UPDATE: Reviews section refreshed, redesigned, searchable: Go take a look
For your consideration. Native Red squirrels are having a tough time, not least because of the squirrel pox virus which the invasive Grey carries but is largely immune to. The Senedd in Wales agreed to conduct a feasibility study into vaccination against the virus, a couple of years ago but have dragged their heels. This petition has the required number of signatures to ensure it gets debated again, to perhaps give them a kick up the backside to actually do something about it. A few more would be very welcome. You don't have to be in Wales to sign it. The deadline is in a few days. Ta muchly 🙂
I've got two red squirrels in the kitchen. Not that it is helping the cause as they are over 100 years old, but still nice though.
Didn't see any while were on hollibobs in Shanklin, despite visiting Shanklin Chine and Red Squirrel Way. 😥
Saw one in the lake district a couple of weeks ago - it stayed around for ages burying / eating nuts
Signed, no problem. 12503 now. Sadly, I think the Cannock Chase population is long gone 30 years ago, and I never saw one there when they were around
|I read the other day that they're employing Pine Martins in the FOD to cull the grey population to give space for the reds. Apparently the greys aren't scared of them and are too heavy to get away on to the smaller branches needed to escape them.
Will sign later when home.
Poor old, much maligned greys. 150 years over here, and still treated like vermin.
|I read the other day that they're employing Pine Martins in the FOD to cull the grey population to give space for the reds. Apparently the greys aren't scared of them and are too heavy to get away on to the smaller branches needed to escape them.
The Vincent Wildlife Trust was the driving force for this. Reds have coexisted with Pine Martens for millennia throughout their range and are instinctively wary of their potential presence, even though they've been thin on the ground recently. Greys have no "corporate memory" of them, so haven't developed the fear, or strategies to evade them. Plus, as you point out, they are cholesterolly challenged salad dodgers and slower and less nimble than Reds. Greys get massively thinned out and Reds start to thrive where Martens are present.
Pine Martens have recently spread across the border from Wales into Shropshire where I live. They are also gradually making inroads into other parts of the country they've been absent from. This is great news for Reds. I've yet to see one locally, but I did see my first ever live Pine Marten a fortnight ago in Italy, where it ran in front of my motorcycle on a twisty road through the woods. Bigger than I thought! I was chuffed to see it.
Pine Martens have recently spread across the border from Wales into Shropshire where I live. They are also gradually making inroads into other parts of the country they've been absent from.
They’re apparently in parts of Wiltshire as well. The ancient forests around Chippenham lost their forest status in 1635 when Charles I stripped them of their status and handed them over to a ‘favourite’, at which point the felling began. John Aubrey, the great writer, naturalist and scientist wrote about the loss of both the pine marten and the Great Bustard during his lifetime; he was born near Chippenham in 1626 and witnessed the destruction and wrote about it, so it’s only right that both creatures should return to the county after 400 years.
There’s plenty of Grey’s around my archery club, a pine marten would be kept busy for a while, and we’re not far from where the old Pewsham Forest was, it stretched across to Melksham, which still has an area called Melksham Forest, and 1000 years ago they were King Alfred’s hunting grounds.
