Squirrels are a common sight, seemingly everywhere in wild and urban nature. Their chattering antics in city parks delight us while their raids on our backyard gardens and birdfeeders never fail to exasperate. But squirrels are more than amusing backyard entertainers, and few of us know much about them or fully appreciate their role in keeping the environment healthy. As stress on the natural world intensifies, should we be paying more attention to the plight of squirrels?
In Squirrel, Nancy Castaldo shines new light on this familiar backyard mammal, exploring their staggering diversity (they're found on all continents but Antarctica) and the many surprising ways they shape our world, our communities, and our cultures. Each chapter explores an aspect of squirrels and their close and sometimes fraught association with humans: their importance to myriad ecosystems through sophisticated food-caching strategies; their introduction to nineteenth-century urban parks as adorable ambassadors for nature; their complicated global status as both invasive and endangered; their role as celebrated cultural icons and social media memes; and ultimately, why we must prevent population declines and protect their well-being while we can. Like other wildlife species, squirrels are increasingly stressed by climate change, and their speculative fate may foreshadow our own. The book includes a detailed bibliography, an exhaustive list of squirrel species and their status, and tips for coexisting peaceably with squirrels in our yards and neighborhoods. Chapters are introduced by exquisitely drawn historical illustrations. "Charming, thoughtful, and gorgeously rendered, Castaldo's Squirrel delivers the very best of classical nature writing with a modern twist. If we can learn to love and protect these unheralded, quotidian creatures, perhaps we do indeed stand a chance against the larger uncertainties we collectively face."---Karen Pinchin, author of internationally bestselling "Kings of Their Own Ocean" "They're ubiquitous but mysterious, adorable but sometimes reviled, ordinary but endlessly surprising. Almost everyone sees squirrels daily, yet we know almost nothing about these acrobatic backyard mammals. Thank you, Nancy Castaldo, for this delightful, riveting, thought-provoking book, and for finally giving squirrels the attention they deserve. I'll be thinking and talking about Squirrel for a long time."---Sy Montgomery, author of "Of Time and Turtles" "Maybe you love them. Maybe you think they're annoying tree rodents. No matter how you see them, in "Squirrel: How a Backyard Forager Shapes Our World" by Nancy Castaldo...you'll learn about one of America's most familiar wild animals. They're adorable.... They're social media darlings. They're dinner for some people. They're ecological necessities for all of us: you can't get rid of them, nor would you really want to. Most of all, Castaldo says, squirrels as a species are stressed and they need us, so read on."---Terri Schlichenmeyer, Farm World
