Squirrel_HardwoodsandMast_Tompkins_Shannon_PorterTX_15June2020_Reel4021.mp3

Shannon Tompkins [00:00:00] You get back into the history of squirrels in east Texas and there used to be a ton of focus on it by game managers.

Shannon Tompkins [00:00:07] Parks and Wildlife had a couple of the, just the most incredible, incredibly insightful biologists they ever had. One was a fellow named Phil Goodrum, and then Dan Lay. And I'm sure that you may have heard of both of these men, but there was incredible amounts of research done on squirrels in the, beginning in the 1930s and showing, you know, populations, what, what type of woods they needed, what type of range or habitat they needed. And, you know, and averages of, of populations per, you know, per acre.

Shannon Tompkins [00:00:57] And it's interesting to look at some of the stuff from Phil Goodrum and Dan Lay from back in the 30s. I looked up some old stuff from Mr. Goodrum, who I was lucky enough to meet later in his life. They, a squirrel, eats about two pounds of food a week about, according to Phil. And back then, his research showed that about 60 percent of their food were acorns. Now that's predicated on, you know, acorns being available, but if acorns were available, they were about 60 percent of their food.

Shannon Tompkins [00:01:37] Phil Goodrum found no pine seeds in any squirrel's digestive tract, in the 1930s. Zero. Everything else, there was sweet gum and other things like that, but there were no pine.

Shannon Tompkins [00:01:54] So that just tells you how important hardwoods, particularly mast-producing hardwoods, and soft mast, as well as, as, as hard mast, is, is important to squirrels.

Shannon Tompkins [00:02:09] You know, we saw just tremendous transformation of forest from, you know, oak forest to, or mixed pine / oak, to softwood pine production.

Shannon Tompkins [00:02:25] And so, of course, you've lost, you lost, you know, untold amounts of habitat to squirrels over the over, over the 20th century.