Western Gray Squirrel - Recent Troubles

Recent Troubles

The western gray squirrel was listed as a threatened species in Washington state in 1993. Populations of the western gray squirrel have not recovered from past reductions. They are threatened with habitat loss, road-kill mortality and disease. Habitat has been lost due to urbanization, catastrophic wild fires, and areas of forest degraded by fire suppression and overgrazing, allowing the invasion of scotch broom. Notoedric mange, a disease caused by mites, becomes epidemic in western gray squirrel populations and is a major source of mortality. Other species of eastern gray squirrels, fox squirrels, California ground squirrels and Wild Turkeys are expanding and compete with the western gray.

Listed as extirpated in some California areas, the western gray squirrel in southern California is generally found only in the mountains and surrounding foothill communities. Local rehabilitation experts recount the Eastern Fox Squirrels were released in urban regions Los Angeles throughout the 20th Century. Fox squirrels (Sciurus niger) were introduced to the Los Angeles area in about 1904. Civil war and Spanish American war veterans residing at the Sawtelle Veteran’s Home on Sepulveda and Wilshire Boulevards brought fox squirrels as pets to this site from their homes in the areas surrounding the Mississippi Valley (possibly Tennessee). Other introductions of fox squirrels to the Los Angeles area may have taken place during more recent times but detailed records are not available. These aggressive cousins drove the more reclusive western grays back into the mountains, where competition was not so strong. This non-native species introduction appears to be the largest threat in the southern California area.