Day 4

Causes of death

• • Predation: Predatory birds, foxes, cayotes, bobcats, mountain lions, raccoons, cats, snakes.

  • Sexual Competition: Squirrels compete with eachother agressivly in mating bouts.

  • Disease: Squirrel Fibroma virus

  • Other causes: Inclement weather and car accidents.

Competition

• • Inter-species – within the species: Males competeing with other males for mating.

  • Intra-species – with other species: Competeing with birds and other native small animals for food resources.

  • What do they compete over: Food, Mates, Territory.

  • Affect of invasive species: Inasive species do not affect the grey squirrel, however, the grey squirrel is a highly invasive species in some areas due to their breeding cycle.

IUCN Rating

• • What is the rating? Least concern, 3.1.

  • Population: Billions.

  • Population Trend: Increasing.

Impact of Humans

• • What impacts have occurred: Humans will hunt squirrels for fun, food, and fur. Along with that a good number of squirrels are killed by humans in car accidents as well.

  • Potential Future impacts: Scientists will be futher reasearching the grey squirrel and coming up with plans to control numbers on the invasive species.

  • How long have humans been interacting with species: Early 1840s is when humans started interact with squirrels and started to import squirrels to colonize.

  • Efforts being made to minimize impacts: No major efforts of any sort to be reported.