squirrel stall, Chatuchak Weekend Market, January 2014

over two visits (Saturday and Sunday) I lost count of the number of squirrel stalls I saw but at least twenty. A couple of stalls had only three or four baby squirrels but most would have had between ten and thirty. This stall had by far the most: the cage at bottom left had a tight huddle of at least fifteen baby squirrels in it. Back behind these cages were about ten others, each with several adult variable squirrels in them. I would guess this one stall had at least fifty squirrels total.

Most of the squirrels for sale at the market were variable squirrels and Himalayan striped squirrels.

What do people do with so many squirrels C? Are they farmed or wild caught do you know?

they are all sold as pets. I imagine there is a mix of captive-bred and wild-caught but I don't really know. There are a lot of captive-bred animals of various species (especially birds) for sale here but I suspect the squirrels are largely taken from wild nests as babies. As a comparison, the market also sells sugar gliders which are captive-bred but the numbers are small. I saw maybe twenty gliders total. Same with hedgehogs - all captive-bred but only here in small numbers. I only saw two prairie dogs in the whole market.

I doubt many of the unweaned squirrels live long once sold, but the juveniles would probably do alright. However I suspect most end up being released. You might have noticed the variety of colours in the squirrels (which is why they are called variable squirrels), but these are regional (subspecies) not individual colour morphs - so these squirrels have come from all over Thailand. Around Bangkok's parks you see all sorts of colours of variable squirrels though, and these must be due to pets being released.

Thanks C. I didn't think they would be much for eating, and rather expensive for the size.