Anybody work in an area where the catch black squirrels? I have read they are just a different color of the eastern gray squirrel.

We have lots of them in certain areas. The ones we have are fox squirrels

That is correct- just a recessive trait in gray squirrels.

A city we service, Kent, OH, was well known for squirrels with this recessive trait. It used to be one of their claims to fame, with a festival and 5K. http://www.kentohiohistory.org/squirrel/black_squirrel.html It is even mentioned in the Wikipedia entry on "black squirrels"


Over the past thirty years the recessive trait has traveled and it is not uncommon to find black squirrels anywhere in the Akron/Kent region.

Here is a picture of a recent catch of a litter from inside a house. As you can see, they are mostly gray in color but you can see one of the litter mates got the recessive black genes.

If I'm correct, there are a couple of towns and cities that have nothing but black squirrels. One is in Wisconsin. In southern Wisconsin I find them very rare. I've caught a couple but I've caught more albinos. What you've read is correct. They are a color phase of the grey squirrel.

That means that everything we read about in high school biology is baloney! Black is the dominant color. Then why aren't ALL grey squirrel black?

P.S. We catch a lot of squirrels in houses each year and it looks like this year could be a record breaker. If we catch a green or yellow one it won't surprise me.

There is always one black sheep in the family.....We have a bunch around us, out of all the ones we sent to Mepps last year, 20 % of the overall catch was black color phase squirrels.

Check this one out. Not a real good picture because of the cage wire.

Theres truck loads over here...see them just as much as the grey...they are called Melenistic....just a color phase of the grey...I see them every single day all over !

You're fairly close to me Joe. I hope black squirrels start showing up in my area.

just went on vacation in the quad cities Illinois , iowa.loads of em there,got back to town the other day and saw one run in the alley at the dollar general ,surprised me

When Lewis and Clark set out to document the West, most of the squirrels they saw were Black phase, I think I learned that on here a couple of years ago.

Our new house it pretty much located out in the middle of no where, quite a few acres of mature hickories and oaks, and was thinking about trying to relocate a few down here and see if they took.

If anybody is catching them during ADC work, or has some that could be captured for relocation send me a PM.

Make sure it is legal first. If you are less than 40 miles from me, I can help. Not legal if more than 40 miles.

I just can't help but chuckle at the great collaboration of minds that must have come up with the Illinois relocation rules.

Don't get me wrong. I just met with Jim and his kids at the Illinois meeting a couple weeks ago. They are great people!

But you've got to think that the animal rules for that state were decided in a speakeasy in Chicago during prohibition.

I grew up in small town in southern Michigan, and all of the squirrels in town were black. The squirrels in the countrysides were big fox squirrels. One time on way to school, walking in three foot of snow, uphill both ways, we saw a total freak of nature and thought about alerting the local newspaper of our find of a grey black squirrel!

That there's funny - I don't care who ya are.