Vol. 16, No. 10 
Page 2 
(b) A similar, although less difficult, problem is that of making and 
keeping contact with the various governmental units involved. 
(c) The seedings of graded roadsides in Ford County in September 1972 
demonstrated the logistical problems of moving men and equipment over a large area. 
(d) Seeded roadsides scattered throughout a county greatly increase the 
cost and effort involved in placing and maintaining signs to inform the public why 
the roadsides remain unmowed. 
(e) Contacts with cooperating farmers to encourage adherence to delayed 
mowing agreements are made more difficult with widely spread seedings. 
(f) The impact of scattered seedings on pheasant abundance would be less 
apparent than where most or all roadsides in an area were seeded. 
Ecology and Management of Squirrels 
C. M. Nixon, 
S. P. Havera 
In recent years, gray squirrel habitat has been declining in northern Illinois. 
Correlation analysis was used to determine the relationship of the percentage of 
gray squirrels in the total squirrel harvest to selected timber indices. The pro¬ 
portion of gray squirrels in the squirrel harvest for each county in the combined 
hunting seasons of 1956-57 and 1971-72 were compared with timber statistics for 
1962 and 1967* The highest correlations with the gray squirrel harvest were with 
the percentage of total county area forested in 1962. These correlation values 
were r = +0.82 (P< 0.001) for the 1956-57 seasons and r - + 0.78 (P<0.001) for the 
1971-72 seasons (N = 102). The percentage of grays in the squirrel harvests for 
both 1956-57 and 1971-72 was negatively correlated (P<0.01) with the percentage 
of county forest grazed (N = 102) and positively correlated (£<-0.01) with the 
number of thousand board feet of hardwood sawtimber per county (N = 75)* 
Multiple regression equations comparing the percentage of gray squirrels in the 
total 1956-57 harvest (Y) with the percentage of county area in timber during 1962 
(Xi) and the percentage of county timber grazed in 1 967 (X 2 ) were formed. The 
multiple regression equation for the percentage of grays in the total county 
squirrel harvest in 1956-57 is Y = 9*39 + 1.4lXj - 0.113Xo‘ This equation is 
significant (£<0.001), has a multiple correlation of +0.83; and accounts for 68 
percent of the variance in the gray squirrel harvest. The multiple regression 
equation for the percentage of gray squirrels in the 1971-72 squirrel harvest on 
a county basis is Y = 15.9 + 14.4X, - 0 . 174 x 2 * Th ' s equation is also significant 
(£<0.001), has a multiple correlation of +0 79; and accounts for 63 percent of the 
variance in the gray squirrel harvest. 
It appears that gray squirrels exist in counties that have a high percentage 
of forest that is relatively undisturbed by livestock grazing or human influences. 
Reduction of timber acreages or the "opening up" of woods will cause the gray 
^ squirrel population to decline and the fox squirrel population to increase. 
