The Urbanization of the Eastern Gray Squirrel in the United States

Abstract

If they had tuned in to radio station wrc on July 12, 1934, residents of Washington, D.C., could have heard a talk by Vernon Bailey, the recently retired chief field naturalist of the U.S. Bureau of Biological Survey. Bailey was best known for his involvement in controversies over wolf eradication in the West, but his radio talk that day was on a subject closer to home and less politically charged, at least on the surface: “Animals Worth Knowing around the Capitol.” While he touched on a number of Washington-area animals that were “worth knowing,” he singled out one type for special attention: gray squirrels, which he described as “probably our best-known and most loved native wild animals, as they are not very wild and, being very intelligent, accept and appreciate our hospitality and friendship.”1 Compared to most of his listeners, Bailey was unusually well informed about the biology and ecology of urban squirrels, which he had been feeding in the backyard of his townhouse in the Kalorama Triangle neighborhood for decades. Even so, his interest in the species and his belief in its virtues would probably not have surprised many of his fellow Washingtonians. By the early twentieth century, eastern gray squirrels (Sciurus carolinensis), once limited to rural areas, had become the most visible nondomesticated mammals in American cities. Like Bailey, numerous naturalists, zoo directors, educators, park designers, and poets had attempted to convince the public of gray squirrels'…