Squirrels are one of the most animated and assured kinds of wildlife visitors will encounter here at California Botanic Garden. These fluffy, scruffy and nutty denizens love our California native plants. There are actually three species that reside here - the western gray squirrel, ground squirrel and eastern fox squirrel. Of the three, the fox squirrel is invasive, a species that was brought to Southern California by human means. Its presence here brings up questions about the future of our western gray squirrels in the garden, as fox squirrels have been displacing and extricating our native tree squirrel here in the LA basin.

On this episode, we talk with squirrel expert and Professor Emeritus of Biological Sciences of Cal State LA, Alan Muchlinski. Alan has been researching the impacts of fox squirrels on our native western gray squirrels for decades and has spent the past 11 years studying the populations of these two squirrel species at the Garden. He has discovered some interesting relationships and surprising correlations about our resident squirrels. Tune in to hear more about this epic saga of the most squirrelly nature.