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European edible dormouse (Glis glis)

Photo by Milo Manica

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Why the future of West Virginia's rare flying squirrel looks bright | MNN

The squirrel — called the Virginia northern flying squirrel or more commonly the West Virginia northern flying squirrel (WVNFS) — was listed as an endangered species in 1985. But restoration efforts have helped the species rebound, and in 2013 the West Virginia northern flying squirrel joined an exclusive group of success stories — species that have been taken off the endangered list.

Since then, restoration work has ramped up. Now a new report assessing the status of the squirrel in its first five years since coming off of the endangered species list indicates there are many reasons to be optimistic.

Survival of the squirrel depends on survival of its habitat — red spruce-northern hardwood forest, which consists of red spruce, fir, beech, yellow birch, sugar or red maple, hemlock and black cherry. It used to be that the iconic, high-elevation red spruce forest blanketed hundreds of thousands of acres of the Central Appalachians. But much of that was destroyed in the late 1800s and early 1900s due to logging and wildfire.

"This habitat is really special," said Barb Douglas, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service senior endangered species biologist. "There's some old-growth left, but a lot of it was cut over at the turn of the 20th century."

"If you go into a really old-growth spruce forest, it's mossy and green and smells good," added Laura Hill, a retired fish and wildlife biologist for the service. "It's surreal. It's quiet, the ground is spongy and soft. It's calming and soothing."

In the decades preceding and following the listing of the West Virginia northern flying squirrel, protection and restoration efforts were successful in bringing the red spruce-northern hardwood forest habitat back to more than 173,000 acres in West Virginia.

And the work didn't stop when the squirrel was taken off the endangered species list in 2013. In the following five years, more than 7,455 acres of West Virginia northern flying squirrel habitat has been created, protected or restored. Additionally, even without formal protections, federal biologists have coordinated with project proponents to keep habitat loss at a negligible level of 285 acres — amounting to 26 times more habitat saved than lost.

As a result, the five-year report finds that the squirrel remains well distributed across all seven core areas and continues to be found at new, expanded and historical sites, with long-term potential for a slowly growing population.