At 1,411 records, the eastern gray squirrel is the most frequently reported mammal in Mississippi’s atlas, mapped across 67 counties with Jackson and Hinds leading at 231 and 170. This is native ground for the species, and the map reflects it.
A squirrel built for a hardwood pantry
Gray squirrels live where oaks, hickories, and pecans drop a reliable crop. Each fall a squirrel buries hundreds of nuts one at a time across its home range, then finds many of them again by smell under the leaf litter. That dependence on mast keeps the species centered on hardwood forest, from the bottomland pockets at Sandhill Crane National Wildlife Refuge to the oak-rich tracts of Holly Springs and Tombigbee national forests, but it also adapts readily to town. Shaded neighborhoods and places like Lefleur’s Bluff State Park in Jackson hold their own resident squirrels.
Two litters and a busy October
Gray squirrels raise two litters a year in Mississippi’s mild climate, one from a midwinter mating and another from late spring, with two to four young born in a leaf drey or tree cavity. Reports stay strong all year and crest in April, August, and October, and the autumn crest is no mystery. October is when the mast crop falls and squirrels spend whole days on the ground cutting, burying, and digging.
Status in Mississippi
NatureServe ranks the eastern gray squirrel S5, Secure, in Mississippi. The species is native to the state, and USGS NAS does not list it as nonindigenous here.
Full species profile
