A flying squirrel in Virginia that’s been federally listed as endangered since 1985 suffered a setback last fall during Hurricane Helene. Researchers are trying to better understand how many of these squirrels are still alive and how to help.
These squirrels live in Canada and the northern United States. Further south, they are only found in high elevations of Virginia, North Carolina and Tennessee, where red spruce and Fraser fir trees grow.
Overlogging killed off a lot of these forests, and because spruce trees need cooler temperatures, climate change threatens them too. High winds during Hurricane Helene last fall decimated some of these areas. Conservationists are working to plant new trees.
Virginia Tech researcher Katie Gorman said one temporary solution could be installing nest boxes for the squirrels on top of mountains, because it will take years for the new trees to grow.
“So in the meantime, this could give them, kind of like a lifeboat,” Gorman said. “And that could be a valuable conservation tool.”
Gorman is analyzing audio recordings of northern flying squirrels from the areas that were impacted by Helene, comparing that with data from previous years. That information will help conservationists better understand the impacts Helene had for these squirrels. Which can in turn help them better understand how to focus their efforts to preserve the last remaining spruce-fir forests in Appalachia.
