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This book attempts to move the family of squirrels (Sciuridae) out of the shadow of large charismatic mammals and to highlight management failures with the goal of moving towards an improved conservation approach. Particular attention is paid to the influence of taxonomic science on squirrel conservation. In addition, the authors show how human-driven climate change, global change and modern politics are shaping global squirrel populations as well as their surrounding environments and ecosystems.
Squirrels are widespread around the globe, naturally occurring on every continent except Antarctica and Oceania, and they are certainly among the animals most commonly encountered in everyday life. Despite this, the authors of this volume identify worrying gaps in squirrel conservation. Squirrels are often hunted, trapped, poached, and stressed, and management strategies and legislation are often devised in the absence of proper knowledge of issues such as population sizes, taxonomies, and trends. Together, this can result in severe population declines and even species extinction. By assessing their taxonomic situation, ecology, the evolution and divergence of Sciuridae around the globe, and squirrels' well-being across habitats, the authors set a baseline from which to launch future investigations into the conservation of squirrels and other species. Additionally, the authors highlight the influences of climate change, unsustainable growth, and various man-made threats to the future of this family.
Moriz Steiner is a graduate student and former teaching assistant for behavioural ecology at Wageningen University and Research (Netherlands) in the field of Animal Science. He has conducted several research internships in Institutions such as the Max-Planck-Institute (MPI) for plant breeding research (Germany), MPI for Dynamics of Complex Technical Systems (Germany), Alfred-Wegener Institute (AWI) for Polar and Marine Research (Germany), Fondazione Edmund Mach (Forest Ecology and biogeochemical cycles – Italy) and EWHALE lab (Institute of Alaska Fairbanks UAF -Institute of Arctic Biology). Additional 9 months of remote work on an alpine farm have passioned Moriz to work towards a more sustainable future living and to conserve nature. His most recently published squirrel taxonomy papers have stimulated him to conduct further research in this field. The author shows a strong personal interest in Ecology and Conservation Management in the Polar Regions as well as the use of modern software technology for an increased conservation success of nature to preserve it for future generations.
Falk Huettmann is a digital naturalist and works worldwide on all continents, land, sea, and atmosphere. His work is published in over 250 international peer-reviewed publications, including 7 books, and with high impact. His research covers modern issues of Open Access data sharing, Open Source Software, "the cloud", AI/Machine Learning, and how better governance can achieve global sustainability. Falk is employed as a wildlife ecologist with the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) where he and his students run the -EWHALE lab- (Ecological Wildlife and Habitat Analysis of the Land- and seascapE). His work was featured in public radio, with TEDx, and invited to sessions and workshops throughout universities and conferences around the entire world. Falk has worked on small mammal data, landscape ecology, and climate change scenarios for over a decade.
