Who Should Celebrate National Squirrel Appreciation Day? Tree Lovers, Seed Savers, and Gardeners for Starters

January 21, 2001

Today is National Squirrel Appreciation Day, founded in 2001 by Christy Hargrove, a wildlife rehabilitator in Asheville, North Carolina.

Christy created the special day to acknowledge that food sources for squirrels are scarce in mid-winter.

Gardeners are generally of two minds when it comes to squirrels. They either don't mind them, or they really dislike them.

Thanks to their tremendous athleticism, Squirrels are a challenging pest in the garden.

For instance, it may seem impossible, but squirrels have a 5-foot vertical.

Nowadays, their ability to leap is well-documented on YouTube.

Squirrels are also excellent sprinters and swimmers. And they are zigzag masters when they run - a wicked skill that helps them evade predators.

A squirrel nest is called a drey. Squirrels make their nests with leaves, and the mother lines the inside of the drey with grass.

As squirrels bury acorns and other seeds, they sometimes forget or don't return to some of their buried food. But, lucky for squirrels, they can smell an acorn buried in the ground beneath a foot of snow.

As gardeners, we should remember that squirrels perform an essential job for trees. They help the forest renew itself by caching seeds and burying them. The job squirrels do in caching seeds is critical to some trees' survival.