Red squirrel records cluster hardest in Denali National Park and Preserve’s spruce forest, with more along the Copper River delta and on Kodiak Island’s national wildlife refuge. The Kodiak population isn’t native. This squirrel was introduced to parts of the Kodiak Archipelago decades ago as part of a wider effort to establish fur-bearing species there, alongside animals like pine marten.
Everywhere it lives, this squirrel depends on a reliable conifer cone crop. In Alaska that means white and black spruce forest across the Interior, where it builds one central cone cache, called a midden, at the base of a favored tree and defends it fiercely year-round. It also takes bird eggs, nestlings, and fungi to round out the diet.
Sightings build through spring and peak in June, when squirrels are most vocal defending territory and breeding, then ease off through the darker months. That pattern reflects the state’s short window of easy access and long daylight more than any real shift in how many squirrels are out there.
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