Without everybody, we wouldn’t have this story. “You need lots of people with specific skills, including statistical analysis and research, someone who is good with fungi and lab work, people who know mammals, foresters and ecologists, people on the ground with the game commission to help us manage habitats,” Turner says. IF ALL OF THIS SOUNDS COMPLICATED, IT IS. There’s no way to go through that much material to find a single chirp, so we are working on the last step, getting an automated computer program to sift out northern flying squirrel calls.” Just from last year, we have 600 gigabytes of files to go through. The problem is that the detector is set off by anything, bats flying by, raindrops, a deer stepping on a stick. “We have isolated their chirp, and we record for a week or two in a specific location. “We are using ultrasonic acoustic detectors, recording them as they communicate by chirping,” Turner says. The majority of the northern flying squirrels captured in recent years have been in the Poconos, though one was captured in Warren County and one was found in Potter County.īecause it can take thousands and thousands of hours to corral just one flying squirrel in a live trap, researchers are taking a new path. Live-trapping is a very labor-intensive process as we bait the traps in the evening and check them at first light daily because our primary goal is not to harm any of the species.”Įlectric cooperative members in territories served by Cambridge Springs-based Northwestern Rural Electric Cooperative (REC), Youngsville-based Warren EC, Mansfield-based Tri-County REC, Wysox-based Claverack REC and Forksville-based Sullivan County REC are the most likely Pennsylvanians to observe the elusive critters in the wild. In an effort to locate where they are, we have placed over 700 nest boxes across the state, and we have also done some live-trapping. “I have personally handled around 30 of those. “That gives you a good idea of how rare they are,” Turner says. “It is a mammal that is very secretive and rare, so they get ignored by a lot of people because it takes a lot of time and work to figure them out, but I like the challenge.”įewer than 50 northern flying squirrels have been located in Pennsylvania since 1995. “The northern flying squirrel is very rare and very difficult to find,” Turner reports. He and his university colleagues wrote a grant to obtain funding specifically to determine the distribution of the northern flying squirrel in Pennsylvania. He has been studying northern flying squirrels since 1995 when he was a part of a study team at Wilkes University in Wilkes-Barre, Pa. Greg Turner, the PGC state mammologist, is one of those people. However, there is a group of people determined to halt the decline in the northern flying squirrel numbers and, if possible, increase their population in the state through forest management. Because of human behavior in destroying their habitat, the conifer forest, they have been wiped out in Pennsylvania almost entirely.”
![northern flying squirrel northern flying squirrel](https://www.worldatlas.com/upload/1a/6c/69/carolina-northern-flying-squirrel-on-tree.jpg)
“It is a native Pennsylvania species that was here prior to the European colonization. Williams, information and education supervisor for the Pennsylvania Game Commission (PGC). “The northern flying squirrel, which is listed as endangered in Pennsylvania, is a part of the state’s historic population of wildlife,” says William M.
![northern flying squirrel northern flying squirrel](https://www.worldatlas.com/r/w2000-h1125-q90/upload/6b/c6/4f/northern-flying-squirrel.jpg)
![northern flying squirrel northern flying squirrel](https://johnsonpestcontrol.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/northern_flying_squirrel.png)
The northern flying squirrel, on the other hand, is in trouble despite its almost-identical appearance. Once found only in the southern United States, they have slowly but steadily crept northward until they have taken over much of Pennsylvania. When they are seen gliding from treetop to treetop to rooftop in the darkness, they are often mistaken for a bat or a bird. However, these nocturnal creatures go about their lives seldom noticed - unless they inadvertently end up in a chimney with no way out.
Northern flying squirrel skin#
The southern flying squirrel, with its disproportionately large eyes, conspicuous skin flaps and a flattened tail to assist in gliding, is prevalent in much of the state. While to the average Pennsylvanian, it appears as if one could easily be substituted for the other, they are very different. It is almost impossible to distinguish between a northern flying squirrel and a southern flying squirrel without close observation of the hairs on their chest (if the hairs are white from tip to base, it’s a southern flying squirrel if they are white at the tip, but darker at the base, it’s a northern flying squirrel).