The western gray squirrel was first described by George Ord in 1818 based on notes taken by Lewis and Clark at The Dalles in Wasco County, Oregon.
The bad news is that in a forty-house area around my home, I am dinner central: fruit, then tomatoes then sunflowers. I have a lawn and about 50 pots perfect for squirrels to dig up bulbs and plant peanuts and apricot seeds. I look out the kitchen window at a squirrel picking a ripe apricot, carrying it to the wall, enjoying the best half of it, then coming back for another apricot. The squirrels use the stucco fences as their highway. They bark at our cats.
The good news is traffic is heavy and squirrels do not play frogger very well. The population is usually limited to a single family.