselves into urbanized biospheres, and
this labor system can completely upend their
entire biological instincts and population.
The biggest concern would be
overpopulation, as increased food
availability would cause an equal increase in
reproduction. Squirrels are prey species, and
there are many common predators such as
hawks, cats, foxes, badgers, snakes, etc. This
would create a massive increase in predator
populations, and this primary concern would
cause tremendous danger to human activity.
While it is primarily legal to feed squirrels
in most local governments, it is illegal to
feed larger species of animals, such as in
Florida, where raccoons, crocodiles, and
alligators are illegal to feed. Increasing the
squirrel populations will effectively increase
the food supply for many predators, likely
increasing their numbers. Many unforeseen
problems may be introduced. The primary
deterrence would be to slowly limit the
amount of food provided to mitigate spikes
in squirrel populations.
Secondly, squirrel behavior may
change massively to adapt to this new food
source. American Gray squirrels are mostly
non-territorial but are hierarchical and can
act aggressively towards other squirrels and
their kittens []. Squirrels are known to kill
rival squirrel's kittens to lower the food
strain. The introduction of more centralized
food sources in permanent trash cans that
dispense food may lead to even more
territorialism. Squirrel populations can act
more aggressively to control specific areas
with higher volumes of garbage or small
items to dispense food. This physiological
change in squirrels can uproot their entire
Figure 2: A nest of Squirrel babies/kittens found inside
the attic of a residence.
OPERATIONAL FEASIBILITY
While the intended effect is to
dispose of garbage, squirrels may begin to
collect many non-garbage items as objects to
obtain food. Things like tree branches,
rocks, everyday backyard items like outdoor
toys may be stolen, inconveniencing
humans. Squirrels may actually collect
garbage from open dumpsters, which can
cause many problems as it will effectively
be recycling trash and netting no actual
garbage pickup.
Squirrel behavior may be changed,
as the food laced with sugar has an addicting
effect and might cause squirrels to become
more aggressive and less fearful of
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approaching humans. It is a likely possibility
that squirrels will now associate humans
with litter and garbage sources. Thus it will
be incentivized to attack humans or threaten
them in the direst situations where food and
habitats have become scarce, and squirrels
are overpopulated.
CULTURAL FEASIBILITY
The public may not react positively
to squirrels taking over the jobs of sanitation
engineers. It can be perceived as humiliating
to know that a squirrel has taken over your
job. However, the real crisis may develop
once squirrels start abusing the system on a
grand scale by digging trash out of
dumpsters and garbage bins to only put it
back into the squirrel feeding contraption.
There is already evidence of "aggressive
squirrels" eating through garbage carts in an
attempt to search for some leftover foods
[8]. Furthermore, littering may actually
increase from human activity. Observing
squirrels collecting garbage would be seen
as a novelty, or littering compliance would
relax as people see it as helping squirrels be
less tidy and dispose of trash appropriately.
Ethically, squirrels are not protected
under any humane animal laws. They are
considered vermin under the United States
[9]. Squirrels can be hunted and trapped
during the annual hunting season. There are
no legal penalties for accidentally killing
squirrels with vehicles or trapping, and thus
their ethical status remains unimportant [10].
However, by manipulating them for
beneficial purposes, their humanitarian
status may change, perhaps even increase to
the level of pets or higher. Due to the
massive population of squirrels, this will
probably not become the case. Still, a
general admiration or respect may develop
surrounding the squirrel, as they may
become seen as contributors to human
society and upkeep. Similar to military or
disability service animals, squirrels may rise
to become such cultural assets.
While effective, the moral question
of distributing addictive, sugary, artificial,
and processed foods in massive quantities to
squirrels would lead to their dependence on
human service. This ethical question is gray,
and this report will not take a specific stance
on this issue. Many may protest that this will
Figure 3: Squirrel capable of picking up garbage
While squirrels are the targeted
demographic to participate in this program,
desperate and homeless humans may use
this system to collect food for themselves.
While the amount of food is low and costs
are labor-intensive, humans can find ways to
exploit the system and activate disposal bins
to dispense food without trash, effectively
nullifying the intended purpose of trash
disposal. This exploitation may require legal
reinforcement to discourage tampering of
the disposal bins or a system that rewards
only squirrels, such as small amounts of
food being dispensed, not enough for an
adult human to eat. While vandalism to
public accommodations like water fountains,
trash cans, lamp posts, and post boxes are
usually minimal, the effect can still disrupt
operational effectiveness. Estimated damage
and wear of vandalism falls at roughly 1800
cases per year for a city the size of
Richardson [7].
Further impacts become more
unpredictable as speculation creates other
problems that may occur. It is futile to
attempt further to predict the full effect and
feasibility. Until a working prototype can be
established, the operational effectiveness
cannot be fully determined.
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be inhumane, as using addictive substances
does not allow the squirrels to have any free
will in the nature of their reliance. Other
parties will simply attribute this reliance
process as another form of domestication
done to many animal species that society
regards as essential. Such domesticated
animals are dogs, and cats, which have gone
through many generations of selective
breeding to the point of irreversible reliance
on humans. Still, many find this morally
repugnant and protest the artificial
imbalance to nature.
CONCLUSION
Considering all factors of
effectiveness and effects of implementing
such a system, the overall feasibility of this
method of trash disposal is unreliable at best
and catastrophically destructive at worst.
The impacts of mass feeding a population of
rodents would be challenging to control and
could lead to world-changing effects. Failure
to maintain the system could lead to a
massive catastrophic ecological apocalypse
that would threaten the very existence of
society. Much like Planet of the Apes, as an
extreme example, any failure to control the
massive squirrel uprising would lead to the
downfall of humanity.
While the risks of this cutting-edge
technology are great, the benefits of
automated labor through ecological
engineering are even greater and should be
thoroughly explored for other purposes. The
horizon for biological labor networks can
lead to a new era of human prosperity, much
like the industrial revolution. However, such
an implementation could lead to animal selfawareness and intelligence, resulting in
catastrophic world-destroying effects and
almost science-fictional realities. A force
created by humanity can lead to humanity's
downfall in the future.
Figure 4: The Planet of the Squirrels Meme
Word Count: 2309
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