Are there skunks on nantucket

Eastern coyotes evolved from their smaller Western counterparts, moving across the continent and cross-breeding with wolves along the way. Ben David said there is no chance that the wild coyote was brought to the Island by a human. Whitetail deer are abundant on Cape Cod. On Cape Cod, the deer population is roughly 6 to 8 deer per square mile and in some parts of the Cape, its more like 8 to 12 deer per square mile.

Most of the local whitetail deer live in areas where hunting is not allowed. What they eat: Acorns, bulbs, tree shoots, buds, fungi, nuts and roots. Gray, fox, and red squirrels sleep in their nest, which is called a drey. It is composed of twigs and sticks and then lined with moss, strips of bark, grass, and leaves.

The nest is usually built in the fork of a tall tree but can also be constructed in the attic of a house or in the outside walls of a home. Both islands, of course, are summer paradises of great natural beauty. They are also very expensive, very exclusive, and very preppy. Nantucket, the broad-brush argument goes, is just more extreme in all categories.

A small island with 82 miles of impeccable shoreline, Nantucket boasts a wide variety of gorgeous beaches. Nantucket Sound lies between our island and the mainland, while all our other shores are bordered by the Atlantic. How many people live on Nantucket?

The island has a year round population of around 11, In July and August the population swells to around 50, or more. There has been one confirmed wolf sighting in the state since the s, Ms.

It proved to be a wolf that likely wandered down to Massachusetts from Canada. The Eastern coyotes also may not be coyotes, but a hybrid of three types of canid subspecies. It was mounted and displayed on the pharmacy on Main St. The other species that do call Nantucket home have evolved and thrived in the absence of these predators.

A new predator could have devastating effects on a system that has developed in the absence of large mammalian predators. Raccoons feed on ground-nesting birds, eggs, amphibians, and fish.

They eat acorns, various fruits, and can develop a preferential diet when food is plentiful. As many of us know, they have become accustomed to humans in many areas and can become a trash nuisance. Nantucket has multiple species of ground-nesting birds that thrive on the island in the absence of mammalian predators other than rats and feral cats. Piping plovers, terns, and oystercatchers are just a few of the shorebirds that have been prey for raccoons on the mainland. Our sandplain grasslands host northern harriers, American woodcock, eastern towhees, and eastern meadowlarks; all ground-nesters which could be prey for hungry raccoons.

One raccoon may not seem like too much for an island devoid of predators, but just one hungry raccoon with a preference for bird eggs could have a devastating effect on any of the aforementioned species.

Fortunately, this lone raccoon was likely a male and not likely to have any tag-alongs. Zeveloff, dispersal of raccoons tends to be driven by young males looking for their own territories. The three main categories of squirrels are tree Sciurus and Tamiasciurus , ground Spermophilus and mmospermphilus , and flying squirrels Glaucomys.

Gray squirrels belong to the order Rodentia and the Family Sciuridae which includes tree Squirrels and Marmots, chipmunks, and woodchucks neither of the last two currently are found on Nantucket. Nantucket is unique in that it no longer has many species of small and medium sized mammals such as skunks, opossums, porcupines, raccoons, foxes, coyotes, and many of the other types of squirrels like red squirrels and southern flying squirrels that can be found throughout Massachusetts.

This name alludes to the squirrel sitting in the shadow of its tail. The species name, carolinensis , refers, of course, to the Carolinas, where the species was first recorded and where the animal is still extremely common.

The eastern gray squirrel inhabits the forests of eastern North America, extending westward from the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Plains and eastern Texas and south from southern Canada to the Gulf Coast.

Its distribution is closely correlated with the distribution of the eastern hardwood trees, especially oak, hickory, and chestnut. Sciurus carolinensis is a medium sized tree squirrel with no sexual dimorphism in size or coloration. The coat ranges from grizzled dark to pale gray and may have cinnamon or reddish tones. The ears are pale gray to white and its tail is white to pale gray.

Their fur underneath is gray to buff colored. Eastern gray squirrels exhibit melanism, the opposite of albinism, which is very dark skin pigmentation common to squirrels found in the northern portions of the range in Canada. Albinism is rare in all areas. Of course, everyone recognizes squirrels by their large bushy tails. The head and body length is from 23 to 30 centimeters 9. Breeding occurs in December-February and May-June and is slightly delayed in more northern latitudes.

Gestation lasts 44 days. Most females begin their reproductive life at 1. Females may bear young twice a year for more than 8 years. Males usually are sexually mature by 11 months but maturity can be delayed by as much as two years if the young males are housed with a dominant adult male that may be true for many species.

The first litter is born in February to March, the second in June to July. There are normally two to six young in each litter, but this number can be as high as 8. Eastern gray squirrels are born naked with their eyes closed. From spring to fall, Eastern gray squirrels are crepuscular I love that word, so creepy , or more active during the early and late hours of the day, and they tend to avoid the heat in the middle of a summer day.

This habit changes in the winter when they become unimodally diurnal, or awake and raring to go only once a day versus crepuscular, with a peak in activity just hours before sunset.