Squirrel on Fire

When I bought my house a few years ago, a realtor advised me that the location I was interested in was undesirable because it was overwhelmed with “vegetative fuel”. That’s a fancy euphemism for “trees” in the business. I found another realtor and bought a house surrounded by beautiful Slash Pines, Live Oaks and Saw Palmettos.

Over the last few weeks my town has been plagued by wildfires. With an exceptionally long dry season and little rain in the forecast, the vegetative fuel forest that has enveloped the neighborhood now seems foreboding. Despite the lack of any pattern, arson was suspected for each fire, making the situation all the more concerning.

© Pete Corradino

On April 17^th, a 5-acre brush fire broke out up the street, consuming one house and charring neighboring property. One burnt squirrel was discovered at the base of the power pole leading to the home and some began to blame the squirrel population for the outbreak of wildfires in the area.

Eastern Gray Squirrels (Sciurus carolinensis) are well known for their high wire acts. As nimble as they may be while crossing a line, if they touch a second line they can create a surge, electrocuting the animal and in this case, sending a flaming squirrel to the ground and starting a fire.

This isn’t the first time it has happened and it won’t be the last. Dry conditions continue in South Florida and hungry squirrels are on the move. I’m hoping for rain because we need it but I’m also concerned for the squirrels climbing around in the vegetative fuel in my back yard.  

The photograph of the Eastern Gray Squirrel was taken in the mangrove forest of Secret Woods County Park in Fort Lauderdale, FL – far from any power lines. 

Stop It - The Burmese Python - Part II

In 2008 the USGS released a potential range map for Burmese Pythons (Python molurus bivittatus) in the United States. The startling suggestion was that the lower third of the continental US could be prime habitat. What it neglected to point out was that this tropical weather-loving snake can’t take the cold.

As evidence, in 2000 the Everglades National Park removed two Burmese Pythons. In 2005 they removed 94 more. In 2009 they removed the highest number ever at 367 followed by a decline in 2010 to 322 and in 2011 only 169 were found. (Click for ENP Removal Data) In 2010 Florida suffered a sustained period of cold weather. For ten days, the temperature remained un-Florida like and the consequence was the death of many of the invasive species (as well as many of our native one like the West Indian Manatee (Trichechus manatus) and American Crocodile (Crocodylus acutus).

The snakes are a huge problem. Necropsies have found the endangered Florida Woodrat (Neotoma floridana), Big Cypress Fox Squirrel (Sciurus niger avicinnia), Wood Storks (Mycteria americana), Everglades Mink (Mustela vison evergladensis) and recently a 76 pound deer in the belly of the snakes. 

Compounding the problem is the protective nature and prodigious offspring output of a female Python. One female can lay up to ninety eggs. Cold will keep them from spreading north. Strict laws are being put in place to ban the importation of the largest and most dangerous of the invaders and most of the locals are intent on dispatching them.

If only I could enlighten the media a little.

1)      Alligators rule the Everglades

2)      A handful of pet Anacondas have been found and they are not known to be breeding in the Everglades.

3)      The Everglades is over four million acres. The study of mammal population declines occurred in the Everglades National Park. The pythons do not have “voracious appetites”, nor are they “picking the Everglades clean”.

4)      The media has a stranglehold on their readers. We have a right to well researched, well written information. Not sensationalism.

To those that would release invasive snakes into the Everglades and to those in the media who perpetuate the python myths – Stop it. 

Baby New Year – The Gray Squirrel

Half of the Gray Squirrels (Sciurus carolinensis) alive today will not survive to 2013. This does not ease my mind regarding the predicament I find myself in on the day when a small, slightly-furred and sightless creature was found on a boardwalk deep in the heart of the Everglades. What to do?The lifespan of a Gray Squirrel averages 11 to 12 months which means half of them can live longer and some as long as ten years of age in the wild. It also means that from birth through adolescence there are plenty of hardships that lead to their demise. Poor nut crops and cone production can lead to insufficient food supply, and diseases combine as the two greatest causes of Gray Squirrel mortality. Predators including hawks, bobcats, raccoons and the tree climbing snakes also reduce the population size.

In the cypress forests of the Western Everglades, Gray Squirrels are relatively abundant and more frequently seen than their larger and more colorful cousin, the Big Cypress Fox Squirrel (Sciurus niger avicinnia). Mating season begins earlier in the south with courtship involving routine male competition, chasing of the female and a one-minute mating affair that results in 2-6 pups being born 44-46 days later.

Doe squirrels will build a secluded nest in the cavity or fork of a tree but still must protect their young from nest predators and cannibalistic squirrels. Pups are blind and naked with only the vibrissae whiskers to help them locate their mother in the nest. Within a few weeks they begin to grow fur and by week four they can open their eyes.

After only a week they have doubled their size from half an ounce to an ounce and as the pups grow, space in the nest dwindles. Occasionally they are accidentally pushed from the nest or dropped by the mother while transporting them.

This pup was found in the middle of the Fakahatchee Strand State Park boardwalk. It was seemingly unharmed and breathing fine. My choice was to find a rehabilitator to care for it or delicately move it from harms way and leave it for mama to come and get it. Having seen a squirrel close by, I left the pup and wished it well in 2012, hoping to see it in 2013.

Sand Trapped - The Big Cypress Fox Squirrel

People don’t appreciate squirrels. One person’s pest is another person’s treasure. Such was the case as I drove past a golf course on my way out of a gated community in Fort Myers. Bounding across the fairway was a large Big Cypress Fox Squirrel (BCFS). I slammed on the brakes and jumped out, camera in hand. The tan-bellied, salt-and-pepper backed squirrel was as interested in me as I was of it and we stood for a moment like two gunslingers, unflinching. A disgusted woman shook her head and headed after her ball.

