I’m not sorry that the squirrel-human gyre keeps widening.
There was apparently a time, not long ago, that the Squirrel Clubs of the Scottish Highlands had their sites on the Reds.
This week the BBC published in a historical report, ‘Send Me Tails of Red Squirrels’ that
…from 1903, there was an active effort on estates across the Highlands to trap, shoot and kill reds.
By 1946, the Highland Squirrel Club had killed 102,900 squirrels and paid out £1,504 in bounties.
Tails were submitted as proof of kills.
There are several ironies in the story of the club, which was formed in 1903.
Reds were extinct, or on the brink of extinction, in the Highlands by the 1800s because of a loss of woodland habitat.
In 1844, Lady Lovat of Beaufort Estate near Beauly, succeeded in getting the government to re-introduce the squirrels to the Highlands.
Ian Collier, of the Highland Red Squirrel Group – a modern day organisation set up to protect reds – believed the creatures were seen by some owners of “big houses” as a “fashion accessory” to add to their landscaped gardens.
Mr Collier said: “What is ironic is that many of the red squirrels were re-introduced from England, now among the worst-hit areas for squirrel pox, which kills reds.
“Other reds were introduced from populations in Sweden.”