Resources for finding squirrels & study sites
To use any Squirrel-Net module, you will first need to identify a squirrel species in nearby habitats Below is a list of resources that may be helpful in this respect.
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American Society of Mammalogists' (ASM) Mammals List search engine, where you can search species in the order Rodentia & family Sciuridae by state: http://www.mammalsociety.org/mammals-list
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Map of Life: A handy, geo-referenced species list, which can be filtered by state or point location. This is a good place to start: https://mol.org/regions/
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Field Guides: Check your campus library for regional or national field guides for mammals, such as “Mammals of North America” by Kays and Wilson, “Mammals of the Great Lakes Regions” by Allan Kurta, “The Mammals of Texas” by Schmidley and Bradley, or “Squirrels of North America” by T. Eder. https://books.google.com/books/about/Squirrels_of_North_America.html?id=Q6JFAQAAIAAJ
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Animal Diversity Web:Background information on squirrels with a list of citations: https://animaldiversity.org/accounts/Sciuridae/
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Tree of Life: More background information on squirrels with a list of citations: http://tolweb.org/Sciuridae
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State Agencies: Example of information from a state agency, with species descriptions and range maps for Montana: http://fieldguide.mt.gov/displaySpecies.aspx?family=Sciuridae
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Ask for Help: Ask a local mammalogist at your school or at a state wildlife agency about focal species and where to find them, or contact Squirrel-Net!
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You will also need to identify a suitable field site for conducting the lesson activities. At a minimum, we recommend that sites be publicly accessible and that animals are reliably detectable at the site. Consider trying to find a location where ~ 10 animals will be visible or detectable during the activity in an area that can be accessed by your students. For species that hibernate or estivate, you may need to learn more about the animals’ seasonal schedule and plan activities accordingly to coincide with periods when animals will be active.
Additional module-specific resources (e.g., sample IACUC protocols, national datasets, etc.) are available by request! To access the full suite of teaching materials and resources, please use this form: Request Access