May 17, 2009

“Helping our reds to stand up for themselves”

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22,586 Grey Squirrels trapped since January 2007
(statistic from the RSSP)

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This is a screen shot of the Northern Red Squirrels home page –  a volunteer protection group:

http://www.northernredsquirrels.org.uk./
http://www.northernredsquirrels.org.uk./

A link from their web site led me to an article in the Telegraph from April 2009, in which the Prince of Wales is quoted as follows:

The Prince will speak of his sadness at the decline of the “most utterly charming and irresistible of British native mammals” – the red squirrel – because of the spread of greys from North America.. He added: “I am incredibly fortunate to see red squirrels whenever I am in Scotland and I cannot bear the thought that one day they might disappear forever, driven out by the relentless march of the greys.” …”Our red squirrels are facing a battle for survival. It seems almost incomprehensible to me that we have allowed this situation to happen. The far bigger grey squirrels, which were only introduced into this country one hundred and thirty years ago are outcompeting the reds in every way, let alone infecting them with the appalling squirrel pox, to which they are immune, but to which the reds are particularly prone and die a lingering and agonising death.”