Overweight Squirrels, An Unexpected Effect Of Global Warming

An exceptionally mild winter in many parts of the world appears to be contributing to squirrels gaining inordinate weight in both Europe and North America.

The warm weather has meant the trees still have an abundant feast of nuts and seeds, which the squirrels have been taking advantage of.

Squirrels do not hibernate, so to survive the harsh winter, they fill up with reserves at the end of the year to accumulate fat.

Iolo Williams, a BBC presenter and wildlife expert, explained how this weather has led squirrels to have an extra thick layer of fat this winter.

These tweets highlight some of the largest squirrels seen in Europe and North America:

the fattest squirrel I’ve ever seen in my life just stole an avocado from our trash can pic.twitter.com/zoeTV9dhAf

– b (@ brob3rts) December 2, 2014

Guys I found the fattest squirrel #fatsquirrel pic.twitter.com/LD18rwkwP3

– Socks Fake (@fox_sake) December 24, 2015

this glorious fat squirrel came really close to me and stuck this pose lol pic.twitter.com/uLl7J1PZ9A

– Sarah Aspler (@saspler) January 2, 2016

Mirror mirror on the wall, is this really what I look like? A fat squirrel? pic.twitter.com/Y8j0etEgKg

– Lander Geadelmann (@lndrgead) January 4, 2016

Image: inventor_Artist / Twitter