With 4,415 records, the red squirrel is one of the most frequently recorded mammals in Michigan’s mapped data, and its reports track the state’s conifer country closely: Isle Royale’s boreal spruce-fir forest, the Keweenaw Peninsula, and the jack pine plains that stretch across the northern Lower Peninsula.
Cone caches drive the map
Red squirrels spend the growing season clipping green conifer cones and piling them into large caches called middens at the base of a favorite tree, then live off those stored seeds all winter. That habit is exactly why Isle Royale, blanketed in spruce and fir, produces such a dense cluster of records, and why the jack pine stands of the northern Lower Peninsula, best known as Kirtland’s warbler country, are another conifer stronghold for the species.
A squirrel that announces itself
Records run high from May through September and stay noticeably lower in November and December, tracking both the cone harvest and the loud, chattering territorial calls red squirrels give through the warmer months, sounds that make them far easier to notice than most of Michigan’s smaller mammals.
Status in Michigan
NatureServe ranks the red squirrel S5, secure, and Michigan lists it as native. It’s recorded across the state’s conifer belt from Lake Superior’s shore down through the northern Lower Peninsula’s pine country.
Full species profile
