Red Squirrels

 We woke up to a snow covered landscape this morning. The temperature is just above freezing and so I expect that when this lot melts into already waterlogged fields we can expect some flooding. When I looked out of the window and saw squirrel footprints in the snow I thought this this would be a good day to post about our red squirrels.

There are two sorts of squirrel in the UK. The indigenous red squirrel and the North American Grey squirrel that was introduced during Victorian times 1876 is often quoted as a key date for introduction.

The problem has been that the grey squirrels carry a virus causing a pox which they are tolerant of but which proves fatal to any red squirrels that come into contact with it. The result of this is that over the last century the red populations have decreased at the expense of the greys. With the exception of a few outposts the reds are now restricted to Scotland and a few pockets in England.

The most recent figures suggest a population of 140,000 reds for the UK as opposed to 2.5 million grey.

Where we live we are on the interface of the red / grey battle.There are grey squirrels quite close by and in 2009 we had a family of grey in the garden which I was obliged to shoot to protect the red population.

There is a local charity to protect the red squirrels and they employ a ranger to trap and kill the greys. Were it not for this intervention the red population would be wiped out within a few years.

Some recent research in Ireland has suggested that when pine Martens are introduced to an area this allows the red population to flourish. Apparently reds have evolved to cope with the pine marten threat but greys have not. Perhaps this is the long term hope for reds.

We see red squirrels I the garden multiple times a day. We feed them at a couple of feeding stations. The most we have seen at once is 5 and they are clearly breeding nearby.

Sadly squirrels appear to have the least road sense of any mammal and they all but throw themselves under the wheels of cars. We have erected warning signs to motorists but will find dead squirrels on the road by the house most years.