A squirrel makes its way down a tree in Old West Lawrence recently while holding tightly to an Asian pear. Because of a shortage of acorns from red oak trees, squirrels will need to find alternative food sources this winter.

In the story of Chicken Little, it was a dropping acorn that sparked the anxiety-ridden fowl to worry the sky was falling.

But this fall, it’s been the lack of dropping acorns that has caused some people in Kansas and across the country to scratch their heads and wonder whether there is something to worry about.

Ward Upham, an associate with Kansas State Research and Extension, said he has received phone calls from across the state about the small to nonexistent crop of acorns this year from red oak trees. The same is true for Jim Pitman, small game coordinator for the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks.

At a conference this fall, Dan Dey, a research forester for the U.S. Forest Service, said people from across the Midwest as well as Arkansas and Tennessee all noticed a lack of acorns in red oak trees.

An online discussion thread on Topix.com titled “No acorns this year” had posters reporting “no acorns here” from New York to Kansas City.

And recently, The Washington Post wrote about the phenomenon, noting that a lack of acorns had caused squirrels to go crazy in the Washington, D.C., area.

Just one year

Horticulturists, foresters and biologists in the Midwest said the lack of acorns should do little, if any, damage to wildlife or trees in Kansas.

They said the barren red oak trees this fall are among the lingering effects of a hard freeze that occurred on Easter 2007, in early April. It takes two years for the red oaks’ acorns to mature.

In the woods of eastern Kansas, there is a mix of red and white oaks. The red oak variety is also prevalent along the well-shaded sidewalks of Lawrence’s older neighborhoods.

During summer 2007, regulars at regional farmers’ markets were mourning the loss of fresh fruit at the hands of the spring freeze. It was the same cold snap that nearly annihilated the flowers of red oak trees, which would have produced acorns this year.

Dey, who is based in Columbia, Mo., said that acorn crops tend to vary from year to year and that one low year shouldn’t hurt reproduction efforts.

“That is a process that takes years and decades to play itself out. So a failure in acorn production one year is not going to cause major problems in the region,” he said.

Squirrel food

As for the major consumers of acorns — squirrels — their population shouldn’t be hard hit, either, Pitman said.

They will still be able to gather food from hickory trees and white oaks, which have acorns that grow in one-year cycles and had a strong yield this year.

“That’s why it’s important to have a good diversity of both kinds,” Pitman said.

Even in urban areas, where older neighborhoods tend to favor red oaks over white oaks, Pitman said that squirrels will be able to find food.

Ken Armitage, a professor emeritus of ecology and evolutionary biology at Kansas University, said squirrels are thriving near his home in Old West Lawrence.

“They are doing much better than I would like them to,” he said

If the squirrels did have a food shortage, it probably wouldn’t become evident until later in winter, according to Armitage. And even then, if a squirrel that had taken up permanent residence in someone’s yard died, another would quickly move in.

As research from some of Armitage’s former graduate students shows, squirrels will travel miles around Lawrence.

“I think there would have to be a drastic drop in many kinds of food supply to have a really marked effect on the population,” Armitage said.