Please Pull For Service

The next puzzle is a variation on the original: You see some food dangling out of reach. Can you get it?

To avoid the need for stacking furniture and yet keep the food out reach, I added elastic to hang the corn. Kite string is still from the corn to the ground so the food can be easily pulled within reach. I figured once the squirrels had the corn, they could eat it there or store in their cheeks, similar to the original puzzle. But the main goal of the squirrels is to take the prize with them, so another battle and some interesting videos ensued.

Since the elastic connects the corn to the hanger, it feels like like the whole cob can be taken away. It took a couple tries for the rock squirrel in the video above to learn to dine in, rather than take it to go. The tree squirrel of course never even tries to eat the corn on the spot. In classic form, he immediately begins to chew the elastic until it breaks. In one case, in the movie below left, it breaks but gets tangled as he tries to abscond. I added a length of wire above the corn and the squirrels both figured out quickly to pull the cob down and strip it clean in a few minutes, without taking it with them. (bottom right video)