WHAT THE EVIDENCE SAYS
Brushett and coauthors used 430 camera traps across ten western Canadian boreal landscape units. Squirrel occurrence was positively associated with cumulative footprint in one component of their model, but decreased with edge density, especially where industrial disturbance was greatest.
WHY IT MATTERS / OUR READ
A hectare-offset approach misses the configuration created by seismic lines, roads and cutblocks. The same total footprint can produce very different predator access and fragmentation contexts.
CAVEATS / UNCERTAINTY
These are associations for red squirrels, not a universal response by all boreal wildlife; inferred predation mechanism was not experimentally tested.
SOURCE
Journal of Applied Ecology — Brushett et al. (23 Oct 2026)
View original evidence ↗