Hi TSB,
UdoWhat received some information from a large rehab center that she thought was vital to pass on to the Squirrel Board.
This center overwinters between 60 to 120 squirrels. This winter they lost approx a dozen and a half squirrels. Symptoms were: rear end paralysis, labored breathing, lethargy, and death. Big kudos to this center for tireless and expensive effort to find out what happened.
Cardiac and pulmonary edema along with GI shutdown caused the death and it was determined that it was selenium toxicity that produced these symptoms. It turns out that Brazil nuts have large amounts of selenium. The center orders 800 to 900 pounds of mixed nut each winter and the director of the center believes that some squirrels cached the brazil nuts and ate too many or were given too many of that type of nut.
Again, we thought it important to pass this along.
Yours in squirrels,
Trysh