“Some people are bird people, some people are cat people. It’s partly because the common species is woefully understudied-we still know very little about the eastern gray’s behavior, biology, and baseline population.įor instance, before 2012, there was a nearly 30-year gap in the scientific literature about the species’ alarm vocalizations, which help them communicate danger to one another. Who cares how many of the furry-tailed rodents live in Central Park? Organizers of the citizen science and storytelling project spend a lot of time trying to answer this question for skeptics, or as project founder Jamie Allen calls them, “squirrel scrooges.” And the difference between the real number and my guess was 212, New York City’s area code.” “I got a number that was huge and I intuitively halved it.
“I was trying to make an educated guess,” says census logistics chief Sally Parham. Their goal: Count every single squirrel they could see.Īnd tonight, within the hallowed halls of the Explorers Club, project leaders revealed the final tally: An estimated 2,373 squirrels live in Central Park. Last October, more than 300 volunteers fanned out over the famous New York City green space, covering more than 840 acres over 11 days. But the humble eastern gray squirrel is finally getting some time in the spotlight, thanks to the first-ever Central Park Squirrel Census. New York CityThey’ve been called “tree rats,” maligned in pop culture, and otherwise ignored as urban pests.
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