Kentucky’s 221 fox squirrel records lie scattered across 53 counties, from Fayette and Madison in the Bluegrass west to Fulton on the Mississippi, a far fainter trace than the eastern gray squirrel leaves across the same ground.
The big squirrel of open woods
The fox squirrel is the largest tree squirrel in North America, close to twice a gray squirrel’s bulk, with rusty underparts and a long, full tail. It favors open, parklike woods and scattered trees along field edges rather than dense continuous forest, and it travels the ground between trees far more readily than its gray cousin. The open hardwoods around Land Between the Lakes and the far-western bottomlands near Ballard Wildlife Management Area are classic country for it.
On the ground in every season
That comfort on the ground shapes its whole year. Fox squirrels forage for acorns, hickory nuts, corn, and buds, often well away from the nearest trunk, and they stay active through winter, riding out cold snaps in a den or leaf nest but never hibernating. Kentucky’s counts run fairly even across the months, rising modestly in April as the year’s first litters near the age of leaving the nest.
Status in Kentucky
NatureServe ranks the fox squirrel S5, Secure, in Kentucky, and the species is native to the state. USGS NAS does not list it as nonindigenous here.
