Researchers Surprised by Scarcity of Flying Squirrel
An inventory of Siberian flying squirrel habitats found the creature living in only 28 of the 80 recorded nesting areas.
“To be honest, no one had thought that the flying squirrel's situation would be this dire,” said Uudo Timm, a flying squirrel researcher to Eesti Päevaleht.
Timm added that the situation is "frustrating" even though researchers found eight new, unregistered nesting areas during the year.
Earlier checks had shown that 40 percent of registered nesting areas were inhabited.
The precise reasons for the dramatic decline in flying squirrel numbers is unknown. “The previous winters have seen more snow than usual and this could be the reason for many uninhabited nests, as the flying squirrel's natural enemies, the pine marten and the strix owl, have been unable to hunt their usual food due to thick snow cover and have had to seek food from above the snowline and tree tops,” added Timm.
The Siberian Flying Squirrel's range of habitat is from the Baltic Sea to the Pacific coast, including North Korea and northern Japan. In Estonia, the squirrel in mainly found in Lääne-Viru and Ida-Viru County, in the east of the country. It favors mature aspen forests.