Photo: Humboldt’s Flying Squirrel, Burke Museum

Most winter mornings in Salida, Colorado, as the sun rises the snowy mountaintops turn scarlet-pink. As I look at them, everything turns quiet. I feel the tension in my face ease. I feel less distance between me and the mountains, along with the plants and animals, and all the things in between. David Hinton, in Wild Mind, Wild Earth, describes how we are kindred with “animals and rivers-and-mountain landscapes” and that they are not just “our equals but indeed as our sage teachers. To harm or kill them is therefore to kill our most profound teachers.” 

Easily distracted by my own thoughts, I think of old-growth redwood forest and all life in it. So much life that we’ve barely tapped the surface of all the knowledge within. 

I imagine the nocturnal Humboldt’s Flying Squirrels are hunting for truffles with their noses, catching the truffle’s scent and digging for treasure underneath the soil. The truffles emit volatile chemicals that produce a distinct smell which attracts animals like these squirrels, as well as dogs and humans. Searching online I found “fresh 100% dog-found truffles” for around $800 per pound. Because truffles grow under the soil, they can’t count on wind to disperse their reproductive spores like fungus that flower aboveground. The strong smell of truffles is enhanced by the millions of bacteria they house. When the truffle’s spores multiply, the scent increases. The squirrels disperse the truffle spores through their droppings, or if they meet their end by being prey to a Northern Spotted Owl, the spores are dispersed through the owl’s pellets. While flying squirrels will eat tree sap, other fungi, insects, carrion, bird eggs and nestlings, they much prefer truffles, which make about 80% of their diet. 

Truffle mycelium, the threads that grow underground, can decipher between other organisms by their distinctive chemical profiles. They connect with other mycelium to reproduce, and with other plants and trees to share nutrients that neither can obtain alone. Mycelium is constantly changing based on the information it gets as it grows. Connections between fungus and plants change as root tips and fungal hyphae die. Some fungus are detrimental while others will help each other thrive. With all the other chemicals emitted by soils, roots, animals, and fungus, science doesn’t have all the answers as to how the mycelium finds the right partner for procreation or another for food. Maybe “intelligence” isn’t the right word, because mycelium doesn’t have a brain, but whatever it is, it is making choices.

As day breaks, the flying squirrels head back to their nests high up in the large, old redwoods’ hollows and cavities. Many nest in the dead standing trees. Their nests might contain arboreal lichens, a symbiotic organism made of algae and fungus.  

Squirrels, like voles and other rodents, often communicate through high pitch frequencies—above the 20 kHz, the upper limit of the average human ear—and because higher pitches don’t travel far because they are dispersed by objects like leaves and trees. The sound doesn’t need to travel far, because the squirrels are sharing important information with each other and hoping not to disclose their location to predators. Logging, heavy equipment, and other human activity easily drowns out these noises, disrupting their ability to communicate and survive.

The Northern Spotted Owl, also nocturnal, hunts by listening and watching. The ear openings of spotted owls aren’t symmetrically positioned, which helps them triangulate sounds to find their meals. Both the flying squirrels and owls have large eyes, helping them capture and use the scarce light. When the owl sees a flying squirrel, bird, reptile, or invertebrate it silently swoops, gliding through the dense forest, without flapping its wings. Its wingspan is almost 4 feet. Its feathers are designed for quiet, not interfering with sounds its ears receive. The owl grabs its prey with its talons, holding it against a branch as it tears its meal.

The Northern Spotted owl is monogamous and mates for life. The two will nest in a hole, usually in a dead tree. The female, the larger of the pair, will lay eggs in the spring and the males will bring its family food.

In 1990, as a result of the earlier over-logging of old growth forests, the Northern Spotted Owl, along with other animals dependent on these habitats, became endangered. Their habitat is now federally protected, putting timber companies, loggers, and environmentalists at odds. Many loggers blame the Northern Spotted Owl itself for thousands of lost jobs since the 90’s, but the Timber Wars involved Wall Street and Savings and Loans, and the desire for cash meant too much logging too fast which endangered the old growth forest, going against what generational loggers felt was right. Some logging companies were cutting sustainably, but many were clear cutting to make stockholders and executives rich.

Barred Owls have moved into the old growth forests, too, and because they are more aggressive and less picky about their diet, they are driving Northern Spotted Owls out. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife service, in 2024, initiated a plan to kill 15,000 Barred Owls a year in the Pacific Northwest to keep the invasion in check and save the Northern Spotted Owl. 

Killing so many owls is awful and it is simplifying the problem to say humans are the only one at fault, but if we hadn’t removed so much old growth forest there would have been a better balance and maybe the owl issue would have been different. What is encouraging is to see the human perspective shifting from viewing the forest as a resource-to-be-managed to embracing our role as its partners. I think we can go even further by recognizing ourselves as an integral part of the forest and respecting the lives and rightful place of other species. If we see owls, squirrels, and truffles not merely as equals but as kin, we open ourselves to learning more from them.

Before May 19 is the time to speak for the Northern Spotted Owl, humpback whales, and other important animals. Federal officials have proposed altering the ESA’s long-understood definition of the word “harm” to no longer include habitat destruction. 

Please speak up in defense of the ESA now and submit your public comment. 

References

Cal Poly Humboldt. 2017. “New Flying Squirrel Species Discovered along North America’s Pacific Coast” Humboldt Now. https://now.humboldt.edu/news/new-flying-squirrel-species-discovered-along-north-americas-pacific-coast

Childs, C. 1997. The Animal Dialogues: Uncommon Encounters in the Wild. Little Brown and Co.

Hinton, D. 2022. Wild Mind, Wild Earth: Our Place in the Sixth Extinction. Shambhala Publications.

National Wildlife Federation. 2025. “Northern Spotted Owl.” https://www.nwf.org/Educational-Resources/Wildlife-Guide/Birds/Northern-Spotted-Owl

Robbin, J. 2024. “Grim Dilemma: Should We Kill One Owl Species to Save Another?” Yale School of Environment. https://e360.yale.edu/features/barred-owls-spotted-owls-hunting

Sheldrake, Merlin. 2020. Entangled Life. Random House.

Save the Redwoods League. “Why do flying squirrels need this fungus and this owl?” https://www.facebook.com/RedwoodsRising/videos/447809649580957

Thompson, J. 2006 “Rocky to Bullwinkle: Understanding Flying Squirrels Helps us Restore Dry Forest Ecosystems.” https://www.fs.usda.gov/pnw/sciencef/scifi80.pdf

Yong, E. 2023 An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Inner Realms Around Us. Random House.