Black, red or dead: How Omaha became a hub for black squirrel scholarship

Three taxidermied penguins preside over Room 426 in Allwine Hall, standing atop a row of metal cabinets in the back corner. 

The Antarctic birds are locked in an everlasting staring contest with a stuffed hornbill whose craned neck protrudes from a bookcase holding a row of primate skulls. 

To the students who file into professor James Wilson’s mammalogy class, these are ordinary sights. 

What grabs their attention on this Monday afternoon are the short stacks of paper spread neatly across the black lab tables. 

Today they are receiving an unusual homework assignment with straightforward instructions: fan out across the Omaha metro area and count squirrels.

The squirrel census undertaken by Wilson’s students at the University of Nebraska at Omaha has become an annual fall tradition over the past 15 years.

Walking or driving slowly down their assigned streets, the aspiring biologists tally all the squirrels they see, whether black, red or dead. Their surveys have fueled Wilson’s research and built on UNO’s legacy as a hub of black squirrel scholarship.

Nearly all of the squirrels living in the Omaha area belong to the same species — the fox squirrel — but a genetic mutation causes some to produce a lot of melanin, making their fur black rather than the usual reddish-brown, Wilson said.

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Black squirrels exist in urban pockets across North America, but they have long enjoyed celebrity status in Council Bluffs, Iowa, where they make up roughly half of the local squirrel population. A black squirrel named Chipper serves as the city’s mascot, and a decades-old ordinance makes it illegal “to annoy, worry, maim, injure or kill” the rodents.

They used to be rare in Omaha, but Wilson’s analysis found that the critters have become more plentiful and expanded their paw print westward. Humans and the bridges they’ve built likely had something to do with that, he said.

James Wilson, a biology professor at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, assigns his students the task of counting red and black squirrels in the Omaha metro area every fall. Photo by Jeremy Turley / Flatwater Free Press

The long-running study has helped local biologists learn more about the region’s multicolored squirrel population, while providing students meaningful fieldwork close to campus.

Brett Andersen, who took Wilson’s class in 2013, reflects on the assignment as his first taste of the hands-on research he aspired to do from a young age. Now, he’s got a dream job working with at-risk species for the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission.

“You never expect that to be the first thing that’s going to kick-start your career, and yet here I am and I get to point back to that,” Andersen said.

Counting squirrels may seem like a trivial activity, but a decade down the road, having baseline information about the population could be really useful, Andersen said. He noted that monarch butterflies used to be plentiful, but they’re now one of the endangered species he’s monitoring.

“Even with common things, it’s still valuable to look at how they’re doing,” Andersen said.

Becoming part of the scenery

Peering out the passenger side window of a slow-moving sedan, Bella Madsen scanned front yards, trees and sidewalks for movement. 

“There’s one!” she excitedly exclaimed as a red squirrel darted across a west Omaha lawn. 

The senior biology major said taking a few hours to count squirrels helped her think more intentionally about the flourishing urban wildlife around her.

By the end of her survey, Madsen tallied 24 squirrels — only one of them black.

But a surveyor would’ve been hard-pressed to find any black squirrels in what is now Omaha a few centuries ago.

In 1843, John James Audubon encountered several black squirrels along the eastern edge of the Missouri River between St. Joseph, Missouri, and Council Bluffs, according to his journal entries. He never recorded seeing any along the west bank of the river.

The famous naturalist, known for his depictions and descriptions of American birds, misjudged the dark-colored rodent, believing it to be a distinct species.

A colleague dubbed the animal “Sciurus audubonii” in honor of Audubon’s son, but biologists later tossed the name after discovering it was merely a different shade of the common fox squirrel.

Ed Lueninghoener took a more scientific approach to studying the peculiar creatures.

