With 5,660 occurrence records, the eastern gray squirrel is the most reported mammal in South Carolina’s atlas, present in every corner of the state. Richland, Charleston, and Greenville counties carry the largest totals, and Congaree National Park alone contributes more than 250 records from its old-growth bottomland hardwoods.
A hardwood specialist that moved in with us
Gray squirrels live on tree seeds, above all acorns and hickory nuts, so their map is the map of South Carolina’s hardwoods: oak and hickory coves in the Upstate, bottomland forest along the Congaree, maritime woods at Hunting Island and Edisto Beach state parks, and the shade trees of nearly every town in between. They nest in leaf dreys and tree cavities and shift between the two as weather and predators demand, which is part of why they thrive as readily in a planted landscape like the South Carolina Botanical Garden as in Sumter National Forest.
Busy in every month
Squirrels never hibernate, and South Carolina’s records appear in all twelve months. Two surges stand out, an April peak and a second rise in October. The spring high comes as winter-born young leave the nest and join their mothers above ground, while the autumn rise matches the caching season, when each squirrel buries hundreds of nuts one at a time and spends much of the day visibly at work on the ground.
Status in South Carolina
NatureServe ranks the eastern gray squirrel S5, Secure, in South Carolina, and the species is native across the state. USGS NAS does not list it as nonindigenous here.
Full species profile
