Katy Morlok, a woman in Inver Grove Heights, Minnesota, caught a drunk squirrel on video struggling to stand after eating fermented pears. Katy said that she left out the pears for the animals last Friday without realizing that they were fermented.
She added that she loves feeding the squirrels because she can watch them out the windows while working from home. It was not her intention to get the squirrel drunk. She came across some old pears when she was cleaning out her refrigerator. She put them in a bowl and left them outside on the picnic table in her yard.
Lil Red, one of the squirrels that visit her home frequently, grabbed the pear, and immediately ran away. After an hour, the squirrel came back. Katy said that she noticed that the squirrel returned very happy – swaying back and forth.
She immediately realized that the old pears are fermented. Fermentation is a process when food starts to go off and transforms fructose, glucose, and sucrose into alcohol. She went outside and took the pears.
Katy was worried about the squirrel, but she looked fine the next morning when she came for breakfast.
The video, which was shared on all social media, went viral and had more than 5,000 views.
As you may know, not only humans like to get drunk. It has been registered that African elephants are getting drunk after eating fermented marula fruit. But they are not the only animals documented to get drunk. Animals from monkeys to bats have been considered to enjoy eating fermented food, whereas some animals even prefer harder drugs.
For example, parrots have been noticed attacking opium farms in India to get high on drugs, whereas jaguars have been registered to get high on hallucinogenic yage.
