At 2382 records, the eastern gray squirrel sits near the very top of Arkansas’s mammal list. Reports run from Washington County’s hardwood hills and Craighead County’s Crowley’s Ridge through Pulaski County and deep into the Ozark and Ouachita forests. This is the squirrel of mature timber, and Arkansas still has plenty of that.
Built for the mast crop
Gray squirrels live by the acorn and hickory nut crop. Each fall they bury thousands of nuts one per hole and recover many of them by smell months later; the forgotten ones become next year’s seedlings. That economy ties them to closed-canopy hardwood forest with a thick understory, exactly what the record shows at Ozark National Forest, Hot Springs National Park, Petit Jean State Park, and the wooded ridge at Crowley’s Ridge State Park.
Two peaks on the calendar
Reports crest twice, once in April when spring litters leave the nest, and again from October through December, when squirrels work the ground nonstop cutting and caching mast. Winter cold does not stop them. They stay active all year, retreating to leaf nests and tree cavities only for the worst stretches.
Status in Arkansas
NatureServe ranks the eastern gray squirrel S5, Secure, and the species is native to Arkansas. USGS NAS does not list it as nonindigenous in the state.
Full species profile
