Do squirrels only dig up the food that they bury or will they dig up any food they find?

Introduction

                Squirrels can be seen running all over the ground in search of buried food that was buried for storage.  It takes time and energy for the squirrel to dig for buried food that they first had to spend time locating.  They are able to locate underground by smell and memory.  I hypothesize that squirrels will not only eat the food that they have buried, but also food that another squirrel has buried.  By doing so, the squirrel is able to ensure that it will be fed.

Materials and Methods

                Squirrels will need to be captured and tagged with some kind of identifying marker.  They will then need to be constantly monitored to see where they bury food in a designated area.  Once a squirrel does bury food, that spot will be marked with a corresponding identifier.  Those areas will then need to be monitored as well to see which squirrel digs up the food.  Once data has been collected, analysis can be done to see if the marked areas were dug up by the same squirrel that buried food there.  The percentage of sites dug up by the same squirrel that buried the food can then be compared to the percentage of sites dug up by a different squirrel than the one that buried the food. 

Huang, Z., Wang, Y., Zhang, H., Wu, F., & Zhang, Z. (2011). Behavioural responses of sympatric rodents to complete pilferage. Animal Behaviour, 81(4), 831-836. doi:10.1016/j.anbehav.2011.01.018

Jacobs, L. (1989). Cache economy of the gray squirrel. Natural History, 98(10), 40. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.