Ed Lueninghoener collected several squirrel skulls while studying the rodents as a UNO graduate student in the early 1970s. Photo by Jeremy Turley / Flatwater Free Press

A meticulous “spot count” he performed in Council Bluffs as a UNO graduate student found a nearly even split between black and red squirrels, according to his 1973 master’s thesis. His poll of conservation officers revealed that black squirrels were “present in small numbers” on the Nebraska side of the river.

Wilson came across the thesis shortly after joining UNO’s biology department in the late 2000s. The Southern California native had studied rodents for several years, and he thought it would be interesting to pick up where Lueninghoener left off. Plus, he saw black squirrels as “super cute.”

“Omaha is a great city, but it is eight hours from anywhere wild,” Wilson said. “It’s a good local thing to do more research on.”

The first study Wilson authored on the area’s squirrels in 2013 found that black squirrels made up about 7.5% of the total squirrel population in the northern half of Omaha and roughly 4.5% in the city’s southern half.

Note: Arrows represent trend in black squirrel population since 1973. Source: Dr. James Wilson’s research paper (2013)

Wilson doesn’t know exactly how black squirrels arrived in Nebraska, but he suspects humans played a central role in growing the population. The agile tree dwellers could easily cross the river on bridges or in tow with an unbeknownst driver.

Hunters or black squirrel aficionados may have brought them over deliberately, he noted. Red and black squirrels also can breed together, sometimes creating offspring with mixed fur colors.

The professor has observed black squirrels as far afield as Lincoln, and he’s heard anecdotally there are some in other eastern Nebraska cities.

The 2013 findings prompted Wilson to ponder why black squirrels were growing in proportion. Could they have some kind of biological advantage over their red counterparts?

UNO grad student Amanda Ciurej measured the surface temperature of Omaha squirrels with an infrared thermal gun to see whether having light-absorbing dark fur helped the black ones stay warm in chilly weather.

A 2019 study co-authored by Ciurej found that black squirrels “may have a slight winter thermal advantage” over red ones, allowing them to conserve energy and gain foraging time in colder months.

Wilson hopes to turn the last decade of student-collected data into a follow-up paper. He expects to find a continued trend of black squirrels expanding in Omaha.

He intends to focus further squirrel studies on how people perceive and interact with the animals. He wonders whether humans give preferential treatment to black squirrels because they view them as special or cute.

A few years ago, Wilson asked students to start recording the color of any dead squirrels they came across during their surveys. That data could help determine whether drivers are more likely to avoid running over black squirrels.

He’s also curious about whether humans are more inclined to feed black squirrels that show up in their neighborhood.

A black squirrel carries a walnut in its mouth while climbing a tree in midtown Omaha. Melanistic fox squirrels, as biologists call them, have expanded their footprint in the city over the last half century. Photo by Jeremy Turley / Flatwater Free Press

Andrew Hubbard admires the black squirrels in his backyard as a fascinating novelty, but he’s an equal-opportunity feeder. 

“I love all our squirrel babies,” he said.

The Millard resident started giving peanuts to the squirrels a dozen years ago. He switched to trail mix when his bushy-tailed congregation grew.

But Hubbard’s “squirrel obsession really ramped up” during the COVID-19 pandemic when he began buying 3-pound bags of walnuts at Costco and “watching them for hours on end at the kitchen window.”

The Union Pacific consultant now gets 5-10 regular diners on his patio every morning. (Wildlife experts generally discourage feeding squirrels and other wild animals. Hubbard said he sometimes worries about his impact on the ecosystem.)

Even though Hubbard feeds squirrels indiscriminately, he thinks Wilson’s question about black squirrel favoritism is valid, noting that hunters might not kill an albino deer because of its rare beauty.

One black squirrel has burrowed deeper into Hubbard’s heart than all the others — but not because of his color.

Seemingly the runt of the litter, he started coming around to eat as a kit in 2021. Hubbard noticed he was missing a foot and named him “KickAss” — a reference to the saying busy as “a one legged man in an ass-kicking contest.”

