Sustainable Squirrel Conservation

Moriz Steiner is a graduate student and former teaching assistant for behavioral 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 ofmodern 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 adecade.

• Part 1: Introduction to squirrels of the world and their conservation trends. Chapter 1: The World’s Squirrel Taxonomy.- Chapter 2: Evolution, habitat trends, and extinction rate estimates of the world squirrels.- Part 2: Squirrels of the world in the Anthropocene. Chapter 3: Habitat Trends and the Squirrel-Human Interface.- Chapter 4: A Meta-analysis based on Open Access Big Data Mining of Global Predicted Squirrel Distribution Models with Machine Learning for IUCN Conservation Status and Trend Policy Assessments.- Chapter 5: Squirrels in Cities.- Chapter : Squirrels in the Tropics.- Chapter 7: Squirrels on Islands.- Chapter 8: Tree squirrels in old-growth forests?.- Chapter 9: Can squirrels be used as indicators to identify and protect old-growth forest reserves?.- Chapter 10: Squirrel Economics.- Part 3: Problems and governance in the squirrel world. Chapter 11: Squirrel Hunting Regulations and Enforcement (Or Lack Thereof).- Chapter12: Where do the World’s Squirrel Hotspots and Coldspots of 230+ species go with Climate change 2100?.- Chapter 13: Squirrel’s marginalization and modern lack of conservation and poor sustainability outlook as a call to good action.- Part 4: First conclusions and the way forward. Chapter 14: A Conservation Management SWOT analysis for over 300 Squirrels of the World using 132 GIS layers confirming the PESTLE assessment.- Chapter 15: First Conclusions, Success stories, and Calls-to-action for the conservation of the world’s squirrels.