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Royal BC Museum – Where the Past Lives

Aliens Among Us

Squirrels

Gavin Hanke, Curator, Vertebrate Zoology, Royal BC Museum

I’m Gavin Hanke, Curator of Vertebrate Zoology at the Royal BC Museum.  BC’s tree squirrels, we have a few species.  They’re actually quite easy to identify. 

The most distinctive, I think and I think the most interesting is the Flying Squirrel.  Very soft, grey to brown pelt and, of course, you can’t miss that it’s got these flaps of skin to help it glide from tree to tree.  So, very distinctive, it’s nocturnal, it’s one of our native species.

The Red Squirrel, another one of our native species and Douglas Squirrel, also native.  They look very much alike.  The Red Squirrel has a nice, rusty, red back and a pale belly.  The Douglas Squirrel has more of a darker, brown back and this bright, orangey, cinnamon sort of a belly.  They’re quite distinctive.

Now for comparative purposes, here’s one of the invasives.  This is a Gray Squirrel.  A Gray Squirrel, next to a Red Squirrel, you can see that they are significantly different in size.  Now, Gray Squirrels come in a dark form and this is the typical, grizzled grey-brown form.  We also have the Fox Squirrel which is slowly making its way into the Okanagan region.  Fox Squirrels also look a lot like Gray Squirrels.  They are quite distinctive and easy to tell apart. 

The Red Squirrel, our native species, is more often found in coniferous forests and they are province wide.  They are widespread boreal forest animals.  The Gray Squirrel has only been introduced in a few locations, the Lower Mainland, southern Vancouver Island, and it really does well in and around people.  So, urban environments, parks, they are all over the place.  People do like to feed them so they do very well around us.  They also, because southern Vancouver Island is the Garry Oak ecosystem, these guys have an impact because they will eat the acorns of the Garry Oak.  Not only are they invading in urban environments, but they are also impacting a rare plant species in British Columbia.

Let’s face it, that’s a big squirrel.  They have the ability to dominate territory, they can evict other smaller native squirrels out of their nests if they wanted to.  Based on its sheer size and presence that is intimidating for our native species.  You can expect that a Gray Squirrel could have a severe impact on the native species if it invaded a new region.