Squirrels escape climate change by taking over a ghost town

By Sarah Laskow

Bodie, Calif., is, technically, a gold-rush ghost town and a state historical park. But a more accurate way to describe it would be “squirrel heaven.” According to Pacific Standard, a thriving population of Belding’s ground squirrels has pretty much taken over the town:

They pop out from under the floors of shuttered bars and tear around meadows littered with rusting mine machinery. They stand attentively in the road, as if ready to collect entrance fees.

And, actually, the only reason the squirrels are thriving here is that there’s a town that humans more or less abandoned. The forests where these squirrels used to live are warming up, and they’ve had to more to higher altitudes. But for some mysterious reason, places where humans used to live still make good squirrel hangouts. Standard:

Continued