Subject: squirrels/expanding range
Date: Sep 09 12:35:00 1997
From: "John Shelton - ext. 4051" - johns at ohsu.EDU



Kelly Cassidy wrote:

>The Eastern Gray is, thus far, always associated with people in Washington,
and the
>Scrub-Jay is traveling north along developed corridors as well.
_________
So it may be that the Eastern Gray Squirrel and the California Jay are
filling an unoccupied niche in the ecosystem. Killing or trapping some
non-native species could simply have the effect of removing these creatures
from the environment since the native species are unable/unwilling to occupy
that niche there may be no benefit to native species at all.

Is this a naive assumption?

John Shelton
Portland, Oregon