Cubans amazed by the increase in the population of red squirrels in El Vedado

The sighting of red squirrels has become increasingly common in the Havana neighborhood of El Vedado and some note that as people leave the island the animals are populating it.

“Cubans are leaving the island and animals are populating it. “In Vedado there are parrots and squirrels like never before, but there are also many dogs and cats,”said user Candido Luis González-Posada Carmona, in the Facebook group El Vedado de Hoy.

González-Posada Carmona shared a video originally broadcast by user Mileydy Marchan, which shows a red squirrel on Calle C and Línea, El Vedado.

Other users claim to have seen these squirrels in other areas of the city such as Los Jardines de la Tropical, Almendares park or the surroundings of theZoo 26.

It is not the first sighting of this invasive species in the Cuban capital. In 2023, images of several red squirrels in a tree in El Vedado caused sensation and disbelief on the networks.

According to a 2011 investigation by the Cuban Society of Zoology and the government of Finland, cited by Cuballama, the populations of red squirrels seen in Havana are descendants of litters that managed to escape from theNational Zoological Garden.

Red squirrels (Sciurus granatensis) are classified as invasive or introduced mammals. They arrived in Cuba during the 1950s, coming from northern South America, and many settled on the banks of the Almendares River.

“They are invasive,” the specialist Seriocha Amaro, from the Institute of Ecology and Systematics of Cuba, clarified on the networks at that time. "For more than 50 years they have been occupying spaces in the capital, they were brought from Venezuela, but unfortunately they escaped."