Is this baby squirrel question on-topic?

Question

What should I do with a newborn squirrel found in parking lot?

Is this question on-topic? It seems to have little relationship to the outdoors other than the fact that squirrels are animals that happen to live in nature. The OP has an identical question on the pets exchange network that seems far more likely to get a useful response. It also seems unlikely whatever answer is given will be helpful to any future users. Given all these reasons I voted to close, but after reading what is "on-topic" it isn't clear to me if I made the correct choice.

Answer 1

I think you did the right thing. Identification is happily on topic here or biology (or maybe pets) but caring for a baby wild animal is far more likely to get useful responses on pets or biology.

As they have posted it over there, I will close the one here.

Update - so, pets closed it - looks like it is because it is a wild animal - so I have reopened here. Thanks for chasing, folks.

Answer 2

IMO the question was fine, and if they hadn't cross-posted it should not have been closed. Interaction with wild animals is on topic here.

Note that it's also been closed as off topic on pets.SE. They don't say why, but I would guess it's because wild animals are not pets.

However, cross-posting is not something that should be encouraged on SE. Given that the OP cross-posted it, a decision needed to be made on which one to leave up. I don't disagree with the decision to close it, but I think a more appropriate way to state the reason would have been that it's not inherently off topic, we just don't want cross-posts.

Answer 3

I just voted to reopen the infant squirrel question, right after I found that it had been closed on Pets.

Now that it has been closed on Pets, no one will be able to learn how to care for this wild animal should they encounter a similar situation -- unless we reopen.

Moving the question to Pets was defensible, but now that they have rejected it, it belongs back here. We here in the Outdoors are more likely to encounter a simiar situation than a biologist in a lab. (Wildlife biologist would be ideal.)

It is an outdoorsy question; the OP did not know the rule against cross-posting; that has been rectified; let's reopen a valid outdoors question.

Answer 4

No, please close it. We have a Biology site, which is much more appropriate to handle that question properly.

Squirrels are wild animal that are not farmed, and I have doubt if farming is on topic on TGO anyway. Questions about hunting or cooking squirrels should be OK, but questions about taking care of an animal are either Pets, or Farming, or Biology in general.