Animal Research Tries to Catalog Nut Collection for Squirrels with Online Inventory Management Software

Day in and day out, Rodger Hollows spends his days with animals. He has worked with all types of wild animals ranging from pigs and sheep, to zebras and tigers. This year, he is working on project that would allow him to inventory and index all the nuts and food that squirrels horde for the winter.

“What I am essentially looking into is how much food a squirrel really buries and hides for after the winter”, explained Rodger Hollows. “We all know that squirrels will take nuts and other food, and bury it. What we do not know is how much of that food is found when spring appears. That is my goal – to answer that question.”

Rodger Hollows has created a network of several people who will watch a monitor a group of 20 squirrels. The group of researchers will watch where the squirrels go, where they plant food, and index it on the online inventory management software program.

“It is extremely easy to do with the online inventory management software program that we have”, explained Rodger Hollows. “People can just track it on the inventory and it instantly updates to anyone with access to the same network that we have for the project.”

In addition to tracking the inventory, the private network of researchers also has access to a map. The map allows them to accurately track where food is buried and keep a running count of whether or not something is moved or replaced.

“One of the things that we have been able to notice with this online inventory management software program is that squirrels will often revisit where they hid certain items”, explained Tammy Falls, a researcher on the project. “A single squirrel has been known to hide and re-hide the same nut several times. We are not sure why he does that, but we never would have known this to be true without the program we are using.”

The program may prove helpful in some of Rodger Hollows’ other projects. He is planning on using it on an exotic wildlife safari research project in the near future if all goes well with this current project.

“I never knew that squirrels could be so much fun to watch and interact with”, said Hollows. “This is an eye-opening project and it wouldn’t have been possible without the help of the online inventory management software. I do not think, if I hadn’t had access to this software I would have gotten anywhere.”