With 3,112 Kentucky records, the eastern gray squirrel stands second only to the white-tailed deer among the state’s documented mammals. Its map spans 95 counties, anchored by hardwood country: Mammoth Cave National Park, Land Between the Lakes, and Daniel Boone National Forest hold the heaviest place counts.
A squirrel of the hardwoods
Gray squirrels run on tree mast: acorns, hickory nuts, walnuts, and beechnuts, supplemented in season by buds, flowers, and fungi. They den in hollow trunks when cavities are available and build leaf nests called dreys when they are not, which keeps them tied to mature timber. Kentucky’s hardwood ridges and river bottoms, from the eastern knobs to the western lowlands, provide exactly that from one end of the state to the other.
Two peaks, one pantry
Counts crest in April and again from September into October, and both highs trace back to food. Spring sends squirrels after buds and fresh growth, while autumn is caching season, when each animal buries thousands of nuts one at a time and recovers them later by memory and smell. Forgotten caches sprout, which makes the gray squirrel a quiet planter of the same hardwood forest it depends on.
Status in Kentucky
NatureServe ranks the eastern gray squirrel S5, Secure, in Kentucky, and the species is native to the state. USGS NAS does not list it as nonindigenous here.
Full species profile
