A new booklet entitled Red Squirrels: Naturally Scottish has been published by Scottish Natural Heritage. Written by squirrel expert Peter Lurz, this attractive 50 page booklet is packed with information about their behaviour, ecology and threats to their conservation in Scotland. It is beautifully illustrated and can be downloaded free from SNH Publications.
The 6th International Colloquium on Arboreal Squirrels will be held in Kyoto, Japan during February 2012 (the specific dates are not yet finalised); however, you will be able to keep up-to-date on details as the web page becomes functional at: http://kyoto-squirrel.jp/index.html. To receive email alerts of conference details, please send your name and email contact information to the colloquium office at the following e-mail address: . Please forward this message to potentially interested colleagues and encourage them to register.
The Countryside Council for Wales have released new conservation plans for red squirrels in Wales including: (1) to identify and monitor populations of red squirrels, including surveying all sites with records of red squirrels in the last 10 years, and monitoring focal sites; (2) to prepare and implement red squirrel management plans for focal sites; (3) to establish community groups to support and join in the conservation effort; (4) to establish and maintain a red squirrel database, and (5) to review the need for research – to assess, for example, the potential impact of climate change on red squirrel conservation. Work to turn the conservation plan into action is being led by the Wales Squirrel Forum.
An independently-owned Budgens grocery store in North London has started the sale of grey squirrel meat sourced from the County of Essex. However, this has been criticised by opponents such as VIVA – Vegetarians Voice for Animals – saying that this is a barbaric and needless cull and what gruesome product will be next to grace our food aisles, blackbird, field mouse or mole? Large numbers of the introduced grey squirrel are culled throughout Britain to prevent damage to trees and to help conserve the native red squirrel. The story has appeared in several media outlets: BBC News, ITN, The Independent, Virgin Media, Asylum.
An attractive piebald grey squirrel, with a dark, russet head, silver white back and sides and grey tail was photographed by Dennis Hawker feeding on a bird table in Somerset, England in June 2010 – the photograph has been placed in the Gallery. Apparently, the squirrel has been a regular visitor to the garden during the summer. It would be interesting to know if anyone else has seen unusually coloured squirrels, other than albino and dark or melanic forms.
In July, a man was given a 6 months conditional discharge from Burton-upon-Trent Magistrates’ Court in Staffordshire, Central England and ordered to pay £1,547 to cover investigation and legal fees incurred by the Royal Society for the Protection of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) for killing a grey squirrel. The man had trapped the squirrel in a cage trap and drowned it in a water butt because it kept taking food from his bird table. The RSPCA brought the case under the Animal Weldfare Act 2006 and the man admitted causing unnecessary suffering to a protected animal last December. The landmark ruling is seen by the RSPCA as a test case that could have implications for the control of grey squirrels with respect to other activities such as tree damage prevention and red squirrel conservation. The story has been widely discussed in the media: BBC News UK; Telegraph; Metro; Burton Mail; Burton Mail(2).
Seeing how a grey squirrel escaping ‘death by car’, Natalie Angier recently wrote a piece in the New York Times about the fascination that these animals have for biologists in USA.
Colin Bonnington is carrying out a PhD study at the University of Sheffield on the impacts of grey squirrels on birds in urban areas.
This is the headline of a BBC News article (reported on 16th February 2010) that arises from the Saving Scotland’s Red Squirrels (SSRS) conference held recently in Perth. For example, there are signs of a revival of red squirrels in parts of NE Scotland and it is believed that controlling the grey squirrel intruders is having a positive effect.
A recent study by scientists from the British Trust for Ornithology and Natural England (also see Publications page under Permanent articles) found no evidence that grey squirrels have any significant impact of woodland birds in England. This puts to rest the long held view by some that grey squirrels have been responsible for the marked decline in many woodland bird species in recent years. The scientists used long-term monitoring data for grey squirrels and 38 bird species from across the country and found that, although occasionally grey squirrels may locally suppress populations of some bird species, overall they have little impact on numbers. The story has been published on the BBC ‘Earth News‘ website.