If you know what a fox squirrel looks like and see any between now and January, a pair of Florida researchers wants the information.

Fox squirrels are really hard to miss.

They’re about twice the size of the gray squirrels you see in city parks and are distinctively marked with a dark face mask.

They also have a pretty bushy tail, which is the origin of the common name.

You are unlikely to confuse them with any other Florida critter.

Sometimes you see them loping across an open area where there are pines or sitting on top of a fence post in rural areas.

I don’t see them very often myself. I think the last ones I saw were at Hatchineha Ranch on a tour after The Nature Conservancy took over the site.

The research project involved in asking the public to report sightings is being conducted by the University of Florida Department of Wildlife Ecology and Conservation and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.

The main researchers are Professor Bob McCleery and Courtney Hooker, a graduate assistant in the Department of Wildlife Ecology and Conservation at the University of Florida.

So why would anyone want to collect information on fox squirrels, you might ask.

Because, like many species of Florida wildlife, they aren’t as common as they used to be.

Scientists estimate, based on habitat changes, that Florida’s fox squirrel population has declined by 85 percent since European settlement, but there are no firm estimates on the current population.

The remaining habitat, primarily longleaf pine forests, is often fragmented and sometimes bisected by roads, which is a danger since fox squirrels are slow-moving and roadkills have reduced the population, too.

Florida wildlife officials banned hunting of fox squirrels in wildlife management areas in 1991 and today they are not legal game even though road-killed animals can be taken as taxidermy specimens.

Habitat loss has been a bigger problem for fox squirrels than hunting, but continuing the classify an animal as a game species when its population appears to have tanked is not very enlightened wildlife management.

Researchers hope use whatever information the survey reveals to help to develop a new distribution map for the fox squirrel that will be used to improve management and conservation of the species.

If report fox squirrel sightings,  go to  https://public.myfwc.com/hsc/foxsquirrel/GetLatLong.aspx.

If you have questions, contact Hooker at foxsquirrel@ifas.ufl.edu.


John Beckner, a Sarasota botanist and orchid expert, died recently. He was 79. Beckner wrote the formal botanical description for scrub lupine, an endangered plant found only in Polk and Orange counties, in 1982.

He was helpful in my research on the life of James McFarlin, the first person to consider the rare lupine a unique plant species. Beckner actually knew McFarlin, who operated a nursery in Bradenton in his later years.

I had the pleasure of meeting him at a scrub lupine reintroduction site near Auburndale a couple of years ago. He was interesting and quite knowledgeable.


The fall North American Migration Count is planned Saturday. This is a statewide survey to identify what migrating birds are moving through the state as well as  their location and numbers.

Contact Polk County coordinator Paul Fellers at 863-293-0486 for more information or to participate.