| Eastern Gray Squirrel | ||||||||||||||||||
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| Sciurus carolinensis |
The Eastern Gray has also been introduced into a variety of locations on the west coast of North America, including the Peninsula south of San Francisco. It was introduced into England at the turn of the 20th century and spread across the UK, leading to a reduction in the population of the native red squirrel. It is known there simply as the Grey Squirrel.
The Eastern Gray Squirrel is common throughout most of its natural range and wherever it has been introduced. It is very tolerant of humans and easily learns to take food left or offered by picnickers.
Like many members of the family Sciuridae, the Eastern Gray Squirrel is a scatter-hoarder, that is, it hoards food in numerous small caches, for recovery later. Some of these caches (especially those made near the site of a sudden abundance of food) are retrieved within hours or days, for re-burial in a more secure site. Others are not retrieved until months later. It has been estimated that each squirrel makes several thousand caches each season. The squirrels have very accurate spatial memory for the locations of these caches, and use distant and nearby landmarks to retrieve them. Olfaction is used only once the squirrel is within close range (a few centimetres at most) of the cache site.
Particularly in urban situation where the predation risk is reduced, both albino and melanistic forms of the Eastern Gray Squirrel are quite often found. There are well established colonies of melanistic (black) individuals in Victoria Park, London, Ontario, Canada (with a daughter colony at Kent State University, Ohio), and Princeton, New Jersey. Additionally there is a colony of albino (white) individuals in the town of Exeter, Ontario.