Good Questions: Campaign Signs, Dogs In Cars & Acorns
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- Craig from Richfield and Beverly from Prior Lake asked: Who is responsible for removing campaign yard signs after the election?
State law says yard signs must be removed 10 days after the state's general election, but doesn't stipulate who is responsible for taking them down.
According to Michael Peterson, communications director for the city of Prior Lake, it's up to the sign's owner to remove the signs.
He adds that if the candidate or their staff doesn't remove them within 10 days, the city will. Those signs are then stored for two weeks in the city's public works building. After that time period, any unclaimed signs are thrown out.
"Those signs are expensive," Peterson said. "So somebody from the candidate's campaign staff usually recovers them fairly promptly."
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Lynn from Indian Creek, Wis., asked: Why do dogs like sticking their heads out car windows?
"No one knows for sure," said Uptown Veterinarian's Travis Anderson. "But I suspect it has something to do with their sense of smell more than the scenery."
The average dog has 250 million scent receptors, while the average human only has five million.
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Mary from Burnsville and Conrad from St. Cloud wrote to us wondering why they've seen so few acorns this year.
"Last year we would be on the deck and get pelted," Mary said. "And this year, nothing."
According to Val Cervenka, a forest entomologist with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, every tree is different. She suspects some of it has to do with the weather, but another explanation could be evolutionary.
"There are boom and bust years for acorns," Cervenka said.
She says that if oak trees were to produce many acorns every single year, all of the deer, squirrel, mice, turkeys and insects that eat acorns would know to go there and eat them up every year. But when there are bust years, those acorn predators stay away.
Then, every two to five years when the boom happens, the critters won't always be around.
Cervenka says all of the acorns then are not consumed, and can go on to become trees.
