For a moment, I had thought about titling this, "What color are your squirrels?" but that seemed more than a bit tacky. Growing up in the midwest, I remember when the red squirrel population almost equal to the gray squirrel, perhaps even larger. Today, the red squirrel has been displaced almost completely by its gray cousin.
The Eastern Gray Squirrel grows to 20 inches in lengh and breeds twice a year, with an average five year lifetime. (When you see them chasing each other, usually it is a male chasing a female.) They prefer white oak trees but will settle for birch, elm, or others. Their diet is almost anything - nuts, blossoms, insects, fruit. baby birds and eggs, and the article says even each other!
Wiki tells that there are theories of why the gray squirrel is displacing the red squirrel world-wide. The gray squirrel is stronger and able to store more fat for winter. It also is more adaptive to the destruction of food habitats. It is essentially out-muscling the red squirrel for food resources, leading to a diminished red squirrel population. Another possibility is the gray squirrel is a carrier for the parapoxvirus, which is deadly to the red squirrels, but does not seem to affect the gray squirrels.
Although it is displacing the native squirrel, Grey squirrels 'do not harm woodland birds in England' is a recent conclusion by the British Trust for Ornithology and Natural England. Although the squirrels may be a predator, the reduction of one or two birds from the nest can actually increase the survival rate for the remaining birds. Surplus breeding birds may prevent a decline in populations. The British article does comment that the parapoxvius is a pustular dermatitis that kills a red squirrel within four or five days.
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