Southern Fox Squirrel

Sciurus niger niger

(The new (though not official), all encompassing name for fox squirrels found in Florida. Including the former subspecies Sherman’s, Big Cypress and Bachman’s. Genetic testing in 2015 revealed there’s no big genetic differences)

Foxy Squirrel. You know you’re a cute little heartbreaker. With your stylish black head and white ears and nose. And your long fluff tail that’s nearly the length of your black, silver and tan body. You make gray squirrels look drab.

Southern fox squirrels are a subspecies of eastern fox squirrel native to Florida and Southern Georgia. They’re a fairly trendy, granola-type group, spending their time hugging trees and enjoying a mostly vegan diet with the occasional snack of insects and bird eggs. They spend a lot of time on the ground foraging for organic health-foods like fruit, nuts, seeds, acorns, fungi, buds and their favorite- pine seeds. If they get overweight on their nut diet they go see a nut-tritionist.

Because they spend so much time on the ground, have such a fluffy tail and are so big (1-3 lbs bigger than their dull cousins) they are often mistaken for small foxes. But being bigger isn’t always a good thing. They are slower than other squirrels and often get hit by cars. And sadly, that run over feeling isn’t their only threat.

They along with many other plant and animal species prefer to live in fire-maintained areas like longleaf pine/wiregrass sandhill communities. Prescribed fires (that mimic naturally occurring fire cycles) are crucial to those areas because they protect open grassy areas from being overgrown with brush, understory plants, and oaks. Unfortunately, that kind of arid land is also in hot demand for agriculture and commercial and residential development. It is estimated that only 10-20% of the Southern Fox Squirrel’s native habitat is still intact. The rest has been cleared, converted to pasture, overgrown from lack of fire or otherwise developed into Walmarts.

With less habitat there are now less Southern Fox Squirrels in the world. The ones that are left can live in the wild for 8-9 years and 10 or more in captivity. They breed in the winter and the summer but females only average 1 litter per year of 2-3 pups. They build eco-friendly compostable nests of spanish moss, leaves, twig and pine needles and take care of their babies for about 3 months. By the time they’re 9 months old they’re ready to have lil’ organically fed babies of their own.

They, like all existing species, play an important role in the web of life and deserve protection to forage, look foxy and breed for generations to come.

So, for fox sake, let’s continue the conservation needed for their survival and in the larger, grand connected scheme of life- ours.