KickAss never grew to the size of his comrades, and he lost patches of fur twice a year due to some kind of mange or flea infestation, Hubbard suspects. The other squirrels picked on him, often nipping at his tail.

Despite his misfortune, KickAss persevered. But now Hubbard hasn’t seen his friend in a few months. He fears KickAss may have crossed “the squirrel rainbow bridge.”

“He’s just so resilient. It sounds so stupid to say this, but for a squirrel, he’s like so inspiring,” Hubbard said. “I miss him a lot. I keep praying that he’ll come back around.”

By Jeremy Turley

Jeremy Turley covers the Omaha metro area. He worked at newspapers across the Midwest before moving to Nebraska. Most recently, he shivered through several frigid winters in Bismarck, North Dakota, where he covered state government and the COVID-19 pandemic for Forum News Service. He is a graduate of the University of Missouri and a native of suburban Chicago. His hobbies include disc golfing, collecting campaign buttons and using too many em dashes — or so his editors say.

19 Comments

Thanks for the article! I grew up in CB in the 50’s, black squirrels were there but there seemed to be a heavier population in and around Baylis Park in the center of town. I believe that legend told us of a connection to a German man bringing some over when he migrated to the area, now that may be an utter fairy tale but it was fun to think that they came from the Black Forest! Thanks again!

At least 20 years ago I saw a black squirrel heading west on the deck of the Mormon bridge crossing the Missouri rive heading to Omaha. I guess the black squirrel was smart enough to not to try to swim the river to get to Omaha but to use the bridge.

The professor should make a trip 75 miles south of Lincoln, to my hometown of Marysville, Kansas, “The Black Squirrel City”. He will find tons of black squirrels there.

I find the squirrel population fascinating! More so since I moved to Bellevue and have over 60,000 acres of forest in my back yard. I hiked through Fontenelle Forest this week and I noticed several grey squirrels! No reds or blacks, just greys. Could your next research cover the exsistance of these extremely cute creatures? Thank you!

Hi Julie, thanks for your comment! The eastern gray squirrels you saw in Fontenelle Forest are actually a different species than the red and black fox squirrels more commonly found in Omaha. Dr. Wilson told me the gray squirrels in Fontenelle are thought to be the only non-fox squirrels in the metro, so you have more squirrel diversity in your backyard than most!

Coming from NE Nebraska,I was astonished the first time I saw a black squirrel, as we don’t have them up there. I called my husband to the window, and he told me I must be seeing things! Now I know better, and there are lots of them here in Blair.

In the 80’s I saw a black squirrel near Miller Park. My dad told me Miller Park used to be known for black squirrels and there were pictures of the black squirrels on the park’s sign.

Just wondering whether I should bring back a few white squirrels that run around my son’s neighborhood in Minneapolis. That would certainly surprise those squirrel counter people.

Excellent article on Omaha squirrels. I have been feeding the squirrels since the pandemic as well and I live on 196th and Q St.

Before moving to Lincoln this summer, my husband and I lived in Adams, Gage County, Nebraska for the past 20 years. There are red squirrels, black squirrels, and even white squirrels in that small town in southeast Nebraska.

This is great!
I’ve seen the numbers of melanistic squirrels going up as well.
We’ve been feeding them here in Millard for over 10 years and still haven’t seen one. As a nature and wildlife photographer, I see them often at the state parks, Papillion and many at Lake Manawa.
Perhaps someday we’ll get a melanistic one in the yard.
Nice article!

As a University of Nebraska-Lincoln journalism student, I have developed a fascination for squirrels and there behavior. I just wanted to let you know that I really this article. I wonder if Professor Wilson has associated himself with NUTS, the student organization at campus dedicated to the squirrel population here and if he himself has studied the friendliness of the squirrels at campus.

I was at the Henry Doorly Zoo, rated top in the nation, and saw people ignoring the exotic animal exhibits while being fascinated by a black squirrel running around the sidewalk.

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