The Big Cypress Fox Squirrel (Sciurus nigra avicennia), is an endemic subspecies here in southwest Florida. They’re found from the Caloosahatchee south through the mangroves along the Gulf of Mexico. Unlike most of Florida’s terrestrial mammals, the BCFS are diurnal (day active), ground foragers. They feed on pine and cypress cones, palmetto berries, bromeliad seeds and a host of other native seeds and fruits. They prefer an open understory in the pine flatwoods, cypress swamps and mangroves. What is unusual is that as development continues to slice up their habitat, leaving it more and more fragmented, the squirrels have taken to golf courses which retain characteristics of their preferred habitat – open grazing areas with forested refuges.

Golf course BCFS have been shown to be more gregarious. They mate year round and are less susceptible to food shortages. Land managers have helped protect the species by leaving natural vegetation and planting trees, shrubs and grasses around the golf courses that specifically benefit the BCFS. The problem is sustainability. Increasingly these squirrel-occupied urban islands become more separated from natural communities and any link to other populations requires hazardous and often fatal road crossings.

Additionally, foraging around a golf course may seem like the life of leisure but without the protection of a forest canopy the squirrels must keep an eye skyward for birds of prey.

Their relaxed social standards could put them at risk as well. Normally solitary, golf course squirrels that congregate are at greater risk of spreading diseases to one another like Squirrel Poxvirus. A BCFS was found to be infected in 2010 and although an outbreak has not been reported, the virus is spread by contact and would have the greatest impact on sociable squirrels.

Golf courses have benefited BCFS to a degree but ultimately these populations must remain connected to their backwoods neighbors or they are all doomed. Will anyone miss them when they’re gone? 

100 Dead Squirrels

In 1986, I learned as a teenager never to exaggerate anything that can be proven to be untrue. After our home in Venice, Florida escaped the passing of a tropical storm, I investigated the wind and rain damage and infamously reported discovering “100 dead squirrels”. My family was full of fact checkers and when I couldn’t turn up one live squirrel, they decided to torment me for the rest of my life. From that day forward every outlandish statement anyone made was met with “yeah right. And there are 100 dead squirrels.”

When my friend and wildlife scout Milla texted me that she had found 500 Sandhill Cranes in a field in Ortona, FL, I told her to stop licking Cane Toads. She sent a picture and a set of coordinates and offered me the task of checking it out myself.

Sandhill Cranes (Grus canadensis) range throughout North America but the Florida Sandhill Crane (G.c. pratensis), which is non-migratory, is considered an endangered subspecies, numbering about 4000 birds. The thin, four foot tall, grayish-brown birds with red caps are not differentiated by physical appearance, but by their migratory behaviors. The northern subspecies arrive in the Sunshine State around October and leave around March, while the Florida subspecies enjoy the rays year round.

Urban development of the prairies and pasturelands of central Florida has led to the decline of the Florida subspecies. On the bright side, the unusually rainy winter of 2010 promises to be a boon for the birds as nest success increases in wet winters.

Although I have seen pairs of Florida Sandhills from time to time, the massive flock of birds that I spotted in the sod farm near Ortona was most certainly a flock of northern “snowbirds”. These sandhills were probably feasting on insects, worms and to the chagrin of the sod farmers, grass seed.

A Fox Squirrel for Abigail

I once said the people don't appreciate squirrels enough. People run them over. Poison them. Shoot them. People punish them for their appetites around bird feeders. Or ignore them due to their ubiquity.

Several years ago my niece Abigail decided that Uncle Petie REALLY loves squirrels and anytime she shopped with her mother and saw anything with a squirrel on it - it ended up in the shopping basket and eventually in my home. I have a squirrel lamp, squirrel Christmas ornaments, squirrel salt and pepper shakers, squirrel books, cast iron squirrel drawer knobs, squirrel bird baths, a squirrel shirt that says "Protect Your Nuts" and the list goes on. I don't know if I ever really liked squirrels but now by default I must think squirrels are awesome.

On an Everglades trip 2 days ago - I was racing across Tamiami Trail - the first road built across the Everglades - and bringing 12 tourists out to the airboat ride when I saw a small furry woodland creature dart across the road. I yelled "Everglades Mink!" slowed the van and turned back west to get a better look. The woman in the passenger seat said calmly "it looks like a squirrel to me." And I yelled "Mangrove Fox Squirrel! My first one!"
There are three subspecies of Fox Squirrels (Sciurus niger) in the Everglades including the rare Big Cypress Fox Squirrel pictured here. (Sometimes referred to as the Mangrove Fox Squirrel and usually shouted into a microphone to tourists.) They're listed on the Florida Threatened mammal list and may soon be on the Federal Endangered Species list. Had I shown less enthusiasm, the group may have thought this just an ordinary black squirrel, but the speed at which I turned the vehicle around on a narrow 2-lane highway in the middle of the world's greatest swamp and the excitement in my voice was obviously infectious as everyone began snapping closeups of the melanistic rodent eating flowers.

The red bloom is that of the Cardinal Bromiliad and the squirrel was peeling back pieces and eating it like an Outback Steakhouse Bloomin' Onion. So cool.

Most of this subspecies of fox squirrels appear much lighter in color, possibly with orange and salt-and pepper colored fur. Habitat loss has limited their numbers and this diurnal species has to be on the lookout for birds of prey as well as eco-tourism vans.

Now when I see a squirrel - be it an Eastern Grey or a Fox Squirrel I can't help but think of my niece Abigail and how her excitement for squirrels has led to my even greater appreciation of them.

Thanks to Ma-Le for taking these photos while I helmed the van.


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