Most people never noticed the flying squirrels in Florida’s woods. Even after hundreds, then thousands, of the small, brown rodents started disappearing, many of their human neighbors didn’t suspect anything was wrong. The squirrels sleep during the day, only emerging from their nests at dusk to glide—not actually fly—from tree to tree, covering up to 160 feet with each leap and executing magnificent loops and turns in pursuit of acorns and hickory nuts. Their chirps, often emitted at frequencies outside the range of human hearing, are easy to miss too.
Yet the flying squirrels were in trouble.
Florida wildlife officials allege that the animals, which number somewhere in the tens of thousands in the state, are being poached from people’s backyards and
