Pennsylvania’s fox squirrel record is weighted hard to the state’s western half. Of 1,090 records, Allegheny County alone supplies 606, Erie County adds 214, and Beaver and Lawrence counties follow, with Presque Isle State Park and Point State Park leading the named sites.
A squirrel of open, parklike woods
The fox squirrel is the largest tree squirrel in North America, and it is built for a different landscape than its gray cousin: open woods of big, widely spaced oaks and hickories, fencerows, woodlots, and parkland rather than dense continuous forest. That preference fits western Pennsylvania’s farm-and-woodlot country, and it explains why a place like Pymatuning State Park, where fields meet mature trees, holds the species so well.
Spring and fall pulses on the ground
Fox squirrels do not hibernate, but their year has two busy seasons. Counts crest in April, when breeding activity keeps adults on the move, and again in September, when the autumn nut crop sends them to the ground to bury acorns and hickory nuts one at a time, each in its own shallow cache. A squirrel on the ground gives itself away, and the record shows both pulses plainly.
Status in Pennsylvania
NatureServe ranks the fox squirrel S5, Secure, in Pennsylvania, and the species is native to the state. USGS NAS does not list it as nonindigenous here.
