#gray squirrels

Florida Wildlife; vol. 10, no. 10. March, 1957. Illustration by Wallace Hughes.

Today’s backyard garden harvest... sometimes it’s like this: 

What can I say but “gray squirrels”: 

Dinner... those are our squash, purple hull peas & pole beans: 

No matter your age, if you go walking, see a cool rock & don’t put it in your pocket, can you really call what you’re doing “living”: 

Some rich couple thought it’d be romantic to release seven North American grey squirrels at the end of their wedding in the east of Ireland for...reasons. That’s as much backstory as you need to know. Few decades later and the native red squirrel’s confined to the west of the country, practically non-existent east of the River Shannon since greys out compete them for resources and carry squirrel pox which isn’t harmful to them but lethal to reds.

At first everyone assumed that the River Shannon had presented a geographical barrier to the spread of the greys. But there was another species that due to being perceived as a pest species as well as a range of other manmade and environmental factors had seen its range in Ireland pushed back to the west bank of the Shannon. Pine martens. Pine martens have a taste for squirrel you see, but they’d been coexisting in the ecosystem for millennia. Why weren’t the greys moving into their territory?

Pine Martens might have a taste for them, but red squirrels are a devil for them to catch coz they can go further out onto branches that won’t support a marten’s greater weight. Just like they wouldn’t support a grey squirrel’s greater weight.

The decline in grey populations where pine martens were reintroduced was first noticed during a marten conservation study and then expanded in conjunction with red squirrel conservation. Without the reds’ escape mechanism the greys soon became number one on their menu. It’s also thought that the mere presence of a predator in the area increases stress in the grey squirrel population, reducing successful breeding.

We have a melanistic gray squirrel on campus (I suppose it’s possible we have more than one, I don’t know!), but I have only seen him/her from a distance before.  Walking to the bus today, though, he was very close and I was able to get some pics!  I was so excited to see him again.

You go, little buddy.  Don’t get eaten by a hawk.

Most of our gray squirrels just look like this, you know, gray:

Wildlife in North Carolina. February 1982. Illustration by Duane Raver Jr.

Florida Wildlife, February 1962. Illustration by Wallace Hughes.

Florida Wildlife, February 1962. Illustration by Wallace Hughes.

Florida Wildlife, February 1962. Illustration by Wallace Hughes.