New Jersey’s occurrence databases hold 171 red squirrel records, an occasional tally that puts it in the middle of the state’s mammal list. Most of those records trace to a very particular kind of forest rather than being spread evenly across the state.
A conifer specialist in an unlikely southern outpost
American red squirrels are built around cone crops, and pitch pine forest gives them one even in New Jersey’s mild climate. Records cluster hardest around Brendan T. Byrne State Forest in the Pine Barrens, home to a population that’s geographically cut off from the species’ main range across the northern Highlands and Kittatinny Ridge near Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area. That split leaves the Pine Barrens squirrels an isolated outpost, hemmed in by hardwood forest and development rather than connected conifer stands.
Middens, cone caches, and a loud alarm bark
A red squirrel caches conifer cones by the hundreds in a midden, a mounded pile of cone scales built up over generations at the base of a favored tree, and defends that stash with a sharp, rattling chatter aimed at anything that gets too close, squirrel, hawk, or hiker alike. That territorial habit means one loud bark from a pine stand can be the clearest sign of the species long before an animal is seen.
Status in New Jersey
NatureServe ranks the American red squirrel S4, apparently secure, and it’s native to New Jersey, though the Pine Barrens population’s isolation makes it more vulnerable locally than the statewide rank suggests.
Full species profile
