Cottage Q&A
QUESTIONLast summer, a friend and I visited a nearby island on our Haliburton lake, where we watched a black squirrel stripping pinecones from a tree. I've never seen a black squirrel on the lake - only red - and we also wondered how he got to the island. We started canoeing back to the cottage, and lo! The black squirrel was swimming at a furious pace across the channel to shore. He scrambled straight up the rock face on the mainland and into the woods. We were flabbergasted! Has anyone else seen this kind of squirrelly action?
ANSWER
To answer your last question first, neither Franco Mariotti, a biologist with Science North in Sudbury, Ont., nor Gary Ure, of Second Nature Wildlife Management in Kingston, Ont., has happened to run across any dog-paddling black squirrels, but both have seen red ones swimming. "Even across a river with a pretty strong current, they don't seem to have any problem," Mariotti says.
As for the black squirrel's presence on your lake, there is some evidence that this species is currently extending its range north. Mariotti has had frequent reports of them west of Sudbury - where the north shore of the North Channel appears to be their upper limit for now - and recently heard of a few more unusual sightings, east of Sudbury. Ure adds that more black squirrels have also been seen on the Canadian Shield, north of Kingston, in recent years. Climate change could be part of the reason they're on the move, so you may see more of them in future.
The nearby island off your shoreline may be part of your squirrel's normal range, suggests Mariotti. Squirrels have excellent eyesight, and the prospect of a swim wouldn't stop them from exploring a likely looking source of food. However, being out on the water does expose them to birds of prey - which explains your swimmer's furious pace.
* Published in the March 2004 issue of Cottage Life
