A story about the Western Gray Squirrel at JBLM: I attended a tour hosted by the JBLM biologist. The Western Gray is a protected squirrel and efforts on JBLM are to maintain and grow the population. The squirrels were getting squished by passing cars so JBLM built a "bridge" so the squirrel could avoid the busy road. BUT....our dear local pop did not use it. The numbers kept dropping so JBLM imported a small number of the Willamette Valley Western Gray Squirrel to boost the local population and add diversity to the gene pool. Interestingly, the new boosted squirrels started using the bridge! The biologist laughed stating that maybe OR squirrels were a bit smarter than our locals. And for tree lovers JBLM has 60K acres of forest and 20K acres of plains. The plains have very old Oregon White Oak where the squirrels live. JBLM also has a stand of Ponderosa Pine that are genetically different than Pines from the East side of WA and from the OR stands. These trees are incredible and so are the Oak stands. JBLM harvest millions of dollars of timber and manages the forest lands for sustainability. If JBLM was not there it would be very likely that development would now dominate. More information on the work JBLM does to protect habitats. https://jblm.armymwr.com/application/files/6415/6692/7436/Training_Area_Map.pdf
A story about the Western Gray Squirrel at JBLM: I attended a tour hosted by the JBLM biologist. The Western Gray is a protected squirrel and efforts on JBLM are to maintain and grow the population. The squirrels were getting squished by passing cars so JBLM built a "bridge" so the squirrel could avoid the busy road. BUT....our dear local pop did not use it. The numbers kept dropping so JBLM imported a small number of the Willamette Valley Western Gray Squirrel to boost the local population and add diversity to the gene pool. Interestingly, the new boosted squirrels started using the bridge! The biologist laughed stating that maybe OR squirrels were a bit smarter than our locals. And for tree lovers JBLM has 60K acres of forest and 20K acres of plains. The plains have very old Oregon White Oak where the squirrels live. JBLM also has a stand of Ponderosa Pine that are genetically different than Pines from the East side of WA and from the OR stands. These trees are incredible and so are the Oak stands. JBLM harvest millions of dollars of timber and manages the forest lands for sustainability. If JBLM was not there it would be very likely that development would now dominate. More information on the work JBLM does to protect habitats. https://jblm.armymwr.com/application/files/6415/6692/7436/Training_Area_Map.pdf